Iris Apfel: a portrait

Iris Apfel

Iris Apfel. Image source: Secolo Trentino.com

IRIS APFEL: A PORTRAIT

Some consider her to be a fashion icon, others think she’s the greatest expert on art and interior design, still others thinks she’s a star for people who have long since reached the third age, or even the fourth age.
Certainly, Iris Apfel achieved a great fame at the age of 90, and she’s the protagonist of advertising campaigns and cultural events.

In 2005 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York dedicated to her an exhibition entitled “Rara Avis (Rare Bird): The Irreverent Iris Apfel, where her spectacular dresses and accessories were on display.
The success of the exhibition, with over 150,000 visitors, prompted an initial travelling version of the show, and since then Iris has become very famous.

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#MayaVerona

Maya Verona | Blogger

#MayaVerona is a trendy exhibition

 Can you make an exhibition trendy? Yes, you can. And you must do it!

This is one of the tweets I published between October 23rd and 24th 2016, when I came back to Verona to visit the exhibition dedicated to the Maya together with some friends.
My friends were bloggers like me: some made a long journey and they looked forward to losing themselves in the atmosphere of the Maya they lived in Mexico and in the places which the artefacts exhibited in Verona come from. Others were fascinated by the subheading of the exhibition, “Il linguaggio della bellezza” (“The language of beauty”), and they wanted to understand what the beauty for the Maya was. Still others wanted to offer their children a useful and funny experience.
Then there was me. I witnessed the birth of the exhibition dedicated to the Maya, and I shared with you the images of the inauguration on the social networks, and I wanted to transform the exhibition into a carefree moment and an opportunity for interaction.

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StreetAland

Streetland | libri per bambini

StreetAland is the first children’s book series illustrated by street artist, A tale of dreams and colors written by journalist Luca Indemini and illustrated by street artist Mr. Fijodor.

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Nightwatching: a Peter Greenaway movie about Rembrand

Peter Greenaway | NIGHTWATCHING

NIGHTWATCHING: A PETER GREENAWAY MOVIE ABOUT REMBRANDT 

Nightwatching. There are beautiful movies which, for unclear and inexplicable reasons, are not aimed at a worldwide public.
Among them, there’s the movie about Rembrandt directed by Peter Greenaway, premiered and critically acclaimed at the 64th Venice Film Festival.

It was 2007 and that movie, although it was acclaimed and applauded, has never been released in Italy.
Now, at last, the moment has arrived. Better late than never! On November 5th 2016 Nightwatching by Peter Greenaway will arrive in Italy at cinema.

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Mapplethorpe, Look at the Pictures

Mapplethorpe | self-portrait

Mapplethorpe’s self-portrait. Image source: www.heretifm.com

Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures

“I don’t know how to describe them (flowers), but I don’t think they’re very different from body parts”. (Robert Mapplethorpe)

Robert Mapplethorpe took the most shocking photos, and at the same time the most refined pictures in the history of photography.
He didn’t mean to be a photographer; he wanted to be an artist.
And he became one of the most outrageous photographers appeared on the international photography scene.

I saw Mapplethorpe: Look at the Pictures, the new movie directed by Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey, and I realised that I didn’t know anything about this American photographer.
The documentary film will arrive in Italy at The Space Cinema on October 24th 2016, but I saw the preview of the movie, and I’ll give you my opinion.

Wanted Cinema, which had already given me the opportunity to enjoy the private show of Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict, offered me a reserved show.

Robert Mapplethorpe | Ken Moody and Robert Sherman

Ken Moody and Robert Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe, 1984. Image source: flavorwire.com

Everyone will give his/her own opinion on this documentary: some people will hate it, whereas other people will love it.
I can’t express a judgement on the movie suitable for everyone, because the film needs to be experienced in first person.
This film is a punch in the stomach, and an incessant provocation.

I love photography but those of Mapplethorpe are certainly not like the pictures of the Magnum Agency.
I knew Mapplethorpe’s beautiful black-and-white pictures, and the famous photo of Patti Smith, the American singer-songwriter, on the cover of her first album Horses. Frankly, I’ve never seen Mapplethorpe’s series “Portfolio X”, which caused a scandal and keeps doing it now due to its erotic subject.
Mapplethorpe portrayed extreme erotic practices in an explicit way, and the movie narrates the origin of those photos, and how photography became a medium for the artist to describe the body as if it was a flower, or any ordinary natural element.

The documentary film tells Mapplethorpe’s ambition, his life pushed to the limit, his friendships, his lovers, his relationship with his family, AIDS and his death, through archive documents and interviews with people who knew him.
Mapplethorpe’s life is narrated in a chronological order.
His quiet childhood, his art studies, and then his meeting with Patti Smith, with whom he had a strong love affair, and the research of an expressive artistic language.
She would become a musician; he would become a photographer.
She would get married and have a family; he would lose himself in the underground gay sex club scene of New York.

In this movie Robert Mapplethorpe appears as a beautiful angel, fallen and wasted, who had a great ability to seduce people and use them in order to reach his own goals.
At the end of his short life (he died of AIDS in 1989 at the age of 42) the artist was conscious of being a great photographer, but especially an artist not totally understood.
Mapplethorpe’s nudes were and are outrageous, they scandalise, they anger due to their insolence, but at the same time they propose an ideal of refined classical beauty.
Maybe he was an angel, or maybe he was a devil.
It’s up to you. You’ll decide, after watching the movie, who Mapplethorpe was.

SEE ALSO: Vivian Maier: the pioneer of street photography

Robert Mapplethorpe | Patti Smith

Robert Mapplethorpe, Horses – Patti Smith. Image source: unfototipo.com

Selfportrait | Robert Mapplethorpe

Robert Mapplethorpe – Autoritratto – 1975. Image source: www.fotocommunity.it

 Robert Mapplethorpe | Black And White

Robert Mapplethorpe Black And White on mapplethorpe still life . Image source: www.883zy.com

Mapplethorpe | self-portrait

Mapplethorpe’s 1985 self-portrait. Image source: www.theguardian.com

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