Art Opening at Selegie Arts Center, Singapore

SERENDIPITY II from October 3 – 7, 2019

On the walls, visitors found what curator Fiorenza De Monti said both artists spent many years away from their original homes and were drawing their inspiration from memories.

The curator Fiorenza De Monti (middle) with the two artists.

Indeed, inspired from Frédérique Stref’s and Kieu Hanh Morel’s serendipitous encounter in Singapore, the exhibition featured abstract and figurative works stemming from the artist’s memories and experiences. Both of them grew up in creative environments. Morel learnt to draw from her architect father and this skill heavily informs her current practice of painting from photographs. Stref spent her childhood in her father’s glass-making workshop in Nancy, where she became fascinated with the spellbinding translucent density of Pâte de verre, a fascination that later influenced her to turn to encaustic painting.

Morel’s oil and acrylic paintings express a nostalgia for her homeland through idealised depictions of its rural world and inhabitants, in the traditional Vietnamese figurative style. Stref’s encaustic paintings capture the impressions gathered by her senses in the different countries she visited, resulting in images that are both abstract and tangible.

The exhibition brought together artworks inspired from different cultural backgrounds, sensibilities and techniques, which confront the viewer with personal outlooks on the world.

Climbing the steps up and emerging into space dominated by light and permeated by sounds of visitors interacting with art, you knew you’re at Selegie Arts Center.

Slovenia Street Art

Picasso, Kulturspeicher Wuerzburg

Picasso, Tête de Faune, Kopf des Faun, 1962, Farblinolschnitt, Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, © Succes~1

Kulturspeicher Wuerzburg

till January 17, 2016.

Graphics from the Kunstpalast Museum’s collection, Duesseldorf.

Pablo Picasso is, without a doubt, the most famous artist of the 20th century. The artist was not only active as a painter and sculptor, but also left behind an extensive collection of graphic works. From his first etching in 1904 until the last years of his life, prints remained an integral part of his work, totalling eventually 2.400 images.

Picasso, Françoise, 1946, Farblithographie, Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, © Succession PicassoVG Bild~1

One is amazed not only by the magnitude of this productivity, but also by the technical diversity of his graphics. Picasso made use of the full spectrum of graphic techniques, ranging from drypoint, aquatint, lithography and linocut, to rare and complex methods such as sugar lift and experimental combinations of various techniques.

Picasso, Trois Nus debout, Drei stehende Akte, 1927, Radierung, Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, © Succe~1

The themes of his graphics mirror his entire painting universe: figurative representations with portrait characteristics appear alongside still lives, animal illustrations and allegorical and mythological scenes. Most of the time, they were linked to his personal fortunes, often a direct reflection of his daily routine. Whenever he was inspired by literary works, he took the freedom of reinterpreting the original texts and gave characters, such as the bull-man „Minotaur“, both positive and negative features.

Picasso, Maternité, Mutterschaft, 1924, Radierung, Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, © Succession Picasso~1

With a total of 73 prints, the Stiftung Kunstmuseum Duesseldorf (Duesseldorf Art Museum Foundation) possesses a graphic cross-section of most of the artist’s creative phases from the 1920s on. Among these are unique prints, such as the rare 1924 etching „Maternité“ (Maternity) or the 1929 figure (Bather Opening a Cabin), as well as series and portfolios such as the illustrations for the story „Chef d’oeuvre inconnu“ (1952) by Honoré de Balzac, or prints from the famous „Suite Vollard“, a series of graphics purchased from Picasso by the art dealer Ambroise Vollard, which was only published after Vollard’s death at the end of the 1940s.

Picasso, Le départ, Der Aufbruch, 1951, Farblithographie, Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, © Succession ~1

The portfolio of bullfighting depictions „La Tauromaquia“ (1959) – inspired by José Delgado y Galvet’s book which explained, for the first time in 1796, the process of bullfighting – is complete, as well as the enigmatic series „Poèmes et Lithographies“ (1960), where, on each plate, Picasso inscribed individual, somewhat surreal handwritten texts which contrast with the masterful illustrations.

Picasso, Tête de taureau, tournée à gauche, Stierkopf, nach links gedreht, 1948, Lithographie, Museum ~1

Picasso, Paloma et Claude, 1950, Farblithographie, Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf © Succession PicassoV~1

In a 1968 multiple-figures scene, which is part of a vast graphic series, the 87-year old artist reunites once again the themes of his painting theatre: painter and model, the different stages of life, allegories of freedom (the lamb), masculine strength (the horse), tamed by the tender gesture of the figure on the right, and erotic obsessions – so to speak the banishment of fear, just a few years before the artist’s death, and the longing for mythical happiness.

Picasso, Petite Tête de femme couronnée, Kleiner Frauenkopf mit Krone, 1962, Farblinolschnitt, Museum ~1

On the occasion of the exhibition at the Museum im Kulturspeicher in Wuerzburg, the collection of Picasso’s graphic works from the Kunstmuseum Duesseldorf will be published for the first time. A selection of photographs, taken by Hubertus Hierl in 1966 when Picasso was visiting a bullfight in Arles, complete the exhibition.

Picasso, Figure, Figur (Badende in der Kabine), 1929, Lithographie, Museum Kunstpalast Düsseldorf, © S~1

Santa Fe Street Art

Spass und Gemuetlichkeit (Fun and well being)

Food, fun and festivity is celebrated in the “Spass and Gemutlichkeit”-murals painted by local artist Brent McCarthy. It pays tribute to the beloved “Krause’s Café”, a locals gathering place for over 60 years, as well as New Braunfels’ rich tradition of sausage, bread, beer and wine. Dedicated on April 19, 2007, it is located on Krause Strasse in New Braunfels, Texas.

Not to forget, New Braunfels was founded by German immigrants in 1845.

Yaffah Kanfitine, Painter, Lomé

I visit the Togolese painter Yaffah Kanfitine in his small studio in Togo’s capital Lomé. He specializes in contemporary art and started with painting in the year 2000. He never attended any art school.

“I am an autodidact”, he admits. Yaffah is 32 years old and was born in a small village near Lomé. “It is very difficult to live of art”, he says. “But being a painter is just the dream of my life.” He is always looking for special topics. Now he chose education. “All the school pupils have their own history. That is what interests me.”

Some years ago he taught art in the school of his village. “The kids told me their stories and I got the inspiration for that project.”
Yaffah had already expositions of his work in other West African countries, as in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso.
“For the future I love to exhibit more internationally, specially also in Europe and USA.”