VENUS
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Gallery
VENUS Gallery
VENUS Gallery is a WorldcApp initiative. WorldcApp has designed and developed a Digital Platform (patent application filed on 11 December 2020, n.102020000030593) for Award/Prize/Reward Competitions as well as Media/Business/Non-Profit Communities and B2C Companies which want to take full advantage of an “army” of Micro, Small, Medium, Big and VIP Influencers working seamlessly together. Cover: Marc Evans - www.marc-evans.com Copyright: All contents in this issue belong to their respective owners. Reproduction of these contents, without the explicit consent of the legitimate owners, is prohibited. Address and Contacts: Bastioni di Porta Nuova, 21 20121 Milan (MI), Italy www.venus.gallery - info@venus.gallery WorldcApp.com - info@worldcapp.com VAT number: 10987970968 Legal: WorldcApp.com/legal Printed by Blurb.com Milan 2021
. VENUS Gallery
“Beauty will save the world” (Fëdor Dostoevskij) Beauty will save the world because for the most part it comes from creativity and so, from (creative) minds that are the product of a keen interest and involvement in the world of culture and all that it has to offer. Think about LEGO for a moment. With a mountain of bricks in front of us but strangely all in the same shape, size and colour, we’d have no problem at all in building something on an impressive scale, yet in terms of our capacity of expression we’d find our hands severely tied.
Put a vast range of pieces at our disposal, and we’d see ideas coming together with only one obstacle in their way to becoming a reality: our creativity. This quality is in fact nothing other than the extent to which our minds are capable of acquiring, linking and combining elements (bricks) that differ in nature and shape. Now imagine replacing Lego with culture, and, instead of bricks, having inspiring events to work with. Here too, we’d find that the quality of the ideas that we come up with is very closely tied in with our own creativity and, therefore, with the very many different aspects of our involvement in a range of experiences that we’re able to draw on.
Vision .
Index
Marc Evans
Stefan Gesell
Alessandro Risuleo
Alex Comaschi
Andrea Cencini
Patrizia Moretti
Domenico Monteleone
www.venus.gallery
Vision Culture isn’t a form of entertainment restricted to a limited few. It isn’t an area dominated by an élite, nor is it a hat that we put on in order to show the world just how smart we are. It isn’t a diploma or a certificate that gives others an idea of just how many museums we’ve visited, or how many books we’ve read. Above all, it is not a pedestal from which to look down on others with some sort of sense of superiority. Yet all too often we come across examples like these. When we talk about culture, we refer collectively to manifestations of the excellence of human intellect spanning art, science, design, photography, etc… - that are all ranked on an equal footing. There’s no longer any call for an ‘A’ class and ‘B’ class distinction. The choices that we make should be driven by our own interdisciplinary curiosity alone and not by outdated classifications and contrasts between what we often referred to as highbrow and lowbrow culture. The good news is that this democratisation process is underway and it’s clearly shown by some visionary views like these: A journalist and broadcaster from London - Pandora Sykes - wrote in an insightful article on the Pirelli calendar phenomenon that “to dismiss it as a collection of ‘pin-ups’ would be to misunderstand its role and its cultural weight … the Pirelli calendar may have begun as a homage to world-famous beautiful women, but it has long segued into a destination for impactful storytelling and progressive thinking”. An italian architect - Massimiliano Fuksas - once said in an interview that if his source of inspiration had been limited to architecture alone, he may well have simply spent his time creating poor copies and rehashed designs of buildings constructed in the past, albeit with new materials. When Leonard Bernstein heard someone applauding at the wrong point during a concert (thereby committing the worst of all offences in the world of classical music!) rather than displaying the snob’s approach that sees culture confined within its elitist boundaries, he instead cried out: “at long last, we’ve got someone new in the audience!”. Well, imagine what the world would be like if the innovative and openminded approach shown by Sykes and the cross-disciplinary and cultural curiosity like that demonstrated by Fuksas were encouraged on a regular basis by receiving the warm welcome offered like Bernstein’s! Culture would no longer be regarded as an end in itself, but as a never-ending source of life-enriching opportunities and experiences that our creativity could combine and re-combine in order to produce quality ideas and useful solutions. This is the vision behind VENUS Gallery: a platform (not just a magazine) contributing to unveiling that beauty is the tip of a huge (cultural) iceberg which has the potential to become an engine for the economy, society and innovation.
The VENUS Gallery TEAM
Marc Evans
“Born in Liverpool.
At the age of 8 I knew I wanted to become a photographer so, after I finished my A-levels, I made an apprenticeship in north Germany for 3 years to get closer to my dream.
Right after I finished and officially became a photographer I started working freelance in Germany and England.
My base now, after traveling the world, is in the fashion capital: Milan, where I’m still chasing my dream every day.
I LOVE MY JOB.”
#Street
#Fashion
“Beauty will save the world” (Fëdor Dostoevskij) Beauty will save the world because for the most part it comes from creativity and so, from (creative) minds that are the product of a keen interest and involvement in the world of culture and all that it has to offer.
“Think about LEGO for a moment” With a mountain of bricks in front of us but strangely all in the same shape, size and colour, we’d have no problem at all in building something on an impressive scale, yet in terms of our capacity of expression we’d find our hands severely tied.
Put a vast range of pieces at our disposal, and we’d see ideas coming together with only one obstacle in their way to becoming a reality: our creativity. This quality is in fact nothing other than the extent to which our minds are capable of acquiring, linking and combining elements (bricks) that differ in nature and shape.
