Innholdsfortegnelse for issue 18 i Lampoon Magazine International

Time is an issue that cannot be surmounted. Rocks have to be broken; it takes time. A castle has to be built; it takes eight years. For as much as we talk about craft — making and re-making, constructing and fine-tuning the details — time is still an element, just like wood, lime, iron, and stone. Time allows for discipline and the dance of the hours seeks a greuling narrative. Argentaia is the title of a cerebral choreography that controls the work of the hands, the strength of the legs, and the skill of words. Italy, a land of resilience and of water — a pure water that slides down the Alps, through the pine trees and white marble, collecting in rivers and flowing through cities, taps, and construction sites,…

On until November 16, Jacob Hashimoto’s solo show, The Heartbeat of Irreducible Curves: Part II, unfolds at Studio la Città in Verona. Works of colored kites, paper creations, and a suspended installation adapt to the gallery space with a shape and a combination of elements in resin — the same art piece found at the Venice Biennale in a larger scale. Clockwise from the top: All Looped Around in this Finite Forest of Past Future’s History; The Dynamite Factory; The Lightning Maze; Underneath the Garden of All Adoration. All art works released in 2019…

For me, manhood began the afternoon Dr. C paid her visit, and being a man requires listening to the voices of women, especially when they are telling me what I may not want to hear. This matters now more than ever, when so many women’s previously hidden hurts have come to light and when my country is being led by a narcissist who boasts about his ability to impose his will on their bodies. Steve Yarbrough Writing, Literature and Publishing Professor at Emerson College, Boston. Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction for The Unmade World in 2019…

You are in a taxi and you see it for the first time on a billboard near the airport, or in an advert at the cinema before the film starts. You see an actress wearing it, in a magazine you don’t find particularly interesting, while you are waiting to board and again a week later in the waiting room at the opticians - nothing to it really so far; sure, you have noticed it, but you haven’t really taken it in – even though the letters forming the word now have a ring to them. You see it in a newspaper you bought at the kiosk because it’s a paper you respect and you are almost in awe of – now it raises an eyebrow. You start noticing it on…

In his debut collection for Celine, Hedi Slimane re-elaborated the work he did for Saint Laurent and Dior Homme. He shapes his idea, whether it be produced for Dior, Saint Laurent or Celine, leaving little room to the identifying cues of each brand. Might this be the difference between a designer and a creative director? Anja Arankowsky Cronberg, who edits the magazine Vestoj, talks about staged authenticity in order to define an authenticity that, first, takes context and social dynamics into account, meaning that one can analyze the difference between one type of creativity that re-elaborates codes and contexts ,and a creativity that disrupts any acknowledged reality. In 1955, Saint Laurent is Christian Dior assistant, and works on the dress Dovima wore in the famed photograph by Avedon, where she…

As a young boy, Antonio Marras confesses at the end of our interview, he dreamed of being a dancer. It was then that I understood why he never sits still. “I have a childhood memory: When I got home from school, there was a show on TV called Maratona d’estate (Summer Marathon). Vittoria Ottolenghi, the dance critic, journalist, and writer, would show performance clips and comment on them. That’s where I saw Nureyev for the first time, and then Lindsay Kemp and Pina Bausch’s ‘Café Müller.’ That was where I understood that there was another dimension, another room.” When I open the door, I find him in front of me, seated at a wooden table among trees, plants and garden gnomes. He is scribbling something on a page that has…

Mia Moretti meets Aubrie Costello in Philadelphia, at a group show on gun violence. She studies and understands the messages Aubrie is sending through her installations. The artist is referring to a progressive political attitude, posing aesthetic research as an ethical question. Mia Moretti commissions Aubrie Costello for a work in two parts — one to keep and one to be given away. Shortly after, the tables are turned: Aubrie contacts Mia to set movement to her installations. Aubrie Costello weaves visual poems: words written on silk, on pieces of cloth. Mia Moretti identifies them as flags to be displayed in public spaces. Mia mentions Marina Tsvetaeva, a Russian poet from the early Twentieth century, who does not write elegies for romantic love. Hers is a sensibility based in the…

