ANIMA MUNDI ACADEMIA Art Magazine

ANIMA MUNDI ACADEMIA Art Magazine / ISSUE 07

ISSN 2783-6053

Publisher VSI ANIMA MUNDI ACADEMIA

Curator & Art Director

Zita Vilutyte iaf.animamundi@gmail.com

Writing by Jurgis Dieliautas fenomenon@splius.lt

ANIMA MUNDI ACADEMIA

Mussamat Alia Sultana

ANIMA MUNDI ACADEMIA

Interviews by Zita Vilutyte

Collectors pages curated by Ricardas Jakutis

Edition by Vilija Salomaa

Creative consultant

Renay E. Morris

Marketing Director

Alfredo Scialla

Designer Eva Fursalova

Copy-writing

ANIMA MUNDI ACADEMIA

Operation & Distribution

ANIMA MUNDI ACADEMIA

Edition

SPRING, 2023

Location LITHUANIA

ANIMA MUNDI ACADEMIA 2023 – All rights reserved www.iaf-animamundi-ma.com

www.iaf-animamundi-art.com

iaf.animamundi@gmail.com

ORIGINAL Edition of SPRING, 2023 is not responsible for the opinions of collaborators. Total or partial reproduction of any written of graphic content appearing in this publication or its online version is strictly prohibited without the express written permission of the publisher.

Cover image: Marcel Hoppenbrouwers (Netherlands), Title: “Eppur Si Muove“, oils on panel, 24 x 18 cm

These days, when there is so much art and “pseudo-art”, when art is so easily accessible, seen, heard, felt in various real and virtual spaces, the very common notion of authenticity raises many questions for the artist and also for the viewer. What really is art? How much of it is simply the artist’s self-realization, and how much is the ability to see the features of the structure of being, the subtle connections of life, and the essence of deep phenomena, their complexity and truth? Is art what breaks up the monotony of life? Is it an organic connection of the artist with the images of reality through a sense of inner truth? Is it the pursuit of persuasiveness in external things?

...”Being yourself”, is it a moral ideal or self-indulgence? Super realization gives life a charm, but is there anything noble about it? These days, it often becomes a form of selfishness and therefore, allows one to go astray, because, in fact, the essential force of the ideal of moral authenticity is lost in it. Maintaining authenticity becomes moderate realism and no longer emphasizes the moral ideal. Our culture is dominated by subjectivity. Moral principles are not based on the mind or the nature of things, they are chosen by everyone. Does man today care about things beyond his self? Human moral views are generally independent of reason, moral beliefs are mere projections that cannot be changed by reason and disguised self-indulgence. Indeed, living with an unrealized ideal creates a lot of tension and the forms of self-expression raise many doubts, they often do not ennoble, but decline. In modern culture, a person seems to slip into his own “I”, and the ideals created by him, while high culture approaches nihilism, denying all manifestations of meaning. Indeed, morality has its own inner voice. The source that human must connect with is deep within us. After reaching it, a person begins to perceive himself as a being with an inner depth. Human needs languages of human expression. When we are enriched with them, we become full-fledged, self-understanding, and able to define our own identity. There are many of those languages. Most often, we learn them by communicating with other people, with those who are important to us. The genesis of the human mind is not monological, but dialogic. Dialogue always takes place with significant other people or with one’s inner self. Some of the good things in life become available to a person only thanks to such a dialogue, because a large part of our understanding is transformed precisely through sharing those good things with people we love or who become important to us. An original way of life and original creativity do not emerge from the social structure, it is matured within…

Zita Vilutyte Curator & Art Director

AN ORIGINAL WAY OF LIFE AND ORIGINAL CREATIVITY

DO NOT EMERGE FROM THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE, IT IS MATURED WITHIN…

EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY CERTIFICATION FOR ART MUSEUMS, EXHIBITIONS SPACES, AND COLLECTIONS

By David Hinojosa Admann (dhadmann@odbk.tk) Organization for the Democratization of the Visual Arts (ODBK, e.V.) www.odbk.tk

DHAdmann, Museum Friderianum 2022 Kassel, Germany

Calls for greater inclusion in terms of diversity, equality, accessibility, and inclusion in museums, art galleries as contemporary art spaces in general, regarding social groups, such as staff, audience, artists, which have recently become hard to ignore: the leadership remains white, well-educated, wealthy (predominantly) men and women, and exhibitions lack in the representation and accuracy of our multicultural times1

Drawing on curatorial practice theory and critical race theory, contemporary museums own these collected, and often stolen artifacts, and in many cases still are, displayed for the benefit of middle- to upper-class, well-educated, and white audiences. Museums that are still working within this exclusive framework are not fulfilling their public roles. Essentially, these museums are maintaining hegemonic structures and perpetuating discriminatory norms that have prevailed in the art world for so long. Indeed, the construction of knowledge in art museums is not neutral; it “is socially produced and reflective of power relations of the society in which it is situated”2. In western countries, knowledge and content displayed in contemporary art spaces have long been constructed by the white upper class, which has held almost exclusive authority over decisions regarding what objects are worthy of being housed and presented in art museum collections3. An art museum exhibition is a statement of the position or perspective of the curator(s) by whom it was created.

“Any museum or exhibition is...a theory: a suggested way of seeing the world. And, like any theory, it may offer insight and illumination. At the same time, it contains certain assumptions, speaks to some matters and ignores others, and is intimately bound up with – and capable of affecting – broader social and cultural relations.”4

Building on research on curatorial practices, critical race theory, queer and feminist studies as well as Crip theory, critiques against the practices of the curation organization have been increasing; what artists it chooses to

DHAdmann, Roman Ondak Installation, Pinakothek der Moderne 2022, Munich, Germany

DHAmdnan, Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, Venice Biennale 2022, Venice Italy

