#Repost @unsedicesimomag with @use.repost
"STAY SHARP" SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS, NEW YORK
STAY SHARP SCHOOL OF VISUAL ARTS
Transending Bounderies
Installation view of #31degrees for “Transcending Boundaries" at the Bohemian National Hall. Curated by Elenaor Rahim @eleanorrahim and presented by Janet C. Salazar and Foundation for the support of the United Nations @fsun.global The works shown in this event are on sale for 3 months and can be seen in the brochure on the linktree of Eleanor's IG bio. Those interested please contact Eleanor @eleanorrahim https://issuu.com/eleanorrahim/docs/catalog_bohemian_hall
Sapience Chair + 31 Degrees SENTIENT Furniture
The images depicted on the _______ chair and the accompanying silk screens displayed here, are an extension of Riccardo Vecchio’s broader public arts project, 31 Degrees. 31 Degrees gives visibility to environmental injustice by bringing attention to disparities in tree coverage, with drawings that will be translated into murals to bring some arboreal beauty to areas where walls are more prevalent than trees. 31 Degrees sets out to work with City agencies, organizations and communities to facilitate the planting of trees in neighborhoods that need them most.
The project’s title takes its name from a recent collaborative study, part of a larger heat-mapping initiative in cities across North America, which heat-mapped parts of upper Manhattan and the Bronx, helping identify areas of environmental concern. 31 Degrees references one particular day in July when the temperature difference varied by that amount from one upper middle-class area in Manhattan, to one of the city’s poorest communities of color in the Bronx. The study found that due to low levels of tree coverage and green space, poorer neighborhoods, predominantly communities of color, are disproportionately negatively impacted by heat. Not only is heat distributed unequally in NYC, creating what is known as urban heat islands, but its distribution follows other patterns of inequality such as race and income inequality.
For 31 Degrees, Vecchio took inspiration from old masters such as Albrecht Dürer (1471- 1528), and Albrecht Altdorfer (1480-1538), two artists considered the first landscape artists in the western canon who were painting trees and landscapes without religious or other contexts, appreciating nature for its own sake. With this background, Vecchio has created drawings of trees originally native to New York, such as pines, fir and spruce, indigenous trees becoming less widespread with the onset of climate change.
Vecchio juxtaposes the angular symmetry of the Sapience Chair with some of the original pen and ink drawings created for 31 Degrees. The newly imagined compositions attempt to mirror the impact of the site-specific murals created for 31 Degrees. These images are silk screened onto wood panels and then adhered to the chair using sustainable materials.
Murals Show An Inequitable Distribution of Trees
Riccardo Vecchio’s 31 Degrees Project helps New Yorkers understand tree disparity in the city. Urban forest and its social and environmental benefits are not equitably distributed across five boroughs.
https://nycitylens.com/tree-disparity-nyc/
BPL PRESENTS: 31 DEGREES
In case you missed it!
Join us for a presentation by artist Riccardo Vecchio as he launches 31 Degrees, a public, multi-site mapping and mural project which draws attention to ecological inequalities in NYC neighborhoods.
31 Degrees gives visibility to environmental injustice through disparities in tree coverage and sets out to work with City agencies, organizations and communities to plant trees in neighborhoods that need them most.
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=269550321802489
The 31 Degrees Project
Join me for a virtual artist talk @bklynlibrary Acacia Thompson and Arborist Navé Strauss:
www.bklynlibrary.org
The 31 Degree Project
As a New York City based artist, Riccardo Vecchio was recently granted a NYC Artist Corps Grant. The Grants were established to engage the public across New York City's five boroughs, as an integral part of the city’s recovery as New York continues to emerge from the pandemic.
Vecchio’s grant project, titled ‘31 Degrees’, takes two approaches. The first, centers around a participatory art installation with the community, while the second, takes place indoors, continuing the theme of the project in a more traditional gallery setting. The goal of both arms of the project focus squarely on facilitating learning exchanges, and to provide a platform for dialogue to address issues of climate and environmental injustice, made more urgent with each successive climate change induced disaster. The project anticipates working together with local grassroots organizations who are currently engaged in bringing attention to issues of systemic racism in their struggle to resolve environmental injustices, as well as educational and cultural institutions.
