TEAR down

TEAR

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FINAL EXHIBITION Spring 2014

TEAR

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FINAL EXHIBITION Spring 2014

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by Tatyana Valova As the Spring semester 2014 is ending, it is time to sum up our experience at FUA, and its School of Fine Arts, located at F_AIR. In these premises I have been double involved in these past three months: I have been attending the course of Gallery Assistance Experiential Learning and I have been one of the main contributors of F_AIR Ganzo Collective, a group of students who take care of the school’s art events, and collaborates with the local art community.During the semester and in the past few weeks, I was deeply immersed in the process of preparing Tear Down, the exhibition of the students of Fine Arts. As the show is the final project of my curatorial studies, my role was selecting the work and organizing the exhibition itself. After I got the theme of the exhibition (Tear down, as its title) I started to work with a very close coordination with all professors of the art department as well as their students. The idea of the show is quite complicated and broad, and it could be interpreted in many different ways. This is how we have proceeded: each professor explained to their students the topic of the exhibition, in a very personal way. They started by an easy illustration of the topic, referring to artists who litterally and formally“torn down”or “ripped”their pieces in the past (Lucio Fontana, Mimmo Rotella, Raymond Hains), and then they passed to a more conceptual approach. Afterwards it was a matter of interpreting the subject by students, who have to be able to express their ideas, yet conforming to the theme of the exhibition. However, this ambiguous subject gave birth to a mixed and bright show, which includes works of increadible variety, subjectivity, and passion.If the title Tear Down first suggests works about destruction, breaking, demolishion, etc., we are surprize to find on show works that, on the contrary, are about material things, emotions, memories, buildings, cities, and everything else that can be reconstructed somehow. Many students came to the idea that one can start to build up something new from the past, and the ruined. Having spent a semester in such an old city as Florence, was probably crucial for this positive thinking.So, no matter how vast the theme of the exhibition appears to be, our young artists at FUA have found ways to even expand it more, demonstrating that creativity and has no boundaries, and that a single topic can open a great variaty of alternatives, in art as in life.

Casey McCoy Home University: Adelphi University Title: Untitled Technique: mixed media on paper Dimension: 9 x 11 inches Course: Mixed Media Professor: Gaetano Cunsolo

My work repurposes garbage found both on the street and in the home. Using only discarded materials, I seek to expose the potential in what is conventionally ugly. The aim is to reinvent these very colorful and design-orientated bits of waste and repurpose them into an aesthetically pleasing body of work drawing on the overlooked splendors of color, pattern, and texture, in the every day.

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FUA Florence University of the Arts

Juanita Bonilla Gamboa Home University: Baylor University Title: Unititled

caricature of a heart. One side realistic, the other idealistic. One side logical, and the other irrational. Both parts of the same whole.

Medium: clay Dimension: 7 x 9 x 6 inches Course: Advanced ceramics Professor: Gaetano Cunsolo

The dualistic nature of the piece reflects the inner conflict that I struggle with as an artist. The clash consists of me trying to create something profound yet to also create something beautiful for the sake of art itself. Exploring deep and powerful meanings that will touch people and be both equally memorable and important.

In life there is the constant theme of duality; there are two side to everything, almost like a yin and yang, that seems to be essential in order to allow both parts of the whole to exist. For instance, there can be no man without woman, no dark without light, no good without bad. I have taken this theme and tried to successfully apply it, however, it has embodied the underlying reality that I

Is it art if it doesn’t affect people? Is it art if it is not beautiful or aesthetically pleasing? Is it art if it doesn’t take a pie

ce of me once it is done? Threading

this difficult line forces me to be more conscious in regards to my intentions when working on a piece; somehow trying to marry both of these concepts in a cohesive manner.

struggle with as an artist as well.

The sculpture is that of a human heart. It has some veins and arteries coming from the main part. It is split in half, one side takes a more anatomical approach. On the other side, the heart takes a more “traditional” view of a smoother

Without realizing it, the piece embodies my struggles and has helped me understand better my intentions as an artist and some of the goals that I wish to achieve.

Andrea Panebianco Home University: Stony Brook University Title: Liberation Technique: Slab work Dimensions: 28cm x 11cm Course: Beginners Ceramics Professor: Laura De Santis

My chastity belt was largely influenced by my interpretation of the social stigma regarding sexuality of women. This piece carries significant meaning to me because throughout my life I have encountered too much negativity surrounding the idea of women’s sexual liberation. This piece is my attempt to combat society’s views on women and sex. This chastity belt was created entirely from slabs and the center of the belt has been cracked open thanks to the perfectly fitted condom key. It has been spray painted in bronze and weaved with wire to give a rustic effect.