DHAdmann, Institution Otherwise FINEART Summer School 2022, Friedrichshafen, Germany

represent, what objects it chooses to collect, and how it reaches out to marginalized communities. According to a recent study (2019) of the permanent collections of 18 large art museums in the U.S., 87% of the over 10 000 featured artists are male, and 85% are white5. Similarly, in her recent book called Diversity Counts: Gender, Race, and Representations in Canadian Art Galleries (2019), Anne Dymond, a researcher in art history and museum studies, has quantified the gender and race balance of art exhibitions in Canada by examining the gender of contemporary artists, who had solo shows in public contemporary Canadian art spaces between 2000 and 2010. Her choice of focusing particularly on contemporary art relies on the argument that historical biases would be then less persistent. However, her quantitative and qualitative analysis reveals that while some galleries have made some progress and are relatively equitable, many continue to marginalize females and racialize artists6. Although the study does not document every marginalized group,

such as LGBTIQ+ communities or people with disabilities, other studies show how they are also excluded from collections and exhibits. This urge to decolonize contemporary art spaces is becoming more at every level (academia, museum staff, state) more present and the process has only accelerated radically in 2020 after a groundswell of support for the Black Lives Matter movement. A few well-known institutions have recently made some bold statements or actions, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in announcing last year that it intended to build a $10 million acquisitions endowment for works by BIPOC artists or the Baltimore Museum of Art, in 2018, sold off a group of works by white male artists to create a fund to acquire examples by women and artists of color7. Museums themselves are experiencing a global awakening to their power and practice as agents of activism. Despite very promising work in these and other greater areas, greater efforts and changes are needed. Contemporary art spaces need to engage in deep critical reflection regarding their practices.

DHAdmann, Barbara Kruger Installation Venice Biennale 2022, Venice Italy

1. Cole, Johnnetta B., and Laura L. Lott. Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, and Inclusion in Museums. 2019. Print. American Alliance of Museums.

2. Tucker, M. (1992). “Who’s on first?” Issues of cultural equity in today’s museums. Different voices (9-16). New York: Association of Art Museum Directors.

3. Duncan, C. (1995). Civilizing rituals: Inside public art museums. London: Routledge.

4. Macdonald, Sharon (1996). “Theorizing museums: an introduction”. In S. Macdonald & G. Fyfe (Eds.). Theorizing museums: Representing identity and diversity in a changing world. 1-18. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

5. Topaz CM, Klingenberg B, Turek D, Heggeseth B, Harris PE, Blackwood JC, et al. (2019) « Diversity of artists in major U.S. museums ». PLoS ONE 14(3).

6. Dymond Anne. 2019. Diversity Counts: Gender, Race, and Representations in Canadian Art Galleries. McGill-Queen’s University Press.

7. https://news.artnet.com/art-world/baltimore-deaccessioning-proceeds-1309481

The Equality and Diversity Certification for Art Museums, Exhibitions Spaces, and Collections

Launched in 2021, « The Organization for the Democratization of the Visual Arts (ODBK), The Equality and Diversity Certification for Art Museums, Exhibitions Spaces and Collections» is aprogram initiated and operated by the ODBK that publicly recognizes those art organizations that demonstrate a history of and commitment to voluntarily making the art world more equal,diverse, inclusive, and democratic. The objective is to make sure that the artists, represented in the art world as well as the people who create artwork and run cultural organizations, reflects the way our world looks and feels today, and the same goes for the audience as well. The objectives of this program are: firstly, to create a mechanism that ensures an art world where artists as well the artistic work are adequately represented; secondly, to build the bases for the curatorial work of contemporary art spaces, such as museums or art galleries, that ensures equality and diversity in the selection of the artists as well as in the artworks; and finally, to promote and motivate the contemporary art space to create a continuous, open perception and strong embracement of a more diverse kind of artists and artworks.

DHAdmann, ¿Dondè estàn las mujeres? Kaluz Museum 2022, Mexico City

Symposium to create the Alignments for Curatorial and Collection practices and processes for Museums and Contemporary Art Spaces

Therefore, a base document or a guide is completely necessary to carry out the decision-making process for the artists selected and collected by the museums, exhibition spaces, public and private collections. Currently, this guide does not exist even as a suggestion. This decisionmaking process for many years has been characterized by autocracy or/and some kind of representative democracy model, because of the lack of interest and ignorance from curators and art museum directors of how to create diversity, equality and inclusion for the artists selected and collected. The ODBK has set itself the task of bringing together artists, academics, art lovers, art collectors, etc., to create this document and distribute it among all art museums of the world, organizing a symposium from 15 until 18 June 2023. The document will be a project that will be alive all the time and the symposium will continue indefinitely after the 18th of June, picking up all new processes, corrections, texts, research, etc., integrating and publishing new versions of the document. Diversity, equality, and inclusion are evolutive characteristics of our society and the country that host museum, art collections, or art spaces. This document pretends to be a legacy for all art spaces of the world that are interested to create equality, diversity, and inclusion in their curatorial and collection practices. At the same time, this document will also be one of the bricks of the Equality and Diversity Certification for Art Museum, Exhibition spaces, and Collections process. To keep informed about the symposium register or visit the ODBK website www.odbk.tk and support this project with a donation to help to create a fairest, most diverse, equal, and inclusive art world.

Photo DHAdmann, Skuja Braden Installation Venice Biennale 2022, Venice Italy

DHAdmann, Mauerpark 2022 Berlin, Germany

E SSAY

Jurgis Dieliautas Anima Mundi Academia

A concrete work always frames its suppressed reality and its own certainty in its own way, thus, creating its own necessary frame. Sometimes a normal frame that is not noticeable. How imperceptible the usual window frame remains as a neutral outline. But sometimes, in a moment of aesthetic or poetic excitement, in the euphoria of perception or impact, just then that usual outline of the window begins to quiver, rave, move, tremble with its own compositional or color rhythm. The visible static of the work turns into a flow, a labile, flexible course. The work is a multifaceted frame, which in this way transforms, easily transforms into a solution, a mediated solution. This is how photography turns into water, water of brightness and coherence, a compositional fixation texture, identification circles, a flow of vision. Thus, in the frame of the painting canvas, in the very outline of the canvas, layers of colors begin to tremble, spots and spots begin to shine, color lines bend under their own weight. The silk fabric under the tension of the textile work, its frame, begins to spread its color plume due to its unbearable lightness. Accurate and strikingly similar, physiological