The project’s title, ‘31 Degrees’, takes its name from a recent collaborative study, part of a larger heat-mapping initiative in cities across North America, which heat-mapped parts of upper Manhattan and the Bronx, helping identify areas where environmental justice issues are a concern. The study found that due to low levels of tree coverage and green space, poorer neighborhoods, predominantly communities of color, are disproportionately negatively impacted by heat. Not only is heat distributed unequally in NYC, creating what is known as urban heat islands, but its distribution follows other patterns of inequality such as race and income inequality. ‘31 Degrees’ references one particular day in July when the temperature difference varied by that amount from one upper middle class area in Manhattan, to one of the city’s poorest communities of color in the Bronx. It is well known that the history of racist redlining and disinvestment that began in the 1930’s has translated to fewer trees and parks in these communities. But, what may not be as familiar is that this has been responsible in creating higher temperatures and levels of air pollution. Coupled with low access to air conditioning, working class and poor communities of color are more likely to suffer from obesity, asthma, and cardiovascular disease, and twice as likely to die from heat exposure as white New Yorkers
(NYC Dept. of Health).
For ‘31 Degrees’, Vecchio took inspiration from old masters such as Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528), and Albrecht Altdorfer (1480-1538), two artists considered the first landscape artists in the western canon, who were painting trees and landscape without religious or other context, appreciating nature for its own sake. With this background, Vecchio has created drawings of trees originally native to the New York area, like pines, fir and spruce, but less widespread with the onset of climate change.
For the participatory piece of the project, the drawings will be translated into murals to beautify areas where walls are more prevalent than trees. Each drawing will be printed as a poster sized sheet, and with the collaboration of the public, they will be wheatpasted onto donated wall space to create site specific tree designs imagined by the participants themselves. Postering the drawings with wheatpaste, a sustainable material, harkens back to the days before social media, when posters were a prevalent part of the urban landscape. With a history of delivering news and political opinion, postering as a form of localized messaging, has been used by groups who often could not afford to advertise, or subversively without permission on private property, pasted over stencils of ‘post no bills’. Wheatpasting the poster sized drawings allows the community to have a hands on experience in the creative process. The indoor manifestation of the project anticipates displaying the original works as individual pieces, together with smaller scale murals, utilizing the posters to create several unique location driven pieces. The goal of both embodiments of the project is to empower and encourage continued community engagement around issues of equality.
WERKZEICHNUNGEN (early works, 1991-92) DOBRINKA SALZMAN GALLERY
WERKZEICHNUNGEN (early works, 1991-92) on view at the DOBRINKA SALZMAN GALLERY 532 W 25TH ST NYC 10001
Ink and casein tempera on paper Framed approx. 22x30 inches.
Großstadt (2006) July 30th-October27th, 2020 Master Building Lobby 310 Riverside Dr @103 rd st. Ny 10025
Großstadt
Paintings by Riccardo Vecchio
The object of these works is to develop a visual symbolism that allows me to depict a location as an evocation of memory. I am not interested in abstracting or deconstructing to the point of non-recognition. I am interested in freeing elements from their functionality while maintaining the impact of that functionality. I did not start by trying to make a statement about the human condition, but the memory I am trying to portray is a result of human interactions. Despite this being a formal working approach, it is formalism serving a concern to reveal the outer world as an aspect of humanity.
I consciously avoid working from one reference image or photograph, but use geometry to create, skew, and distort perspective, allowing vistas that do not exist in nature. I can enhance, or in some instances, purposely falsify the storytelling effect on my canvas in order to encourage new visual experiences, freeing viewers from any preconceived notions.
The result is not an immediately recognizable skyline or another famous site that might stir up a sense of unwitting local patriotism. Instead, it is an amalgam of one’s visual experience, a patchwork of sequences, and memories that can maintain the impact of its intended function.
As I write this, the Covid-19 pandemic has loosened its grip on NYC, but not before highlighting and exacerbating the grave inequality in our society.