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Parrella Abigail Home university: University of Arizona Title: Fontana Cut Medium: Oil Paint on canvas Dimensions: 3 pieces of different size Course: Intermediate oil painting Professor: Paride Moretti

I wanted to replicate the Fontana Cut in a conceptual piece. By painting the cuts and trying to portray the realism of an actual rip, I was recreating an image of something that was initially done by being destroyed.

Kennedy Bailey Home university: University of South Florida Title: Torn Paint Technique: Oil on Canvas Dimension: 60x45 (2canvases) Course: Intermediate Painting Professor: Paride Moretti

I started my paintings with images of decollages such as Mimmo Rotellas work in mind. As I started to sketch out my compositions and began painting the concept of tearing paper away such as decollages was changed. I was not ripping physical paper or destroying something but rather composing and building through the process of painting tears and rips, which flipped the reality of the concept of the tear.

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Kennedy Bailey Home university: Univeristy of South Florida Title: Tiny Destruction Technique: Punching Holes through paper Dimension: 100x70 (2 Pieces) Course: Fresco Painting Professor: Paride Moretti

This piece is the result from my process of fresco making. In my process I began punching small holes to create a way for my image to be transferred to my sinopia.

Although I began the process of fresco making and used the tools, the piece is no longer about the finished fresco product but rather the end product of me repeatedly punching small holes, slightly destroying the paper and leaving the negative space to create a small image.

Lama Kaddura Home university: Parsons The New School for Design Title: Mother earth speaks to you through every flower.

Medium: Clay, Plaster and Grass Course: Foundation sculpture Professor: Paride Moretti

Almost everyone grows up to wonder where they actually came from. One starts from a root , grows, develops and blossoms.

There are 3 flowers included in this sculpture, to exemplify the epitome of my mother s delivery to 3 current lives. (a brother, a sister and myself).

FUA Florence University of the Arts

Chavez Guadalupe Collins, Brooke Gamboa Bonilla,Juanita Kaddura, Lama Marwan Kurnet, Alexandra Eva-Marie Metzler,Chanel Tirado,Cristina Vivolo,Liliandra Title : The Rippers Medium: ceramic, found objects, cloths Course: Foundation Sculpture Professor: Paride Moretti The rippers are creatures whose origin is not clearly determined and featured variegate. They preferred to move in complete freedom within their habitat, the history of man. Their power ranges from the most varied foods but prefer written paper pages. These creatures are extremely shy and like to hide in the hidden corners of the archives and libraries where they raid files of newspapers and books. Although they are considered pests and evil, scholars recognize them the function of memory scavengers as they allow the knowledge to clean up the weight of the past.

Candice Allen Home University: Florence University of the Arts Title: Tear Down Dyptic - Old and New Technique: Black paper cut into silhouettes placed on larger white paper Dimension: two separate 50 by 70 centimeter pieces Course: Intermediate Drawing Professor: Alessandra Ragionieri

Silhouette one is of the Colosseum and has small bricks coming off of it and flowing to the second silhouette on the other half of the diptic. The second silhouette is of the Empire State Building. The pieces that are leaving the Colosseum and being added to the Empire State Building are helping the skyscraper grow and become stronger. This is to show how over time, the Colosseum will grow weaker and fade away, but the skyscraper will only grow and increase in power. Iconic images of our present and how the past can be so easily overpowered and soon torn away and forgotten.

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Elisa DeCastro Home university: Fairfield University Title: Tearing Down of Earth Medium: Watercolor and Tempera/Gouaches Techniques Dimension: 21 x 29,7 cm Course: Watercolor and drawing Professor: Alessandra Ragionieri

There is only one planet known to sustain human life, and that is Earth. It is for this reason that I wanted to shed light on a major environmental issue that is occurring in today’s day and age- pollution. Pollution is the presence or introduction of harmful poisons and contaminants to the environment. It is the presence of these poisons and contaminants that are not only causing adverse and negative change to the environment, but are ultimately tearing down Earth. As such, I find that there is no better way to present the phrase and concept of tearing down as through pollution. My artwork is a representation of the tearing down of Earth. Throughout my artwork there is a pattern of harsh shading with pencil, which is representative of the tearing down of the beauty and purity of Earth.