anatomical features lose their natural coherence. Gestures and movements, appeals and intentions in the dance movement, in the stage light, begin to ripple in the competition of tension, suggestion, exchange. The performance scene attempts to frame or frame other, unremembered, and already performed or intended to perform scenes. A plastic pose in the expression of light frames a possible movement, a possible aesthetic appeal. The frame frames, but it is more difficult to distinguish the variety of framing itself on the dynamic principle. To separate and find all the divisions which direct the flows of meanings, meanings, emotions, rhetoric in different directions. To separate all differences, divisions, what is framed, limited, from what is being framed. Find intensive graphemes in the graphic game, line obstacles, bends, loops, turns, which control the graphic weight and pressure of the socems. The medium of art is a complicated, problematic storage, and container of constraints, restraints. The frame protects and leaves in its scope, presents an open field of view, offers the action to fit in, the figures to gather and unite in this cavity. A capacious storage, a storage of dynamic traces, an expressive figurative or completely abstract pulpit of forms. A cache is sometimes understood as a repository of resources, deferred and aggregated decisions. The frame controls the resources of action and capability, actor and action. In a long and careful look, boundaries dissolve, narrowness and insecurity no longer remain, and new desires open up. As the solution flows, some traces disappear and completely different traces are created. Landscape traces turn into traces of a face, traces of bodily expression, physical symbolism become an ornamental texture. Performance is a frame and the performer has a frame for his action. The performer is in the frame of his actions and his moods, in his rhythmic course, in the soluble, fragile, loose medium of his situation. The piece being performed introduces hearing into the image, the vision becomes the acoustics of perception, the mood heard and listened to during the rhapsody settles into the background of the vision. The colors start to sound, after reaching the limits of hearing, they return to their performance. An image, an action, a figure, it’s a performance, sometimes pre-reflexive, pre-verbal, an unexpected rise, an

unexpected opening, full of squealing or fluttering, leading to anxiety or fear of performance. Performance frames performance, image frames representation, acoustics frames sound. Looking around and inspecting, the effective efforts of going around and looking around bring diversity to life, break up passive unity. Formed, concentrated meanings with their whole set-up are approaching. The work is a framed medium, a framed selection, where there is no longer a conflict between form and frame. Where matter itself slowly loses its precision and expands its resolution. A survey is a scout, looking for unexpected and unexpected attributes, unpredictable setups or parameters. We look at the medium, we look through the medium. Through the photographic still water, through the reflections and flashes, through the furious paleness, we look elsewhere. We do not only look at the medium of the work or creation. When looking through the window of the frame, the frame is no longer visible, because the frame expands, the limits in the vertical and horizontal direction of the frame become an imperceptible shift. Colors in oil layers add depth to their layers. The frames of the figure in the sculpture find their shadows in the change of light. The fresco begins to show its fragmented plot. A more complex practice, a more complex view, when we look at something through it and feel the effect of the work’s medium, the breakthrough, in a completely different way. That is how power looks, the power of disruption speaks. The interference power is the background, the background power of the image. The scratched, time-cracked image of the canvas directs the gaze deeper, to the origins. The plastic texture of the sculpture begins to bulge uncomfortably in bright daylight. The plastic material becomes light in the tension of the gesture; it loses the burden of a rock or a stone. Shadows disappear and do not interfere, other disturbances are born and approach. Plastic characters, figure tones, carved, polished movements pause in a moment of insight or doubt. In the plane of the blink, the motionless background of photography stirs, trembles, and becomes the impatience of perception. The medium is an expanded solution, a cooled, scattered, congealed or otherwise indirectly opened solution of movements and actions, static

micro-beams. The unfrozen grass during the winter, the contrast of the black earth, all this is a solution of the variability of colors, their exchange. Cyclic play is a game of outline, a game that has turned, changed itself, absorbed itself anew, and danced. This is already a mental, procedural game. A game needs a game, a game needs players. Sometimes these are players with pictorial attributes, mimetic attributes. The ones, which speak from the color, graphic, marble plane. Because the very matter of the work speaks, the matter of expression and intelligence.

Sometimes distance, distance, distance is a wide, self-expanding game of perception, a game of renunciation and renunciation, waiting for excitement, loss of stability. A game in other, only implied, only visible, but directly even invisible games. Game line offers game lines, choreographic, theatrical, other performance lines. While the solution solidifies, it twists and turns, and all future lines migrate in it. Someone is still spinning over the circles; someone is just repeating the same repetition. Until a mental solution is born, a solution of trembling concepts, practical statements, incoherent discourses. The mental solution is the solution of the concentration of the work, the crystallization of the action being created, when the mental plane melts into a new sensitivity, a new receptivity, another sensory, plastic plane. The solution of the unfinished painting, the frozen palette, the solvent of the vague, unfinished artistic movement medium. Incomplete is a reference to an end, and an end is already a reference to duration. You need to see something through the surface of the tipple; you need the power to be seen in the trippy medium. Through this, we look at finished works which themselves melt the frost or rage. Melting ice requires a different effort, a different perceptual effort, a different elasticity or a different flexibility. A direct interjection cannot be turned into a vowel. Missing letters or sentences turn into a colorful, marble, metallic texture. Through the medium of stage dance, through graceful and smooth movements, we observe more complicated plastic wonders transformed by life. The unnecessary plasticity removed from the sculpture, leaving the necessary plasticity, is a reference to the generalized, agitated fluttering of life situations. A portrait created from metal, as if from soft wood shells, is the power of turnover, the plastic turnover of matter. Graphical resolution is a possible limit. Art expands and expresses, the work embodies boundaries. Sometimes the boundaries

are blurred. When the boundaries in the cluster, in the simbolic gather, when the boundaries are found after great effort, the boundaries begin to sound. Frame lintels and overlays begin to sound; lines and threads begin to vibrate. No more unnecessary displacement, no more wasted effort.

Aesthetic or poetic, plastic or acoustic meanings that were once scattered need to be collected somehow. Through the assembled setup, through the selected form, through the window of the image, something else can be noticed. You can notice the texture, the skin, the effort, the shape. It is difficult to see the primary form, the selfconstituent, permeable, transparent form through the format. It is even more difficult to see through the image a changing or nascent form. Sometimes we need the pressure of art, the weight of color, the dimension of sound, the thump or throb to see the form, which emerges from the visual curtain, from the curtain of being and being from the curtain of the spread abundance of material. In form, the distinction between inside and outside sometimes disappears. The inner silenced form sounds, with an action or a joyful scream, a peculiar intonation becomes. The noisy external form loses its vibration and responds in silence. A staged, detached, movement filled with pure performance, pure dance plastic suddenly turns into a catch of intonation, a response in the audience hall. The euphoria of colors, silent in the emptiness of the hall, begins to vibrate from the joy of recognition, from the warmth of smiles. The meanings of art, like the migrating meanings of life, need to be collected. You need to see or hear, remember, or maybe dream the frames. It is appropriate to capture the form, the flow of the form, the full moon of emptiness in the format or format. A window can be found in the flow of circulation, in the flow of change. Effort is a solution that can be stopped by a piece. With effort, we can speed up the crystallization of form. Then the light of the image is a combination of brightness, then the light of colors shines in the heavy circle. Then our incoherent and sluggish movements are caught up by the already coherent movement of the performance, lifted up to the stage. Color to color, gesture to gesture, movement matures movement. Realizing, being caught, we are already able to intervene ourselves, to restore or recreate ourselves. We are able to change, we are able to tame uncontrollable flows. We gain the courage to be, create ourselves, dare to establish ourselves. The foundation is the frame, window and solution of the work of art.

