3 GRACES opens at Space 776 on Feb 6, and includes work by Nona Faustine from the "White Shoes" series, wall drawings and silk screens by Riccardo Vecchio, photographs by Anastasia Warren from the "Not My Nude" series, and recent work by David Shrobe. Curated by Lisa Banner
3 GRACES opens at Space 776 on Feb 6, and includes work by Nona Faustine from the "White Shoes" series, wall drawings and silk screens by Riccardo Vecchio, photographs by Anastasia Warren from the "Not My Nude" series, and recent work by David Shrobe. Curated by Lisa Banner
The MICHETTA originated during the Austrian occupation of Milan, when the Austro-Hungarian Empire reigned in Lombardy, after the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. As is the case, the occupiers, in this instance the Austrians, brought with them new foods which the Milanese adapted, and then transformed to make their own. One of these delicacies was a bread with the evocative name of “Kaisersemmel”, or "Emperor’s sandwich”, which was a sandwich weighing 50 to 90 grams in what was a traditional rose form. To spite the occupying Emperor and his Habsburg troops who guarded the city, the Milanese renamed the bread with the diminutive of “micca", "mica", or “Michetta" which originally meant “crumb”.
But, the primary transformation that took place and made it what it is to this day, had to do with the “architecture" of the bread. In the humid climate of Milan, the Kaisersemmel didn’t retain the freshness it had in the much drier climate of Vienna, where it would stay fresh and fragrant till evening. In Milan, the dough quickly absorbed the ever present humid air, making the bread stale and gummy very quickly. The intuition of the master bakers in Milan was to figure out a way to hollow out the bread, in effect emptying it, which immediately lightened it, and enabled it to maintain its crisp outer shell, ensuring a longer lasting and more fragrant and digestible bread.
My personal fascination with the Michetta has much more to do with nostalgia for my youth, and for a Milan that no longer exists for the most part. I don’t think you would be wrong if you said that the Michetta is the equivalent of a bagel for the native NY’er, in that it became essentially synonymous with the locale. In Milan, during the years I was growing up, most bakeries had few choices when it came to your everyday bread. So, the Michetta was paired with everything from Nutella (which was still relatively unknown outside of Italy), to your classic salami and Mortadella lunch time fare. These sandwiches became a scrumptious daily ritual in all school cafeterias and bars (bars in the Italian sense, that is to say, more like a café here).
In terms of shape, even though all Michette look slightly different, the general form is quite distinct and recognizable to anyone who grew up around them. They all have a distinguished oval octagonal form with a puck like growth coming out of the top, similar to the way the top of a bowl of stiffly beaten eggs look when you pull the egg beaters out of the bowl. And, as I mentioned above, the crust is very light and thin, and on the inside it is mostly hollow with pockets of moist, fragrant, and chewy wonderfulness. So, for the history, for the wistfulness for a youth gone, and most importantly, for the rush of feelings I get when I take that first bite, I love them and I decided to paint them.
RAW
Word and Image
Pictures are worth a thousand words. Paintings can be composed of boundless raw
materials, including food for thought, considerations of the flesh, and examination of
the physical locus of our being. Protein, carbohydrates, and encouragement are
what keep us going. Maps, phrases, and daily sustenance support and nourish our
daily existence. A random bullet can stop us dead and end everything in a second.
Paintings by Kate Ryan study meat: slain, drawn, and quartered chickens, entrails
and parts. Paintings of daily bread by artist Riccardo Vecchio, Michetta, form a series
of quietly intriguing unique observations. Word paintings by William Hempel,
including the Insults, painted with food-grade oils like poppy, linseed, and olive oil,
and the “Right Place at the Wrong Time,” series of paintings, made with a series of
physical constraints, remind us of the constant need for reassurance and
encouragement in our daily existence. Christopher Smith’s Underbody takes the
simple movement of paint and transforms it into a sensual meditation on perceived
reality. Piers Secunda collects bullet holes from actual sites of targeted violence, and
then molds them in paint, quietly asking big questions with small pieces of evidence
taken from random and pointless acts of aggression.
With perception, humor, and visual acuity, these artists convey a sense of daily
poetic transcendence over the quotidian lot of humanity.
Featuring paintings and video by William Hempel, Kate Ryan, Piers Secunda,
Christopher Smith, Riccardo Vecchio
Curated by Lisa A. Banner
SPACE776
229 Central Avenue, Brooklyn 11221
Karl Ove Knausgård and Martin Luther King 2 color silk screen. Edition of 11. Signed and numbered. 17x22 inches, 43x56 cm
HAUPTKATEGORIE ZEITSCHRIFTEN BEITRAG DES JAHRES: GOLD
SZ-Magazin Nr. 01, „Der NSU-Prozess. Das Protokoll des ersten Jahres“
Happy to have contributed paintings & drawings to this Lead Awards winning SZ- Magazin issue.