Looking at my cityscape now, I am reminded of how during our recent quarantine, the city felt eerily silent, yet filled with beautiful architectural landscapes for us to marvel at. Then, suddenly, the empty streets gave way to shouts of “I can’t breathe;” “black lives matter;” and, “no justice, no peace.” Once again, I am drawn in, this time searching to find myself in these imagined streets, this imaginary Großstadt, sign-in-hand, ready to march.
Studio Visit by the Criterion Collection
New York–based painter and illustrator Riccardo Vecchio has made a name for himself with his evocative portraits and cityscapes. But for the last few years, he has returned to his Italian roots, devoting himself to depicting the Alpine mountains he came to know as a child growing up outside Milan. These dramatic canvasses drew the attention of Criterion art director Sarah Habibi, who was particularly impressed by his rendering of the vertiginous terrain’s jagged rock surfaces. The artist had worked with Criterion before, creating likenesses for our covers of Andrzej Wajda’s Danton and Jonathan Demme’s A Master Builder. But it was this recent landscape work that Habibi had in mind when it came time to produce a cover image for our release of Kelly Reichardt’s Certain Women, an intimate observational drama set against the backdrop of the Montana Rockies.
In this video, the first entry in our series Studio Visits, Vecchio recounts the process of creating the painting for the edition. During our trip to his workspace, he described how he set out to honor the emotional subtlety of Reichardt’s vision, and how the final image—depicting a moment from the film in which a driver veers off the road, while the snow-capped mountains loom large in the distance—was selected after several rounds of preliminary sketches in a variety of styles.
https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/5718-riccardo-vecchio-paints-certain-women
Sotheby's Institute of Art studio visit
Thank you Elizabeth A. Pergam for an inspiring studio visit with your students, from the Sotheby's Institute of Art.
“Master Class: One Basquiat.”
“Master Class: One Basquiat.” So pleased to have been invited as guest speaker at the Brooklyn Museum joining Monica Marino for a close look at Basquiat's "Untitled" (1982).
Uncover layers of Basquiat’s rarely seen painting Untitled, currently on display in One Basquiat. In this intimate and in-depth experience, painter Riccardo Vecchio, and educator, Monica Marino will lead an evening of close looking and conversation to investigate Basquiat’s painting from multiple perspectives. The discussion continues over drinks and snacks at The Norm.
One Basquiat is made possible through the generous support of Yusaku Maezawa.
Kriegsgipfel
1918, vor bald hundert Jahren, ging der Erste Weltkrieg zu Ende. Der deutsch-italienische Künstler Riccardo Vecchio wanderte durch die Dolomiten und zeichnete die Berge, an denen damals gekämpft und gestorben wurde. Von Mohamed Amjahid
ZEITmagazin Nr. 53/2017 19. Dezember 2017, 17:23 Uhr
Ob Gabriele D’Annunzio am 9. August 1918, kurz vor Ende des Ersten Weltkrieges, ein Auge für die Schönheit der Dolomiten gehabt hat, weiß man nicht. Auf jeden Fall flog D’Annunzio, italienischer Poet des Fin de Siècle und Propagandist des Militärs, an jenem Tag über sie hinweg, er saß hinter den Piloten einer kleinen Propellermaschine. Zusammen wollten sie von Padua nach Wien – der Hauptstadt des Feindes. An Bord hatte D’Annunzio Tausende grün-weiß-rote Flugblätter: Kriegspropaganda. Doch der Text war nur auf Italienisch zu lesen, sodass die meisten Wiener ihn nicht verstanden. D’Annunzio war das egal, er hatte sowieso nur die eigene, kriegsmüde Bevölkerung im Visier: In der italienischen Presse wurde der Propagandaflug hinterher bejubelt, und fürs Durchhalten versprachen die italienischen Kriegsführer ihrem Volk die Annexion der bis dahin zur Habsburgermonarchie gehörenden Dolomiten. Am Ende haben die Italiener den Gebirgskrieg auf 4000 Meter Höhe gegen Österreich-Ungarn gewonnen. Der Preis: Hunderttausende Menschen starben durch Granatbeschuss oder Kälte.