© Redouane Benzemmouri (Marocco), Title: “Shadowed Ephemera”, mixed technique on canvas, 80 x 60 cm, 2017

CREATOR

INTERVIEW WITH MARCEL HOPPENBROUWERS

(NETHERLANDS)

Marcel Hoppenbrouwers (Netherlands)

ZITA V.: Dear Marcel, please introduce yourself to our readers.

M.H.: My name is Marcel Hoppenbrouwers, 57 years of age, and living in the heart of the Euregion, Maastricht, in The Netherlands. A city known for its strategic position and rich history, where once the best gunsmith craftsmen were found. D‘Artagnan fought and lost his life at the Tongersepoort in 1673, and later Petrus Regout created and industrialized the famous Maastricht porcelain. The home city of the world’s famous musician André Rieu, a place where Mosasaurusses were found, and in 1992, the Treaty of Maastricht was signed, giving birth to the European Union. Specialized in paintings, my studio facilitates most aspects art can offer: conservation, restoration, and creation of art as well as a private gallery. Aside from that, I also use the location to teach advanced painting and restoration skills. Some research is being done too, if necessary, by request in cooperation with specialized external parties.

ZITA V.: How did it happen that restoration and creativity did not come into your life immediately? You were doing other things in your life. What motivated you to make such a change? Tell us about it.

M.H.: My creative nature has always been a part of my life, but like many of us, my parents saw no sustainable future in art in those days. I therefore was directed to follow my father’s footsteps in a technical occupation within the aircraft industry at first, and later I had several jobs in the field of quality assurance. Even though this was not my preferred professional way forward, it did prove to be an advantage later on, as it has sharpened my analytical and problem solving skills and made me strive for excellence and the highest possible quality standards. Apart from that, without the internet, education in the art field simply wasn’t as open, developed, and accessible as it is today. The change came when I lost my job in 2012, I felt the time had come to follow my desire and fully commit to my passion for art. Barely being able to pay for any groceries, I found great relief and happiness in studying new skills, leading to five years of extensive restoration studies. When I successfully passed the final exams, a whole new world of opportunities opened up to me and where my personal proof that I had taken the right decision.

A painting by Adriana Haanen dating 1884, fully restored at Marcel Hoppenbrouwers studio. Recto

A painting by Adriana Haanen dating 1884, fully restored at Marcel Hoppenbrouwers studio. Verso

Marcel Hoppenbrouwers (Netherlands), Restoration of a Moritz painting dating 1780, 150 x 150 cm

ZITA V.: The restorer is like a medium connecting the moment of the past and the present, like an archeologist of thoughts looking for lost stories and their fragments, deciphering their phenomenon and restoring the lost meaning. What feelings do you get when you touch a master’s masterpiece?

M.H.: Although conserving or restoring any painting – masterpiece or not – can be very challenging, sometimes scary even, I can imagine that most people are overwhelmed by the monetary value of masterpieces when they would encounter one in real life, let alone to physically work on it. To my experience, there is a lot more to it. Of course, the responsibility one feels is enormous, there’s no denying that. But what excites me is the opportunity I am given to time travel into the artist’s world. Being able to read an artist’s work – meaning how an artwork was made and which materials were used – allows a restorer to look over the artist’s shoulder as if he was right there when the artist created the masterpiece. This is a rare privilege, for which I am very grateful. Not everyone gets or has a chance to experience that in life. It gets even more exciting when research reveals specific details like drawings, corrections or even signatures and dates of valuable works that were assumed to be of unknown origin. I have seen bottles of champaign being opened as well as paintings being moved into seclusion as a result of that. The consequences can be quite significant for an owner. Integrity is therefore paramount.

ZITA V.: All the human kind is inexorably caught up in the so-called stream of progress. The more it carries us, the more we break away from our roots. A human breaks out of his past, at the same time destroying it so that it no longer holds him back. Life in the future and its chimerical promises took over. All that you do by recreating the past in artworks is like going against the current, searching for the truth, which is always the most difficult choice. What is the code of restoration art and how fast is it evolving?

M.H.: Every conservator/restorer is subjected to what is called The Charter of Venice, which in short states that we should never alter an artwork, nor completely remove historical damage and that anything we use to achieve the desired result should be reversible without affecting the original if possible. I think other restorers would agree with me that during restoration and sometimes even necessary reconstructions to ensure the damage being made less disturbing or invisible as requested, we do not really re-create an artwork, as all interventions are kept separate from the original in a reversible manner. Science has offered a large contribution of developments over time, especially over the last decennia, with regard to understanding the dynamics of artworks when subjected to time and storage conditions in which artworks are kept, as well as development of new safer methods and improved reversibility. On an individual level, similar developments are always on my agenda, as I constantly question the methods I learned during my education, trying to improve those aspects and reduce any intervention to an absolute minimum, using merely single component materials if possible. I therefore believe that restoration as a craft has become a lot more scientific and we are not done learning any time soon as we are mutually buying a little more time in the inevitable process of decline.

ZITA V.: Now let’s touch a little on your creation. What came first in your life: restoration, graphics, or painting?

M.H.: I started drawing at a very young age. Not being a structural effort back then, it gradually developed over the years into experimenting a bit with watercolor and acrylics. About ten years later, I switched to using oil paint. At that point in time, I also started to use copper sheet metal as a main carrier. Paintings on canvas from my hand are rare, because copper offers the durability I like to add to the artwork’s survival. Along with starting the restoration course, I started creating illustrations and some small paintings with Paraloid and pure pigment, which is challenging, because of the reversible characteristics. Paraloid is a binder used in restoration for retouching, reacting almost immediately to the solvent it is dissolved in. Painting this way is a real skill developer.

