Category Archives: Exhibitions

Celebrating the 2016 Rio Olympics with “naïve” Brazilian paintings

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Rio Olympics 1

Fabio Sombra, Untitled Acrylic on board, 54 cm x 72 cm, 2000

I just love this picture! Fabio Sombra painted it with the idea of the Olympic Games in Rio on a far horizon. At first pass, you might be forgiven for thinking it is done by a talented child. At second pass, you would notice the graded sky, the perfect composition, the balance of colour and the convincing anatomical pose of each athlete. On further consideration, you would take in the multiple ingenious details from the cameraman at the foot of the Olympic steps (who, confused by the abundance of scenes, is pointing his camera at one thing whilst looking at another) to the two little Red Cross guys helping an injured and grimacing athlete off the track. Of course, Brazil wins!

This is no childish work but there is an innocent charm about Sombra’s painting. It is naïve! It makes me happy. It has a James Rizzi appeal. It features on the invitation to the current exhibition “Rio Naïf et les Jeux Olympiques” at Espace L.

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Gerson, Untitled, Oil on board, 24cm x 19cm, 1994

I call in at Espace L. Its founder, Laeticia Amas, believes that naïve Brazilian paintings have not been shown in Geneva before. I find the whole narrative fascinating and can’t help smiling and swinging along with Gerson’s two happy-cool-clown-trapeze artists.

As an Olympic celebration, the exhibition is set to travel this year to other Swiss destinations with close collaboration between Espace L and the Museu Internacional de Arte Naïf do Brasil (MIAN) in Rio, the Basel-based foundation Brasilea and the Consulate General of Brazil in Geneva.

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Magda Mittakis, Untitled, Acrylic on multiple boards, 24cm x 19cm each, 2015

According to Jacqueline A Finkelstein, conservator of MIAN, the term “naïve” was originally applied to the work of Henri Rousseau (1844-1910) who started painting his signature jungle scenes in his forties and famously said he had “no teacher other than nature.” This glorious montage of small paintings by Magda Mittakis shows just how enduring Rousseau’s influence is.

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Barbara Deister, “Brasil, campeo natacao” Acrylic on board, 30cm x 20cm, 2015

The exhibition is also dedicated to the paralympics. Barbara Deister’s naïve gem shows amputees on the medal podium for a swimming event, an ecstatic crowd and – inexplicably and wonderfully (or maybe just naïvely!) – a white duck in the pool! And of course, Brazil wins! It’s fabulous!

Bravo, Espace L … and good luck with this ambitious project!

The exhibition runs until 5 March.

Art Genève 2016…. Imagination and Class

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This is a guest post by Bonnie Golightly.

Those guys from Talking Beautiful Stuff found me an invitation to the grand opening of Art Genève 2016. “Go and check it out. It was great last year. Write a few lines for us. Just say what you like….. and why you like it!!” For a girl from the country who was “good at art” at school, this was an opportunity not to be missed. So I squeezed into something that was once sleek, piled my hair up, applied scary lipstick and, on worringly high heels, teetered off to Palexpo on the number 5 bus.

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Los Carpinteros “Duo de Congas,” Mixed media, 2015

The first thing that caught my eye was a pair of tom-toms melting on the floor. Brilliant! It made me laugh. I expected some poor percussionist to come running in realising that he had left his source of income on a hot tin roof. But how do you think up something like that? Well, Los Carpinteros are Brazilians!

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Michael Geertsen “Mantelpiece,” Earthware, 2012 / 2015

The second thing that hit me was the people. Thousands of people! And not just ordinary people! This was moneyed Geneva out in force. More silicon and silken mouchoirs than you could shake your Jimmy Choos at! A tidal wave of little black dresses on long tanned legs! Somehow, Geertsen’s “Mantelpiece” caught the mood. It smacks of something domestic, seemingly superfluous and discarded but nevertheless oozing a luxury beyond any homeware that I’ve seen.

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Beat Zoderer “Lotbild,” Acrylic and wood on canvas, 91cm x 91 cm, 1998

I adore this “painting” made of coloured wood blocks by Beat Zoderer. I wanted to run my nails on it. Visually, it’s surprisingly homogenous; like an overblown pixellated photograph that’s been rained on. Chunky! Soothing! Clever! I was beginning to enjoy “contemporary art.”

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Joly Alexandre “Magnetic fish” Mixed media (including preserved Diodon Hoioanthus, piano wires and piezo speakers) 2015

A nice man with a spotted tie spotted me spilling champagne in astonishment when I spotted a dried, poisonous, spikey puffer fish pierced with piano wires each ending with a brass disc. Mesmerising! More so when said nice man invited me to lean in close to the suspended beast. Out of its mouth (the fish’s mouth, that is) came calming tinkly music!!! What a whacky clash of concepts all ending up with something that I found more than intriguing and strangely beautiful.

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Kehinde Wiley “Portrait of Jose Alberto de la Cruz Diaz,” Oil on canvas, 183cm x 152cm 2016

I guess my tastes are more or less conventional which is why I admire the realism of Wiley’s’ “Portrait of Jose Alberto de la Cruz Diaz.” The portrait itself is faultless and honest but what frys my taters is how Wiley has incorporated the subject into the lushy verdure of the wall paper design that should, but doesn’t really, serve as background. Uber cool!

Art Genève is huge and rather intimidating at the point of entry. What I expected was stuff that claimed to be contemporary with little aesthetic appeal; you know, soiled sheets pinned to the wall, half-burnt photos of children, broken glass in old boots etc. What I found was imagination, technical accomplishment and aesthetic appeal by the bucket. Like the clientele, Art Genève 2016 is very classy. I would even take my mum along. And I think she would enjoy it!

The expressions and emotions of Alyaa Kamel

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I get a message from Facebook: the 13th November is Alyaa Kamel’s birthday. Another message tells me it is the first day of her new exhibition. Galerie Cimaise has risen to the challenge of showing her “Expressions and Emotions.” Go to this exhibition. Do not expect to see representations of people’s expressions and emotions. You will find Alyaa Kamel’s people but the expressions and emotions are all hers. This is, after all, #alyaakamel: emoting on-line and “out there.”

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A large canvas reveals her fascination for tagging. It is a crush of hopeless, expressionless people: her main theme. I remain convinced that her inspiration is driven by the all-too-frequent images from daily news: thousands of poor middle-eastern souls in crisis. I try to nail down her thoughts. She cleverly responds in a meaningful abstractness. With a gush of words, she throws ideas at me such as humanity, inheritance, memories and genes. I push…. “We all have our secrets, Robin!”

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Another large canvas moves the theme to the individual. The face is grotesque and haunting. One eye is closed. The nose is broken. The lips are mashed. In describing what was in her mind when covering it with glue and kitchen film she loses me. I see only an attempt to obliterate one of those poor middle-eastern souls in crisis; only this time the crisis has been meted out at a personal level. By my interpretation, this is the battered and bruised face of the final interrogation.

This exhibition carries 36 pieces. Alyaa’s expressions and emotions may be elusive but she has a lot to say and she says it better with her drawings and paintings than with her words. The ensemble of the person and her work is contemporary, enigmatic and intriguing. A visit to Galerie Cimaise will not disappoint.