Der deutsch-italienische Künstler Riccardo Vecchio wanderte im Jahr 2014, hundert Jahre nach Beginn des Ersten Weltkrieges, wochenlang in den Dolomiten. In den folgenden Sommern kehrte er dorthin zurück, studierte Gipfel, Eisformationen und Bergwege, auf denen Maultiere einst Proviant für die Truppen transportierten. Sein Großvater Cesare war mit 18 Jahren in die italienische Armee eingezogen worden, wurde später von Österreichern gefangen genommen, konnte entkommen und floh im Sommer 1917 zu Fuß über die Berge nach Mailand.
"Ich kenne die Dolomiten von Ausflügen in meiner Kindheit. Ich bin dorthin zurückgekehrt, um das aktuelle Unbehagen in Europa zu verstehen", sagt Vecchio, 47, der seit zwanzig Jahren in New York lebt und arbeitet. Auch im Zweiten Weltkrieg wurden die Dolomiten zu einem Schauplatz des Grauens. Mit den schmelzenden Gletschern tauchen nun überall Relikte des Krieges auf, Vecchio fand bei seinen Reisen Einschlagkrater und Überreste von Bomben. "Angesichts des Aufkommens von rechtspopulistischer Rhetorik und Nationalismus überall auf der Welt sind diese Berge Zeugen vergangener Massaker im Namen von Machterhalt und Profit", sagt Vecchio.
In seinem Atelier in New York arbeitet er seit Jahren an den Ölgemälden. Detailversessen versucht Vecchio jeden Hang, jeden Felsen, jeden Gipfel so genau wie möglich nachzuzeichnen. Seine Mission sei es, die Erinnerung an das Grauen vergangener Tage für die Zukunft wachzuhalten, sagt er. Wer weiß zum Beispiel noch, dass am 13. Dezember 1916, an einem einzigen Tag also, Tausende Männer in Lawinen starben? Grenzen zwischen Ländern liegen oft in den Bergen, wo niemand wohnt. Es macht also fast keinen Unterschied, ob die Grenze ein paar Meter weiter hier oder da verläuft. Aber der Nationalismus lässt dafür Unzählige sterben.
Frammenti
The Embassy of Italy and the Italian Cultural Institute, with the Pratt Institute and Ivy University, invite you to an exhibit exploring the layered themes of memory, continuity, and remembrance as seen through the lenses of several generations of Italians. Artists Kikki Ghezzi and Riccardo Vecchio invest their works with the physical remnants and records of family memories and historical events.
In Ghezzi’s work, the importance of her connection to prior generations of strong women in her family is physically manifest in her use of heirloom linens, embroidered by her grandmother, that have been passed down as a dowry in a traditional cassone, and now serve as the literal support for her paintings. Paintings by Riccardo Vecchio explore the historical past, specifically the events of World War I, where the Italians fought in the Dolomite mountains and the Alps. As the mountains suffer the effects of climate change, they are disgorging their history and souvenirs of the past, to reveal details of the lives of people who were engaged in combat there in 1915 and as World War I unfolded. Fragments of memory, and fragments of time, the frammenti referred to here, are captured by these two Italian artists to help us understand the longer continuum of life, and reflect the concerns of their generation as culture responds to an increasingly hectic world.
LOCATION
Embassy of Italy
3000 Whitehaven Street NW
Washington, DC 20008
Riccardo Vecchio paints the mountain ranges of the UNESCO World Heritage sites in the Dolomites and the Alps. These paintings transport us to remote mountain summits that are vividly present in history. Joining a tradition of painting the mountain as a sublime obstacle in nature, Vecchio emphasizes the struggle of man against nature. J.M.W.Turner depicted the crossing of Carthaginian General Hannibal when he traversed with elephants, and Jacques-Louis David painted where Napoleon crossed the Saint Bernard pass, with rocks inscribed to record previous travelers and triumphs, but Vecchio takes other memories as inspiration.