ZITA V.: According to the most famous theoretician of surrealism, the writer Andre Breton, the goal of surrealism+ was to “resolve the contradictory conditions of the existence of reality and dream”, and the ways to achieve this were very diverse. How are your works born?

M.H.: The portraits usually come to life in a down to earth manner, upon request. Opposite to that, the genre paintings and illustrations are born in the peculiar twilight as described in your question. To me, it feels like as though some aspect is being highlighted to get my attention, like for example, part of a dream, part of a song, or just a single word someone said or wrote. To me it seems that this is not uniquely related to Surrealism, but I agree with Breton, describing the origin of creativity, which is where the actual magic happens.

ZITA V.: The French philosopher Henri Bergson, based on the suggestive concept of the fluidity of life and intuitive knowledge of the world, developed the concept of the principle of “creative evolution”, which was treated as a universal law of the development of history, culture, and art, which can free man from the contradictions of mercantile reality. He put forward the priority of the intuitive principle over the intellectual one, and claimed the primacy of life and the absolute freedom of the individual. How does intuitive knowing

manifest itself in your creative process? What is freedom for you as a creator?

M.H.: Although I understand Bergson priorities, his intuitive principle with regard to the suggestion of freedom, since it is generally accepted as the condition of being as close as possible to one’s true self, without any influence of the conditioned way we think and communicate, I believe that our cognitive side remains to exist to keep a healthy balance enabling us to function properly. For example, I believe Salvador Dali would have had quite a different life history without his dear Gala keeping him balanced, and probably vice versa. Together they were a harmonious equilibrium. I question Bergson’s suggested correlation between intuition and freedom as such, because I feel the development of history and culture originates in what I would like to describe as “freedom of choice”, which I regard as the only real freedom we have. Everything we have learned to express or think is conditioned by information shared by others in any shape or form. The creation of art exists to intentionally influence others in a variety of ways. The only freedom to be found in that is the choice the public has either to accept or deny the offered message it shows. The way intuitive knowing manifests into my paintings usually starts with connecting a single element as a figurative pose or symbolic object to an intuitively received thought concept, to which I add a suitable golden cut composition principle. That specific thought receives intuitive additions for completion. In other words, the intuitive idea is translated by my cognitive mind into a visually tangible image as the composition develops far into the creation process without exactly knowing in advance, what the painting will look like when it is finished. I therefore believe that one cannot exist without the other. We simply cannot avoid that internal translation process and single out purely intuitive creation.

ZITA V.: C.G. Jung said, “... man is necessary to the completion of creation, in other words, he is the second creator of the world, the only one who gave the world an objective meaning, without which he is inaudible, invisible, soundlessly eating, giving birth, dying, shaking his head - for hundreds of millions of years so he would flow in the deepest night of nothingness to an uncertain end. It is human consciousness that has created objective being

© Marcel Hoppenbrouwers (Netherlands), Title: “The Race“, oils on copper, 30 x 24 cm

and meaning, and through this man has found an irreplaceable place for himself in the great process of becoming.” Could it be said that your work is connected to the expressions of collective subconscious archetypes? What exactly is artist’s authenticity?

M.H.: To some extent, I would like to refer to my reply to the previous question. Our generally accepted conditioning of adding value and meaning to who we are and what we do in life, results in or maybe originates from such subconscious archetypes. It shapes us in who we are, and added experience defines what we choose to become. There’s no way denying this affects one’s expressions in art. Our authenticity as art creators is therefore, not only defined by style or the chosen medium used to create a work of art. It is part of who we are.

ZTA V.: If you had the chance, what message would you like to convey to those who will live in a few centuries?

M.H.: My genre paintings and illustrations depict aspects of the human condition that can be described as blind spots. Besides the aesthetics, they function as a mirror held up in an effort to awaken the public, offering an opportunity to learn from by their own choice. As an artist, I strive to be the Fool in the King’s court making good use of the chance you suggest.

ZITA V.: Thank you for the conversation.

M.H.: The pleasure was all mine, thank you!

For those who wish to contact me for inquiries, I offer the following links:

Website: http://marcelhoppenbrouwers.nl/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ ma.hoppenbrouwers/ Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/ marcelhoppenbrouwerspuntnl

Email: ma.hoppenbrouwers@gmail.com

© Marcel Hoppenbrouwers (Netherlands), Title: “Untitled“

© All photos: eine art galerie

“EINE ART GALERIE” (GERMANY)

The “eine art galerie” was founded in 2017 in Cologne. Since the small gallery was located in a backyard and could not and did not want to compete with the big glossy galleries, the name was already the program – one art gallery, is a play of words that expresses that we are something similar to a gallery, only smaller, unconventional but with great art. Therefore, from the first day, the gallery was designed as both a physical experience gallery and an online platform. Because we are convinced that success on the art market is also based on multi-layered communication. This includes classic printed information, but also extensive communication in social media. More than 50% of all collectors in Germany can be found there. With the success via the online sale of art, the location of the gallery became more of a secondary matter. Therefore, we moved to the new premises in Bad Ems in 2020. The old villa building “Schloß Wintersberg” is located exactly between the metropolises Cologne and Frankfurt. It is quiet and contemplative, and works

can be presented here with dignity. Far away from the everyday stress of the big city. In the selection of our artists, we orient ourselves just as little to the mainstream as we do to the selection of our location. Art is never created with the aim to please. Rather, it is created in an unintentional space of the creator. Fashion trends and selecting according to sales opportunities do not play a role in our gallery. Therefore, the gallery features interesting newcomers as well as already established contemporary artists, such as Simona Fedele, Bernd Kalusche, Mila Veljac’a, Rita Daubländer, and Jorge Stever. This also already defines the range of art: from abstract and figurative painting to minimalist painting. From worldwide collected works to great local heroes. We ultimately base our selection on our intuition. This includes the material and craftsmanship quality of course. However, the investment in a work of art will always depend on the collector and his personal feeling when looking at it. It does not matter whether we are talking about 500€ or 50,000€. Decisive is the felt fascination. In order to transport this fascination also over the monitor of a computer, we put a lot of effort on photographing the works. However, interested parties almost always request additional photos. Even the virtual framing of a work can determine the purchasing decision of the collector. This is how we sell the works worldwide today. Curating an exhibition is always a development process. It is always about finding the best place for a work, and allowing the works to interact with each other. Sometimes this is achieved within half a day, sometimes it takes two weeks. The more the curator has studied the paintings and the better he knows the rooms and the lighting conditions, the faster an exhibition is curated. Of central importance is to preserve the dignity of the works, even to strengthen them. However, this requires love for each individual work. As a gallery, we have never appeared at fairs for this very reason.