Long ago, Herodotus set out to tell the story of the Greco-Persian wars by asking questions as an investigator of yesteryear. In ancient Greece, actors worked with the best-known headlines, surrounded by the steps of the theatre. Perhaps that was the birth of reportage: a branch of the art of storytelling that attempts to grasp History with a capital H. The Visioni dal mondo/Immagini dalla realtà festival, from September 12 to 15 at two Milan locations - the Litta Theatre and the National Museum of Science and Technology - presents the documentary as the best tool for the conjecture of truth as story – still in search of that capital letter. The participating directors are a cross between detectives and storytellers. The festival, in its fifth edition, centers around the…

Born in Barcelona in 1977, Daniel Steegmann Mangrané currently lives and works in Rio de Janeiro. His artistic approach explores the relationship between culture and nature, reflecting on the interplay of elements around us while incorporating the natural world and examining ecological systems. Elements from the Brazilian rainforest — branches, leaves, and insects — as well as geometric shapes and abstract patterns can be found throughout the artist's ouevre. In his first Italian exhibiton, A Leaf-Shaped Animal Draws The Hand, pieces from 1998 to today (films, virtual reality settings, 2D holograms, sculptures and installations) are showcased at the Hangar Bicocca with curation by Lucia Aspesi and Fiammetta Griccioli. Clockwise from the top: Daniel Steegmann Mangrané, 2014, view of the installation at ABC Art Berlin, 2015, (ph. Andrea Rossetti); D.S.M., Orange…

The life of Yun Hyong-Keun (Cheongju 1928 – Seoul 2007) narrates the history of his country: he was repeatedly imprisoned for his political commitment, escaping a mass execution in 1950. His works can be found at the Yun Hyong-Keun retrospective in Palazzo Fortuny, in Venice until November 24. Curated by Kim Inhye, this is the first European exhibition dedicated to the Korean artist, in collaboration with the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) in Seoul. After an experimental phase, Yun Hyong-Keun honed his style in the first half of the Seventies, reflected by a period of great suffering. His plight was exacerbated after the Gwangju massacre in 1980. Clockwise from the top: Yun Hyong-Keun, Burnt Umber and Ultramarine, 1994; Burnt Umber, 1987; Burnt Umber & Ultramarine, 1999; Umber,…

Colorful Japan, from September 7 to February 2, 2020 at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, 226 Japanese posters are hung in a tribute to graphic designer Shigeru Watano. The artist, who died in 2012, lived and worked in the Netherlands and acted as a link between the Amsterdam museum – the first in the world to display such works – and other Japanese designers. Clockwise from top: Kazumasa Nagai, Himeji Shirotopia Exhibition 1989, 1988 and Human Rights – Living Together, 1989; Ryuichi Yamashiro, Forest, 1954; Ikko Tanaka, Japan, 1986…

It is said that burl was discovered in France, in the mid-nineteenth century, by some craftsmen of Saint-Claude in Bourgogne: the craftsmen noticed a sort of swelling at the base of the root of the erica arborea - an evergreen shrub typical of the Mediterranean region that grows partly underground. They tried working it in order to understand its potential. Erica burl only grows underground, and is the basis for the so-called briar pipe block: in plants of around seventy years of age it can reach forty centimeters in diameter – the minimum size for harvesting. A burl is a woody mass found close to the roots, but which can also form at various points of the trunk. Like scars, growths, as a reaction to repeated pruning, after a fire,…

The 17th edition of Frieze London brings together over 160 galleries from around the world between October 3-6 at Regent’s Park. This year’s edition welcomes Para Site Executive Director, Cosmin Costinas, as curator of the fair’s new section Woven: solo shows by 8 artists who employ textiles, weaving and tapestry. Clockwise from the top: Bill Woodrow, Celloswarm; LR Vandy, Superhero Cog Woman #01; Huma Bhabha, Receiver; Vik Muniz, Mnemonic Vehicle No. 2; Robert Indiana, ONE through ZERO…