http://www.hamburg-news.hamburg/en/cluster/media-it/leadawards-prizegiving-gala-hamburg-federal-foreig/ 15 November 2014
Happy to be included into this beautiful book by the Criterion Collection
http://www.criterion.com/shop_products/106-criterion-designs
Tornano le chiacchierate del MiMaster Illustrazione con i protagonisti dell'illustrazione internazionale per scrivo.me: è on-line quella con Riccardo Vecchio
http://www.scrivo.me/2014/10/20/arte-pura-e-arte-applicata-le-copertine-di-riccardo-vecchio/
Paper Models for Pelican Penguin Shakespeare Covers
2014 Untitled VIII (Marmolada), oil on canvas 18x13 inches
by Peggy Roalf
http://www.ai-ap.com/publications/article/11629/riccardo-vecchio-the-qa.html
By Peggy Roalf Monday September 29, 2014
Q: Originally from Italy, what are some of your favorite things about living and working in New York City?
A: Because I’m not from here, I originally fell in love with the New York that I got to know from books, movies and photography. I kept nurturing that idea when I first came here in the same way. Moments of dramatic lighting, and snippets of architectural grandeur always dazzled me, and they still manage to evoke tremendous moods and atmospheres for me. I can still imagine and feel the New York of Hopper, Feininger, Allen, and appreciate E.B. White’s eloquent and poetic homage to the chaos of city life here.
I like the esthetic contradictions of a city that is trying to be a city of the future, while at the same time struggling with an aging and crumbling infrastructure from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. I love that New York is easily accessible by public transportation and that it is home to a multitude of ethnicities, cultures, and gastronomies. Having said this, the struggles of daily life here can be an enormous challenge that you cannot ignore. Unaffordable rents for working and middle-class New Yorkers make it very difficult to enjoy some of what makes this city so great.
Q: How and when did you first become interested in art and illustration?
A: From as far back as I can remember I loved to draw. Maybe that’s why when I got older and realized I was never going to make into medschool, I started to take it seriously! It was around that time that I began studying graphic design in Germany. But it wasn’t until I came to graduate school in New York that I understood that illustration was considered a separate field of study from art and design. When I was young I took for granted the artistry that I was surrounded by in Italy. But it definitely made a great impression on me; even though it never occurred to me that I could imitate or create something that even began to resemble what I saw all around me. My early sources of inspiration came mostly from French, Belgian and Italian comic books, the weekly Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck magazines, and the cover art for model building sets of war boats, planes and tanks.
Q: Do you keep a sketchbook? What is the balance between the art you create on paper versus In the computer?
A: I am not a regular sketchbook keeper. When I travel I keep a notebook, but they are really just notes and scribbles to myself. All the original artwork I do is created by hand, and I always start a project, no matter what it is for, in this way. I use Photoshop to fine-tune colors and adjust compositions.
Q: How do you organize your time to enable you to work on painting as well as illustration?
A: The two disciplines are never really isolated from each other. Often they overlap. I stick with some paintings for 6 to 8 months. Illustration has a quick turnaround time, and the different pace and mindset can certainly cause friction, but I try my best to push ideas and solutions back and forth in order to enrich both.
Q: What do you like best about your workspace?
A: Without question, the light. I recently I moved my studio from Greenpoint to Queens, and for the first time I have what I've only heard and read that all painters rave about: Northern Light!
Q: Do you think it needs improvement, if so, what would you change?
A: Yes, a little more space would be helpful.
Q: What is the most important item in your studio?
A: Again, the light. And the quiet. Knock on wood: no sledgehammers and bands this time!
Q: You do so many portraits--do you prefer to work from photographs, videos or from life?
A: Working from life is always a luxury, but not always possible. I don’t mind working from photos, especially if they are the ones I’ve taken myself. Screenshots from videos also work well. It’s always useful to have several source materials to work with in order to avoid copyright issues.
Q: Structures and the built environment figure large in your paintings and illustrations. Have you studied architecture?
A: No, but people ask me that all the time. When I was in university in Germany, the floor above our design department was the architecture department. I always admired their huge blueprints and models, and every once in a while an architecture student would ask me to do some of their architectural renderings.
Q: What was your favorite book as a child?
A: “The Book of the Happy Lion,” by Louise Fatio and Roger Duvoisin.
Q: What is the best book you’ve recently read?
A: Mark Twain’s “Innocents Abroad”. It is a series of letters and caricatures of romantic travel books from the mid 19th century, written during his travels to Europe and the Middle East in 1867. Because of my own recent travels, I've been particularly attracted to travel essays and diaries. Besides Twain’s wit and canny observation skills in mocking American manners and European attitudes, it is an eerie reminder of how unresolved some of the issues he talks about are to this day.
Q: Who and what are some of your strongest influences?