Peter Hofmann, Gallerist & Curator

KALUSCHE

BERND

Bernd Kalusche, a German artist of the gallery, stretches the arc of his art wide. No hasty limitations, no ideological reservations, no superfluous fears or even showmanship. His motto in life – always further. This means not only the constant broadening of the aesthetic horizon; it also means continuing after the failure of artistic processes. Basically, art is something simple to him: it is the surrogate of his own life with all its joys, loves, triumphs, doubts, fears, and catastrophes. All these things are the subject of his statement-like artworks, which do not offer epic stories, but rather state names. The works have in common a high degree of kinetic energy, which finds expression in forms of varying degrees of abstraction. At the same time, however, the basis of all expression is also the intellectual capacity of the artist. He is trained and professionally experienced in the disciplines of art practice, art history, philosophy, and music. The visual repertoire of Bernd Kalusche oscillates during the perpetual search for beauty between the poles of refined staged simplicity, on the one hand, and a color-saturated vital polyphony, on the other. In looking and contemplating, it becomes clear: life is everything but stagnation. Therefore, art presents itself as an oscillation between play and rigor, between desire and concept.

© Bernard Kalusche (Germany), Title: “Papa tanzt!”, acrylic, ink, charcoal on canvas,200 x 150 cm, 2022

SIMONA FEDELE

Simona was born in 1967, in Udine, Italy, where she still lives and works. Despite the geographical distance from the art capitals of the world, she has managed to present her works all over the world. Twenty years ago, an Italian gallery made sure that her art reached America. Today she exhibits worldwide and is especially popular in the European art market. The self-taught artist did not attend an art school. She has been painting since childhood, and began portraying her younger siblings at an early age. Simona never wanted to be an artist and modestly says that even today she would not call herself one. “The face expresses many things that cannot be said. Every expression, every detail speaks about us,” explains Italian artist Simona Fedele. She mainly portrays women and manages to convey a special mood and sensuality through her works by expressing honest emotions and a fine feeling for the choice of her materials. “The self-taught artist knows how to capture sensuality, beauty, and selfirony on canvas,” says the owner of “eine art galerie” where Simona has been exhibiting since 2017. In her works, she combines reality and fiction through the photorealistic representation of women. Colors as well as materials overlap. Parts of the canvas were torn and reconstructed. Although a lot happens in the paintings and there is a lot to discover, they radiate harmony. They raise the question – who these portrayed women are? “I think even ordinary women are extraordinary,” Simona explains, quickly clarifying the image of women regarding her art.

© Simona Fedele (Italy), Title: “Santa Alia Del Coltello”, acrylic on wood, 152 x 152 x 5 cm

RITA DAUBLÄNDER

Rita Daubländer has been working as a visual artist since 2007, after working with fabric as a material for about 15 years in textile arts and crafts. More freedom and possibilities of materials drew her to painting. Baking boards, floorboards, found objects, baking paper were her preferred painting surfaces in the early days. The color scheme of her current work is more monochromatic. They are often stories “told” by their surroundings: crumbling walls, barren spaces, and the aesthetic beauty of decay – traces of transience. The artist uses marble powder, pigments, dust from her own house, ashes, roof varnish, plaster, and other materials hostile to art. In her works, she strives for a kind of archaic expression. The processuality of the image’s creation, such as lines, cracks, seams, injuries, is preserved, and documents the living. Perhaps this expresses her unconscious striving to create a balance for too much order, cleanliness, and anonymity of our contemporary society.

© Rita Daubländer (Germany), Title: “Ohne Titel”, acrylic, paper, charcoal, chalk, wood 100 x 100 cm, 2022

© Rita Daubländer (Germany), Title: “Ohne Titel”, acrylic, paper, charcoal, chalk,wood, 100 x 100 cm, 2022

MILA VELJAC’A

Mila Veljac’a is known for her figurative paintings and drawings depicting figures, interiors, and landscapes in an often surrealistic setting, unprecedentedly combining scenes of everyday life with the absurd. Mila Veljac’a is a visual artist originating from Croatia. She continues her education at art academies in Croatia, Vienna, Salzburg, and Stuttgart, and for several years shared her expertise as a lecturer in fine arts. The wide oeuvre of Mila Veljac’a includes oil painting on canvas and works on paper. Her focus is on painting that reveals a preference for figurative and abstract elements. Mila Veljac’a complex and mysterious pictorial worlds are located somewhere between reality and fiction, the possible and the impossible. In her works, the artist facilitates a dialogue about modern man, his environment, and human relationships. The results are scenes full of evocative power that emotionally involve the viewer. For several years, Mila has been working on natural linen as a painting ground. In many of her paintings, she allows the material to become visible and dissolves painterly surfaces again. The process of destruction is thus an elementary component of her work. As a result, the different levels that come to the surface become an extraordinary threedimensionality. Mila Veljac’a works are represented in public and private collections. She achieved success in renowned galleries, art houses, and art fairs. Around the globe private collectors, public institutions, and banks acquired her works.

© Mila Veljac’a (Austria), Title: “She is the King”, oil on canvas, 120 x 100 cm

JORGE STEVER

Born in Germany (in 1940, in Templin), he lived and worked in Caracas/Venezuela since 1974, where he died on October 23, 2019. His last exhibition took place under the title “The Dignity of Silence” at the “eine art galerie”, then still in Cologne. Jorge Stever, painter and sculptor, as he is often called, is one of our best known visual artists, who graduated in philosophy and art history in Frankfurt and Munich (Germany). In 1972, he participated in “Documenta 5” (Kassel, Germany) and in 1973, he exhibited with Jasper Johns at the Darmstadt Museum and Kunsthalle in Cologne, the Museum of Modern Art in Helsinki, the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm, and the Weingarten Gallery in Stockholm. The same year, he lived in Venezuela and since then exhibited as a Venezuelan artist. His work is classified as lyrical abstraction or New Realism, with clear influences of Informalism. He has been published in numerous publications in Europe and America as one of the pioneers of Hyperrealism. In 1974, he exhibits again at the Weingarten Gallery in Stockholm, together with Lynn Chadwick, and at the Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, where he receives the National Painting Award that year. He also participates in the III Triennale of New Delhi (India), where he receives the gold medal.