Alessandro Risuleo
“The war had thrust me, as a soldier, into the heart of a mechanical atmosphere. Here I discovered the beauty of the fragment. I sensed a new reality in the detail of a machine, in the common object. I tried to find the plastic value of these fragments of our modern life. I rediscovered them on the screen in the close-ups of objects which impressed and influenced me.”
Fernand Léger (1923)
Ban
“I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed.”
Garry Winogrand
“The camera is a fluid way of encountering that other reality.”
Jerry N. Uelsmann
Stefan Gesell
“Photography is a tool for dealing with things everybody knows about but isn’t attending to. My photographs are intended to represent something you don’t see.”
Emmet Gowin
#Culture Culture isn’t a form of entertainment restricted to a limited few.
It isn’t an area dominated by an élite, nor is it a hat that we put on in order to show the world just how smart we are.
It isn’t a diploma or a certificate that gives others an idea of just how many museums we’ve visited, or how many books we’ve read.
Above all, it is not a pedestal from which to look down on others with some sort of sense of superiority.
Yet all too often we come across examples like these.
Alex Comaschi
“My best photo is the one I have yet to shoot”
#Culture When we talk about culture, we refer collectively to manifestations of the excellence of human intellect spanning art, science, design, photography, etc… - that are all ranked on an equal footing. There’s no longer any call for an ‘A’ class and ‘B’ class distinction.
The choices that we make should be driven by our own interdisciplinary curiosity alone and not by outdated classifications and contrasts between what we often referred to as highbrow and lowbrow culture.
#Creativity The quality of the ideas that we come up with is very closely tied in with our own creativity and, therefore, with the very many different aspects of our involvement in a range of experiences that we’re able to draw on.
#Democratization A journalist and broadcaster from London - Pandora Sykes - wrote in an insightful article on the Pirelli calendar phenomenon that “to dismiss it as a collection of ‘pin-ups’ would be to misunderstand its role and its cultural weight … the Pirelli calendar may have begun as a homage to world-famous beautiful women, but it has long segued into a destination for impactful storytelling and progressive thinking”.
“You can photograph anything now.” Robert Frank
“These people live again in print as intensely as when their images were captured on the old dry plates of sixty years ago… I am walking in their alleys, standing in their rooms and sheds and workshops, looking in and out of their windows. And they in turn seem to be aware of me.”
Ansel Adams (from the Preface to Jacob A. Riis: Photographer & Citizen - 1974)
Patrizia Moretti
“If I were just curious, it would be very hard to say to someone, “I want to come to your house and have you talk to me and tell me the story of your life.” I mean people are going to say, “You’re crazy.” Plus they’re going to keep mighty guarded. But the camera is a kind of license. A lot of people, they want to be paid that much attention and that’s a reasonable kind of attention to be paid.”
Diane Arbus
Cross-disciplinary Curiosity An italian architect - Massimiliano Fuksas - once said in an interview that if his source of inspiration had been limited to architecture alone, he may well have simply spent his time creating poor copies and re-hashed designs of buildings constructed in the past, albeit with new materials.
“As I progressed further with my project, it became obvious that it was really unimportant where I chose to photograph. The particular place simply provided an excuse to produce work… You can only see what you are ready to see—what mirrors your mind at that particular time.”
George Tice
#NoSnob When Leonard Bernstein heard someone applauding at the wrong point during a concert (thereby committing the worst of all offences in the world of classical music!) rather than displaying the snob’s approach that sees culture confined within its elitist boundaries, he instead cried out: “at long last, we’ve got someone new in the audience!”.
Andrea Cencini
“Only with effort can the camera be forced to lie: basically it is an honest medium: so the photographer is much more likely to approach nature in a spirit of inquiry, of communion, instead of with the saucy swagger of self-dubbed “artists.” And contemporary vision, the new life, is based on honest approach to all problems, be they morals or art. False fronts to buildings, false standards in morals, subterfuges and mummery of all kinds, must be, will be scrapped.”
Edward Weston
Domenico Monteleone
“I long to have such a memorial of every being dear to me in the world. It is not merely the likeness which is precious in such cases—but the association and the sense of nearness involved in the thing… the fact of the very shadow of the person lying there fixed forever! It is the very sanctification of portraits I think—and it is not at all monstrous in me to say, what my brothers cry out against so vehemently, that I would rather have such a memorial of one I dearly loved, than the noblest artist’s work ever produced.”
Elizabeth Barrett (1843, letter to Mary Russell Mitford)
“If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn’t need to lug a camera.”
Lewis Hine
“I longed to arrest all beauty that came before me, and at length the longing has been satisfied.”
Julia Margaret Cameron
#Vision This is the vision behind VENUS Gallery: a platform (not just a magazine) contributing to unveiling that beauty is the tip of a huge (cultural) iceberg which has the potential to become an engine for the economy, society and innovation.
“I went to Marseille. A small allowance enabled me to get along, and I worked with enjoyment. I had just discovered the Leica. It became the extension of my eye, and I have never been separated from it since I found it. I prowled the streets all day, feeling very strung-up and ready to pounce, determined to “trap” life—to preserve life in the act of living. Above all, I craved to seize the whole essence, in the confines of one single photograph, of some situation that was in the process of unrolling itself before my eyes.”
Henri Cartier-Bresson
The.VENUS.Gallery A unique collection of images to affirm the artistic and cultural value of woman-centered art photography. The published shots, selected in a climate of fair competition guaranteed by the WorldcApp platform, belong to the always mentioned owners.
VENUS Gallery www.venus.gallery