L’home d’avui recupera verbs de la infància: juga, plora, es disfressa, abraça. En el seu redescobriment del joc, s’adona que les regles són variables i és en la consciència de la variabilitat d’aquestes regles que hi ha el plaer de jugar. L’home d’avui arriba a una conclusió de pes: la saviesa és flexibilitat, no pas rigidesa. Si l’espècie humana ha arribat fins aquí sense que tot esclatés en mil bocins ha estat perquè la flexibilitat ha superat la rigidesa. L’home d’avui descobreix que és tan important escoltar com parlar. El veritable Homo Sapiens és l’Homo Ludens. Màrius Serra (Barcelona 1963) manages a trilingual site dedicated to word games. Ramon Llull Award in 2006…

When he was sixteen, Paul Smith dreamed of becoming a professional cyclist. He received two presents from his father: a bicycle and a camera. For both, the underlying goal was to experience-to feel and work directly in the field, whether behind the lens or the handlebars. After a biking accident changed his life, Smith traded his wheels for clothes. In 1970, Paul Smith opened V tement Pour Homme-a store spanning just three sq.m on 6 Byard Lane in Nottingham-selling clothing from high-end brands alongside pieces that he himself designed. He still took photographs, one a day, signed “Taken by Paul.” Pink, chartreuse, cornflower blue, mandarin orange, violet. The colors are reminiscent of a David Hockney painting: a splash in the blue waters of a swimming pool, a living room saturated…

The heiress Nan Kempner arrived in a tuxedo to a dinner in a restaurant in Manhattan. When she was informed that women were not allowed sit at the table in pants, she took them off, remaining only in her jacket. For the entire duration of her presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton always wore trouser suits. When Saint Laurent died in 2008, the Financial Times cited Clinton as an example of the change he brought about in working women’s lives. Women’s freedom first meant taking back possession of their bodies. Moving at their own pace, being aware of their own physical presence. Freedom is attitude, being free today does not mean being able to do or say what you want – it means being able to express a personality. In a media-fed…

Returning to the ‘Dance of the Century’ in Venice, on September 3, 1951, Jacqueline de Ribes confided to Reinaldo Herrera that Carlos de da Beistegui knew how to lie. «Beistegui - states the viscountess de Ribes - was amoral and a snob. He taught me the complexity of social life. I had seen everything during the war, but I was still innocent until I met Charlie». The worldly primacy of Don Carlos was based on wealth, fantasy and the Proustian law of exclusion. What belonged to him as no one else was a social form that would soon be pulverized by the student protests of the Sixty-Eight, the same that shut down the Parisian atelier of an indignant Cristóbal Balenciaga. Nothing could seem further from this era of snobbishness as…

This year sees the tenth anniversary of the death of Pina Bausch. Wim Wenders dedicated a 3D documentary to her: Pina, begun as a collaboration with the choreographer, was released in 2011, when she had already passed away. On seeing one of her shows for the first time, the director asked himself: “How is it possible that something so beautiful exists and I knew nothing about it?”. Pina Bausch died on 30 June 2009 in Wuppertal, five days after being diagnosed with cancer. In order to understand her it is necessary to go right back to her training. Kurt Jooss, Pina Bausch’s first teacher, was the founder of the Folkwang Hochschule, the University of the Arts in Essen in the Rhineland, advocate of a type of dance in which classical…

Where there’s shame, there can be no art. Every dirty corner of one’s soul, of one’s daily life, must be dug up, exposed, massacred - forensic pathology on a living corpse. Nothing can be kept hidden, personal - every shadow must be available to the story. This stripping off, this uncovering is not a process with an end point, it is something infinite: you can dig inside, move other organs, open other veins, open up another heart that you didn’t think was hiding in the brain. The field of investigation is the dimension of anxiety that transforms into fear. The insomnia room: fifty self-portraits during a period of insomnia diagnosed in 2018. Those who enter must experience the same emotions that Tracey Emin experienced: stress and suffering, in selfies taken…