Nelson De Jesus Home university: Parsons The New School for Design Title: Tear of a City Medium: Charcoal Dimension: 50cmX70cm Course: Advanced Drawing Professor: Alessandra Regionieri

New York has grown over centuries from the simplest forms of settlements to the metropolitan that it is today. It is the case of the Twin Towers where façade was composed of a motif that made out the entire envelop of the structures. Such motif is the focus behind my project, as I wanted to represent the towers in their purest form. In both of my pieces, such Iron motif appears in different conditions reflecting life span of the towers. In the left piece, the creation of the towers is represented while on the second piece; it’s their destruction and what is left of them. Each of the pieces also has one of the towers in their background as a memory of what was once the financial center of New York.

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Elizabeth Keto Gap Year Student Title: Diptych: Self-Portrait With Three Cities Medium: Watercolor on paper Dimension: Two sheets each 35 x 50 cm Course: Watercolor and Tempera/Gouache Techniques Professor: Alessandra Ragionieri

“Tear down” evoked to me the tearing down of buildings, the destruction of cities. In my work, I hoped to explore why tearing down inanimate structures can have a profound effect on human lives. I hoped to express that the cities we inhabit are built not only of brick and stone, but also of meaning and memory.

My diptych represents my identity in the context of Boston, where I was born, Washington, DC, where I live, and Florence.

The first panel represents my profile surrounded by well-known landmarks of these cities. The second represents places and things that are meaningful to me within them. In these panels, the city is both the figure and the background, both the setting for my story and a key player in that story.

Alexandra Kunert Home University: Baylor University Title: Duplicity Medium: Charcoal Size: 70x100cm Course: Advanced Drawing Professor: Alessandra Ragionieri

The theme for this semester is “tear down.� I interpreted this by tearing down social barriers. This piece is an internal tear down of who people see me as , and how I really feel.

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Madeline Warner Home University: University of San Francisco Title: Untitled Technique: watercolor and ink Dimension: 12 x 25 cm each (6 pieces) Course: Watercolor and Tempera/Gouaches Techniques Professor: Alessandra Ragionieri

For the theme of “tear down” I wanted to work more personally, so I did a series of six “portraits” of my eyes. I think the eyes can communicate a lot of emotion, and I wanted to tap into this as I explored different poses and tried to communicate different things with each.

Growing up I was a person who never showed emotion and always wanted to hide what I was feeling. So for this project I wanted to paint something that would tear down these walls I had put up between my self and the world and show something true about myself.

Thales Alves Title: Untitled Technique: Collage and Markers Dimensions: 594mm×841mm Couse: Foundation Drawing Professor: Nicoletta Salomon

“The work explores, with an urban concept, the world around us now a days. The collage in asymmetric cuts reverses the function of the newspaper, wich is to inform, making a confusion in the viewer with a large amount of visual information. This is a reflection on the society of technological advancement that makes possible to receive information through various channels.

Our world is a “connected” world as well as lonely one. It is made of antitheses that cause people to have their fears increasing within their inner world: these Fears are represented by skulls.

One speaks about Death, the biggest controversy in the world, another one looks scared. For others it is the only solution to be free.”

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

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down Parella Abigail, Candice Allen, Thales Alves, Kennedy Bailey, Guadelupe Chavez, Brooke Collins, Elisa DeCastro, Nelson De Jesus, Juanita Bonilla Gamboa, Lama Kaddura, Elizabeth Keto, Alexandra Eva-Marie Kurnet, Casey McCoy, Chanel Metzler, Andrea Panebianco, Cristina Tirado, Liliandra Vivolo, Madeline Warner May 7 – May 13, 2014 Professors Gaetano Cunsolo - Mixed Media, Intermediate and Advanced Ceramics Laura De Santis - Ceramics Beginning Paride Moretti - Florence Sketchbook, Fresco Painting, Painting, Foundation Sculpture Alessandra Ragionieri - Watercolor and Tempera/Gouaches Techniques, Intermediate and Advanced Drawing, Foundation Painting Nicoletta Salomon - Foundation Drawing Catalog Texts Tatyana Valova Graphics Alberto Simoncioni Logistic and Technical Support F_AIR Ganzo Collective Press Office Palazzi Susanna Bausi Welcome SpeechF_AIR Ganzo Collective A special thanks to Gabriella Ganugi - President of Palazzi and Florence University of The Arts Ganzo and its great staff F_AIR Ganzo Collective is a selected group of students of Florence University of the Arts, which manages, organizes, and curates exhibitions and art events. Coordinated by Lucia Giardino and Antonio Locafaro, Spring 2014 F_AIR Ganzo Collective includes students Lama Kaddura, Ivana Malvoni, Lisa Torquato and Tatyana Valova.