Vecchio paints many of the infamous World War I battlegrounds high in the Dolomites where the Kingdom of Italy and the Austro Hungarian Empire clashed between 1915 and 1918. Recent paintings, steeped in those places, are enhanced by satellite imagery and study of topographical maps combined with Vecchio’s oil and pencil sketches made during summer months of hiking and camping in the wilderness to observe and record those locations. Vecchio’s large paintings emphasize another dimension, the universal views of this particular space of conflict in the rocky crags and crests of the mountains. Reanimating history, and using GoogleEarth, Vecchio creates 3-D printed silicone sand models of the places he has walked, and then transforms the physical knowledge of those places into giant paintings, melding memory of place with his experience of hiking, and with images taken from the satellite, his camera, his models, and paintings made en plein air. Using technological advances to inform his views of the mountain ranges, Vecchio’s resulting large-scale paintings approach the vedute from every angle. Adapting techniques familiar from Venetian paintings like Tintoretto’s Last Supper (1592-1594), a painting on canvas at the Basilica di San Giorgio Maggiore, in Venice, Vecchio paints as if looking down simultaneously from a bird’s eye view, and across landscapes as if gazing from a nearby peak, and as if standing with feet firmly planted on the ground. Vecchio’s technique bridges human experience of the past, present and future, and his landscapes fall into the tradition of gifted late Renaissance painters, whose predella paintings were often devoted to horizontal landscapes, or the Italian landscape paintings of the nineteenth century, who glorified unadorned aspects of physical nature.
Vecchio also emulates the colors of places he experiences, using photographs to enhance memory, and painted sketches to remind of the experience of the colors---like sunshine on snow, or rain on the bald craggy rocks---in the moment he saw them. This technique combines an understanding of a historical moment with the experience of that place seen a hundred years later. Shattered stripes of light seem to cloak the mountains in Vecchio’s more recent and large-scale paintings, giving a fresh impression of the fragmented landscapes he has traveled.
Kikki Ghezzi is an experiential artist, creating installations and paintings that interpret poignant memories of her childhood in Milan and in the village of Bormio, along with more recent vivid works of universal appeal, exploring the connection through three generations of Italian women. Her work relies upon memory as inspiration, as she shares spiritual and often metaphysical realities. The 24 Ore refer to the contents of a briefcase, designed to hold the day’s essentials. Filled with prints in a variety of colors, the 24 Ore hold literal impressions, in printed form, of the interiors of her family’s home in Italy. In the last of three valises, Ghezzi placed a sealed letter to her parents, a sort of memorial to her family and upbringing, after their deaths. The spiritual qualities of Ghezzi’s work, both meditative and contemplative, offer the viewer an opportunity to pause and reflect upon their own connections to family and the past, in a quiet way, with the metaphorical embrace of a daily briefcase to hold and contain thoughts of the day. Ghezzi excels in finding the universal voice in the personal.
Using the hand-embroidered linens, pillowcases, and sheets handed down to her from her mother and grandmother, Ghezzi brings together the personal and historical threads that literally connect these three generations, and presents these works in fresh fashion to a new contemporary audience.
Lisa A. Banner is Adjunct Associate Professor of Art History at Pratt Institute. She is curator of an ongoing series of contemporary exhibitions at the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU, in the James B. Duke House [www.bit.ly/IFAdisplay]. As an independent scholar and curator, she has organized exhibitions like “The President’s Face,” highlighting loans from private collections with rare photographs of Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and James B. Garfield, at the Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library. She is a frequent invited lecturer at places like The Courtauld Institute, The Frick Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Meadows Museum, and elsewhere. In 2014, she curated a contemporary art installation at Prospect 3+ Biennial, New Orleans. Since 2013 she has curated contemporary exhibitions at the Institute of Fine Arts, NYU [www.bit.ly/IFAdisplay]. Her latest exhibition, SHIFT: Jongil Ma, Christopher Smith, Corban Walker was on view at the David Owsley Museum of Art. Banner is also a board member of The Hammond Museum and Japanese Stroll Garden, and a member of the Research Programming Group at the Frick Art Reference Library.