For some people, the name Lenny Kravitz is forever linked to the erotic charge of the video for FlyAway: in 1999, this track was played everywhere —on all the radio and music channels. For critics, it is the name of a talented artist at times guilty of self-celebratory hedonism. Lenny Kravitz, multi-instrumentalist, writer, singer, producer and showman, has revised his image throughout his career. At the age of fifty-four, he is taking Rise Vibration, his eleventh album, on a world tour. He debuted in 1989 with Let the love rule, a fusion of rock’n’roll and psychedelia. Kravitz was hailed as the possible heir to Prince, with his hippy references and nostalgia from the Seventies. He wrote Justify my love for Madonna, divorced from Lisa Bonet, Denise from The Robinsons. The…

A conversation with Luke Edward Hall Retro art is modernized in the porcelains of Richard Ginori Luke Edward Hall’s round Harry Potter glasses, unkempt hair and British composure contrast with the unfiltered, yet glossy immediacy of his narration and his star sign (he is a Leo). Hall is wearing a suit in a gradient that mirrors the color palette he chose for the collection “Il viaggio di Nettuno” (Neptune’s journey), a collaboration with Manifattura Richard Ginori, which was unveiled at the latest Salone del Mobile this past April. “I believe in the power stemming from surrounding oneself with beautiful things,” is his mantra, creed and artist’s statement. “It was easy to fall into the temptation posed by quoting Ginori’s legacy, with the array of possibilities offered by the production ability,”…

A journey isn’t a question of changing position and moving, but junctures and agreements, memories and character. The history of the world is summed up by a way that runs from north to south, chasing the Italian sun. Chocolate is an investigation into our ancestral identity. Rhetorically, the composition of a maitre chocolatier recalls the choreography of an intellectual dance. Cecilia Tasseri in conversation A continuous movement, on the one hand a body with its steps and its gestures, spin, go and return, on the other the chocolate that becomes solid or liquid, continuously mixed and blended. “I danced for many years, it was and is my passion. Even today, when I see a dancer performing, I feel good and bad at the same time. Sacrifice, pain, toes, blood. I…

Illustrations by Giampiero Celani Piendlbach, Born in Rome, Celani Piendlbach splits his time between Vienna and Trieste. His art is inspired by Austrian cafés, Art Nouveau architecture, the Gulf of Trieste, and coniferous forests The international exhibition of modern decorative and industrial arts was meant to take place in 1913. Instead, postponed with the outbreak of World War I, it opened at Les Invalides, Paris, in 1925, twelve years later. Unlike the previous editions - Turin, Brussels, Monza - which saw the domination of Art Nouveau, the 1925 exhibition was a manifesto of futuristic experimentation. It was the first postwar exhibition, and as such, set its sights on inspirational works, avoiding copies and pastiches from the past. Still considered an enemy of France, Germany was excluded from the affair, while…

Until November 18, Palazzo Cini Gallery in Venice presents The Battle between Carnival and Feast, Romanian painter Adrian Ghenie’s first solo show in Italy. A series of nine canvases inspired by Venetian history and current affairs are on display, some of which were painted especially for the show, and are intended to interact with the museum' spaces and history. Personal memories and collective trauma — from the past and present — emerge in Ghenie’s paintings. The artworks are linked by the theme of water and are painted in a marine palette of dark watery greens, blues, and greys. Clockwise from top left: Adrian Ghenie, The Wall, 2019; Figure with Dog, 2019; The Drowning, 2019…

To celebrate its 15th anniversary, Parasol Unit showcases The Spark is You: Parasol Unit in Venice at the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory of Music. The exhibition brings together artworks from nine contemporary Iranian artists and aims to foster respect and dialogue between different nations and cultures. The show coincides with the 200th anniversary of West-Eastern Divan, a book of lyrical poetry written by Goethe in tribute to Hafez, an ancient Persian poet. Left, Siah Armajani, Hall Mirror with Table, 1983-1984; below, Nazgol Ansarinia, Article 44, Pillars, 2016…