© Jorge Stever, Title: “Untitled, 1974 (from “Light + Space”-Series)”, acrylic, oil pastel, paper 100 x 70 cm

REDOUANE BENZEMMOURI

REDOUANE BENZEMMOURI

CURATED COLLECTION

Redouane Benzemmouri is a plastic artist , Art Director & Ambassador of International Art Caravan, and the member of the “IAF ANIMA MUNDI” International Association & Foundation. He was born in 1987 in Azemmour, Morocco. He lives and works in Dubai (UAE), he is a multidisciplinary talent whose works includes drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, and photography. Benzemmouri holds a baccalaureate of Fine Arts from the MV High School in Essaouira, and as of 2001, has participated in exhibitions in Morocco and abroad. Distinguished by a unique style and a distinct vision that shapes his paintings, he describes and borrows from the colors, lines and artistic values that are associated with the drawings of the greatest plastic artists at the global level. He speaks of admiration for those who were acclaimed by drawing from instinct and spontaneity, while trying to surround all that surrounds them of abstract shapes, or haunted inside them, and to present them in the form of paintings full of emotions and feelings overflowing, so they are easy to reach for the recipient.

Benzemmouri has won many awards; the most important of which are the International Caravaggio Award for Contemporary Artists in 2018, and first prize in the regional competition for young plastic artists organized by the Moroccan Ministry of Culture in 2013. He recently received a certificate of accreditation for the category of creative people of culture and art from the Culture and Arts Authority in Dubai. His first solo exhibition, held 2005, which was his gateway to professionalism, was in the space of Dar David in Essaouira. Benzemmouri’s participation in numerous national and international festivals and biennial group

shows include, North Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas. Benzemmouri’s resume also includes works in the permanent museum of Ceuta (Morocco - Spain), as well as the Yukung Art Museum, Geje, South Korea and the Museum of Visual Arts in Dezful, Iran. Works in private collections, both in and outside Morocco, include France, Germany, the United States of America, Italy, Sweden, China, Saudi Arabia, Belgium South Korea and Iran.

Benzemmouri fashions through his works, with combined masses of colors and storied ideas, a kind of simulation, like visual personification, that creates a kind of astonishment and exoticism for the recipient, motivating the viewer to indulge in the thrill of discovery and interpretation. These paintings carry ideas and concerns that parallel the imagined desire of the artist and his visual horizon, or what is formed in his subconscious, Quoting Aristotle, “The purpose of art is to embody the secret essence of things, not to reproduce their forms.” This is what Redouane Benzemmouri seeks in his advanced works. To integrate elements that make abstract expressive techniques its primary goal and, in addition to symbolism, one that plants its goal in large-scale achievements and monochrome backgrounds with simple shapes, transforming them into an open space for all readings. The work combines aesthetics, innovation and sophisticated artistic flair, which takes one distances in the world of beautiful feelings; as if one is flying in the sky of meanings, formed by colors or as a symphony that spreads melodies and rhythms. It is to enjoy them when embracing the emotionallity and the feeling of self.

Redouane Benzemmouri (Marocco), Title: “Chasing Tomorrow” , mixed technique on canvas, 60 x 80 cm, 2017

© Redouane Benzemmouri (Marocco), Title: “On Life and Peaks”, mixed technique on canvas, 80 x 60 cm, 2018

© Redouane Benzemmouri (Marocco), Title: “Meditative Storms”, mixed technique on canvas, 80 x 60 cm, 2018

© Redouane Benzemmouri (Marocco), Title: “Beryl Breeze”, mixed technique on canvas, 60 x 80 cm, 2017

SHIR BECK

Shir Beck, a painter from Israel, was born in 1990, in Arad, and moved with her family to the city of Eilat. She studied painting and dance for many years. She danced classical ballet, tap, and flamenco. She studied industrial design at Studio 6b in Tel Aviv, and art and painting at Eilat College. She worked for the Nature and Parks Authority in Eilat.

“The sea and the desert are part of me. My paintings reflect the landscape of Eilat, the sun, the desert sea. While I was painting with the rag, an unfinished flamenco dance was created for me. The painting is reminiscent of the clicks on the canvas like the flamenco legs. My painting is abstract, I show my love for the sea and desert landscape and the dialogue between them. In the painting of the mountains and the sea, the power of nature and its power in the Gulf of Eilat are expressed, the palms are a symbol of desert vegetation and experience in the Eternal City of the Sun...”, says Shir.

Her paintings are displayed in different places in the world:

In London - Tower Bridge at Boomer Gallery;

At ORT School in London;

In New York - in Brooklyn, the paintings were displayed on the Brooklyn Boardwalk near the Expo;

In Florida - at the Animators Conference;

In Tel Aviv - at the Russian Cultural Center; Her painting is displayed in New York in Time Square on a digital screen;

At the Eilat Museum;

Exhibition in Venice on “Matchbox”;

At the David Dead Sea Hotel in the main hall; Her painting appears on the cover of the book “Wonder” by the author David, which has been translated into 9 languages around the world.