A: The list is long and reaches across disciplines. It also changes according to the times and my mood. But quickly off the top of my head, these are certainly some of the most relevant: P. Uccello, P. Breugel, M.Beckmann, G. Morandi, Matisse, D.Hockney, S.Spencer, A. Boetti, S. Polke, Antonio Garcia Lopez, M. Anderson, B. Munari, J.Albers, M.Antonioni, R.Rossellini, I.Bergmann, R. Bresson, S. Kubrik.
Q: What was the last art exhibition you saw and what did you take away from it?
A: I’ve been traveling a lot recently, so the last exhibit I saw was called “First World War 1914-1918” at the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin. It was more of a history exhibit, but to me history, art and graphic design are co-dependent. I was doing research for a new series of painted works that attempt to memorialize the historical significance of an almost unrecognizable landscape. More specifically, how the topography has influenced battlefields, and how nature has healed some of the physical damage done to a variety of gruesome battle sites into what they are today.
Q: Where do you teach—and what do you like best about teaching?
A: I’ve been teaching a drawing class at SVA for the better part of a decade. I like the dialogue with young minds, and revisiting your own learning process in some of their work is an eye opener. It is extremely satisfying to see in them a sense of awe when they realize that they can grasp something that they could not have fathomed how to do only a week before.
Q: What is your hobby?
A: Music, (I play the drums), and soccer.
Q: If you could be anywhere but New York where would you be?
A: Berlin, or the Italian countryside.
Q: What would be your last supper?
A: Anything my girlfriend makes—she’s a great cook! Although I might suggest "risotto alla milanese".
Riccardo Vecchio is an artist based in New York. After His studies in Italy and Germany, a Fulbright scholarship brought him to New York in 1994 to The School of Visual Arts MFA program. He has been a faculty member at the School of Visual Arts since 2000. Mr. Vecchio has won numerous awards from juried competitions like Communication Arts, American Illustration, and The Society of Publication Designers among others. His work has been published in a wide variety of magazines and other print media in the United States and abroad including Atlantic Monthly, GQ, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, Esquire, Harper’s, L’Espresso (Italy), La Republica (Italy), Rolling Stone, Newsweek, Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany), The Wall Street Journal, Vibe, The Washington Post, and Wired Magazine among others. His corporate clients have included The Verve Music Group, Adobe, FedEx, American Express, and The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI).
Mr Vecchio's work has also appeared in a variety of theatrical and media outlets including several Broadway and off-Broadway productions, in addition to book covers for Penguin, Putnam, Feltrinelli (Italy) and Mondadori (Italy). His works have been exhibited in New York and Europe. At the end of December 2012, Mr. Vecchio was the featured artist in a live stage performance with the percussion ensemble “SO Percussion” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). In January of 2013, Mr. Vecchio was the guest contemporary artist in connection with the George Bellows retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The past months he has been working in the Italian Alps on a series of works studying the topography and natural transformation of infamous WW1 battle sites. Instagram.
Der NSU-Prozess - Das Protokoll des ersten Jahres
Several paintings and b&w drawings for the the current issue of the Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin in Germany: "The NSU trial - The protocol of the first year".
In Munich, on May 6th 2013 began the largest criminal trial in Germany since reunification. A woman and four men are accused of founding and supporting the terrorist group NSU. The first 71 days of the NSU trial.
Written by Annette Ramelsberger, Tanjev Schultz and Rainer Stadler
I will be participating in this show at the EFFEARTE Gallery in Milan during BOOKCITY MIlano. The show was initiated and curated by the filmmaker Michele Rho in collaboration with Giulia Sargiacomo.
I will be joining the ensemble "So Percussion" on stage at BAM, December 21st
ttp://www.bam.org/music/2012/where-we-live
Part of 30th Next Wave Festival
Sō Percussion with Grey Mcmurray
Directed by Ain Gordon
“The range of colors and voices that Sō Percussion coaxes from its menagerie is astonishing and entrancing.”
—Billboard
Masters at crafting alluring sonic landscapes from the most unlikely found objects, Brooklyn-based quartet Sō Percussion explores the idea of home with a bold experiment in collaborative art-making. Directed by three-time Obie Award winner Ain Gordon (Spalding Gray: Stories Left to Tell), Where (we) Live invites artistic colleagues working in different mediums to participate as both co-collaborator and muse in Sō's creative process and performance: Grey Mcmurray (itsnotyouitsme, Knights on Earth) writes poignant, personal songs; Martin Schmidt's videos show the quirky and unnoticed beauty in our homes; and Emily Johnson delivers secret instructions to the performers onstage. Each evening will also feature additional special guests to be announced closer to the performance dates. To these and other contributions, Sō adds an astounding range of composed and improvised sounds, inspired by the physical and symbolic places we live.
A Bunch of Drummers and Friends, Thinking About Home and John Cage ‘Where (we) Live,’ by So Percussion, at BAM
A Bunch of Drummers and Friends, Thinking About Home and John Cage ‘Where (we) Live,’ by So Percussion, at BAM. Music review in the New York Times, by Steve Smith
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/21/arts/music/where-we-live-by-so-percussion-at-bam.html