Sono diventato me stesso quando ho permesso loro di ferirmi, di tornare a farlo, quando ho scelto di non girarmi dall’altra parte se mia madre piangeva, di non pensare che fosse debole. Quando ho scelto di non rimanere solo. A nove anni temevo mio padre perché odiava la mia sensibilità. A quindici gli invidiavo il carisma, a venti mi chiedevo chi fossi, quale sarebbe stato il mio destino. Se oggi ti incontrassi, ti direi che puoi amarmi senza avere paura di me. Sì, sono quel genere di uomo. Questa è la mia forza. Emanuele Altissimo (Torino 1988) publishing in Italy with Bompiani…

Fashion in Milan will return to be a mix of sophistication and culture, eccentricity and knowledge – the mere name Aspesi is enough to evoke an era in which Leonardo Mondadori published the cartoons of Forattini, when writers mixed with journalists, and with some socialist singer-songwriters. Ilaria Occhini and Raffaele Di Capria are still lovely – together. Silence is one of Alberto Aspesi’s watchwords. Literature and industry in the areas of Gallarate, the textile industry, Rossana Orlandi and the Missonis. There is no difference between the fields, and the energy is the same – under the porticoes of Via San Pietro all’Orto, Aspesi transformed a former bank premises into a place of bourgeois irony. The severe, square volumes are today the stage for a divertissement that involves material interplay: PVC,…

If you cut the wing of an airplane in half, you would find the same profile as this coffee table, a piece with a top formed by layers of carbon and honeycomb, the alveolar material with which the wing components of an aircraft are made. The table was exhibited during Design Week, in the Blauer Usa store in Piazza XXV Aprile in Milan, the result of a partnership between Blauer and Frisoli, an interior design company. The idea was to show the finery of a material that usually remains concealed from view, but which proves essential for ensuring our safety in the air. Blauer Usa is a reference to the set of images that we can define as police as it recalls the uniforms of the American armed forces. In…

The Rome Opera House decides it is time to pay homage to minimalist music phenomenon Philip Glass - as a reaction to the excessive digital freedoms of these years, a freedom that has become difficult to manage. This return to the rules is like revival of bourgeois codes, which has been under consideration for some time. According to Germano Celant, minimalist music is not about reduction or simplification, but about geometry - a form reminiscent of musical harmony. Informal and pop music are set aside in favor of rigor: even if opulent, minimalist music deserves respect for the fundamentals of rhythm and scale. Straight music - minimal: it results in precise projects and sober messages - that is, a mathematical score. Celant speaks of an architecture that at once musical…

“When everyone was said to be surprised at the appointment of a woman, I kept asking myself: why not? It is us, women, who are the first to keep these preconceptions alive”, stated Maria Grazia Chiuri in an interview in La Repubblica a few days ago. We remember her debut collection for Dior referring to the book We should be all feminists, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, the feminist manifesto of the 21st century. The message We should be all feminists appeared on t-shirts that normal people wear today. The following year, Chiuri went back to the essay Why have there been no great women artists? (Linda Nochlin, 1971), and spread it around the world using the media power of Dior: the essay is a study of the social barriers that…

In what was once a Romanesque settlement, in a period prior to the Middle Ages, a number of cloistered nuns lived on this hill. We can assume that they didn’t wash. There was no water. At a depth of 170 meters, the veins were too weak to supply a well. Today, as then, the grass of the Maremma should not be watered – it is a grass that never dies. It stays green during the spring rains, then turns yellow in the summer heat, lending a golden hue to the Tuscan slopes set against the Tyrrhenian Sea. It then returns with the first puddles of September, when thunderstorms fracture life with their nostalgia. The cistern collects rain; a suspended corridor crosses it and it is a passageway on the route…