© Shir Beck (Israel), Abstract painting, 50 x 70 cm, 2021/2022

© Shir Beck (Israel), abstract painting, 50 x 70 cm, 2021/2022

© Shir Beck (Israel), abstract painting, 50 x 70 cm, 2021/2022

BOOK

Jurgis Dieliautas Anima Mundi Academia

POETIC THERAPY: POETIC HEALING EXPERIENCE AND TRANSLUCENT DRAWINGS

Jurate Sucilaite „The light of the depths“

(HOMO LIBER, 2022, drawings by Romas Klimavicius)

Therapy, poetic therapy, in its extended form, connects different experiences, leads to different modes of creativity. Verbal therapy, reading, writing, comprehension therapy, such therapy has a wealth of direct and even more hidden forms. Poetry, essays, drawing, there are strange, derivative connections. Let’s try these integral joints and we will travel a long and patient route. It is not only a route of a direct conversation for another or of catching another misfortune; it is also an auto therapeutic route. Such a route that comes to life, where urban healing and healing visions are brought to life. The first part of the book is dedicated to the dangers of social isolation, the emergence of barriers, and the second part is dedicated to overcoming personal selfisolation during the pandemic experience. Both parts of the book directly complement each other, because different forms of recollections and reenactments, guided by their own impulses, are expressed here. The creator and therapist herself combines direct poetic practice and the possibilities of such practice with reconstructions of experiences, essays, and emotional notes. We are introduced to very different modes of well-being, to unexpected, sometimes completely alternative forms of

insightful, rounded creatives. This book is a creative collaboration between therapist Jurate Sucilaite and artist, painter Romas Klimavicius. Let’s try to discuss here a therapeutic and creative partnership. The metaphor of the light of the depths, here is a broad metaphor of the subconscious mind, which in individual and collective expression takes the reader to the restorative field of creation. According to them, the depths are found in a creative, intimate environment, in an organic environment of space and time, in a personal imaginary memory. The author herself states that writing this book was a way for her to overcome the pandemic situation. At the same time, it was a way to present many clinical cases requiring a creative approach in a completely different way. She looks at those clinical cases through the prism of cultural criticism. The prism of cultural criticism here is that extended poetics, where the disease is treated as a disorder of cultural and social communication. Illness or adversity isolates a specific person, personally limits them, deprives them of all direct forms of openness. All the mentioned negative effects have a certain counterbalance ,and the author sees that counterbalance in her work. There is a means of rescuing the depth of

© Romas Klimavicius

the psyche, and this depth that has its own light, opening up to itself. The means of opening can be seen through other, poetic openings, through the broad level of poetic practice, a level of poetic practice from several components. One of such components is the level of writing, speaking and talking. The therapist understands the practice of writing as a classic poetic dimension-mimesis, repetition. The next level is the level of reading, listening. The necessary level of understanding is born and created from listening and reading. At the level of meaning, at the level of the inner light as a resource, at the level of the reserve, restoration takes place. Meaning is either discovered or gathered, created, thanks to poetic attentiveness. The book, written in the form of an easy essay, introduces us to the world of poetic practice, which is sophisticated, receptive, and profound. The world of poetry, not only closed rhetoric, not only the world of private practice, is a world that restores many things, opens many things anew. Poetry, in its original and its extended sense, opens the depths. When attacked, when calamity strikes, when meaning and hope disappear, poetry opens its depths, in which there is healing and healing light. The author herself shares significant fragments of poetic practice situations in the first part of the book.

In the second part, the author shows help to herself, thanks to the opening of poetry. Poetic therapy as a form of art therapy is a new phenomenon that requires transferring a set of humanitarian knowledge into treatment practice. Requiring a mechanistic understanding of the psyche to be complemented by an understanding of culture. The approach to the disease here is a case of cultural disturbance, inconsistency, and communicative confusion. The plane seen through the poetic prism, through the poetic text or perception, is the plane of verbal interaction, dialogue. Such a therapeutic plane is seen poetically, and becomes a search for alternatives rather than a set of direct directives. The book is delicately designed, carefully inlaid with excellent drawings by Romas Klimavicius. And this is a conscious choice. For those, who find the poetic route shown by the therapist insufficient, they can be guided by the drawings in the book. Poetic therapy is a way out through poetic dialogue. You need to find the connection, find the lost sensory connections. One such sensory connection is verbal communication. A violation as an insult is a verbal vulnerability that can be restored thanks to poetic language itself. One of the first criteria of poetic therapy is the sense of language, which is also part of poetic thinking. Another important criterion is attentiveness. The training of attention, the concentration of attention, this constitutes attentiveness, attentiveness, recognition possibilities. An even more important

© Romas Klimavicius

criterion in poetic therapy is nature, because it is part of the soul. The sensation within must communicate with the sensation of the environment. Without finding yourself in yourself, you can find yourself, a part of yourself can be found in the surrounding sense of nature. Thanks to the poetic word, one’s own words are purified and purified. To hear yourself is to hear your inner promptings. Therapy works on the principle of a mirror: hear, understand, and reflect. The basis of healing power is sensitive, restorative sensitive.

After this review, let’s move on to the drawings of the book itself. In this book, Romas Klimavicius’ drawings introduce us to the original poetic experience in a different way. Drawing can sometimes be found as a means of creative liberation, situational salvation. And these drawings lead to a poetic experience, to such a situation where the perception of a drawing turns into a kind of creativity. Poetic experience is not a drawing just as an addition to something, as some formal, procedural illustration, because this artist here presents a translucent, universally visible image of a drawing. You can look at it from different points of view, being on different sides. Visibility perceived is opened to the visibility of the drawing here and the transparent sphere. Because the poetic experience of life is a transparent experience, not an illustration, but an illustration from a broader and primary point of view. It is a drawing chalk, through which you can look, with which you can frame different, diverse, painful, troubled experiences. Poetic experience is a mythic and primordial integral, integral experience of life. Adversity and trouble are destruction, fragmented, fragmented experiences.

The drawing here is a texture in its own way, a texture of a lively and fresh pattern, an animistic texture. That is why there are so many animistic paraphernalia. And such animistic, slow perceiving, extended-view animistics unexpectedly turns into yet another therapeutic attribute. Movements and gestures of animals, which easily turn into ornamentation, physiological symbolism, totemic expression, such ornamentation is unifying ornamentation that finds and collects scattered experience. The translucent basis of the drawing, the opportunity provided by mutual viewing, is a broader phenomenological-visual hint. A hint is drawn about the artificiality of boundaries and separations. The implication is that there is no great difference between internal or external, visual or tactile experience. And a hint that the reading experience is a visual experience. Much more important is the connection between life and the light of life that is created and opened through the drawing. Drawing is that important unifying, harmonizing aspiration, equal to the aspiration of perception. Translucent design allows both to rise from the inside out and to descend into the depths from the outside. Therefore, this strategy of presenting drawings, of their gathering, is an association with an overlapping experience. Scary, painful, unpleasant formations, the sloppiness of the situation, the emerging social exclusion, it is being thrown into a specific visible, perceptible situation. The drawing shows the ability to find and collect, to remember and to ascend to a safe and stable state in the very image. Therefore, in these drawings of the author, a laconic and integral, harmonized and open situation is expected. These transparent drawings