New exhibition season in MOSTYN: Temporary Atlas – opening 25 June 2022
Temporary Atlas
Mapping the Self in the Art of Today
June 25–September 25, 2022
Adéọlá Dewis, Ode to mètèt mwe, 2022
MOSTYN is pleased to present Temporary Atlas: Mapping the Self in the Art of Today.
Temporary Atlas is an exhibition that presents an alternative, complementary idea to mapping as conceived in a traditional sense. There are multiple ways one can use mapping or cartography to understand our place in the world, amongst them, a societally endorsed, scientifically applied cartography and an individually perceived one. Each of us assesses, prioritizes and rates things in a different way, not all aspects of life have the same value and map representations are shaped by the purpose of the map and the intentions of the map maker.
The 17 cartographer-artists of Temporary Atlas adopt a mapping approach that is based on the traditional meaning of map as a representation of reality, but which expands it, complicates it, and challenges it—developing the concept of cartography along unconventional paths—those of the subconscious, spirituality, thought, identity, feeling, and all the idiosyncrasies that are present and intermingle in each of us.
The works on display propose perceptive and physical maps that provide insight into the artists’ personal experiences, whilst evoking mental landscapes within which the viewer can situate themselves; worlds beyond objective geographical coordinates.
Temporary Atlas is a visual, aural and spatial attempt to identify a transversal, intimate and perceptive reading of the self. In turn, the exhibition suggests ways in which we can perceive our emotional, political and aesthetic horizons, make sense of our circumstances and deepen our personal experiences in relation to the society in which we now live.
Temporary Atlas, includes works by artists Sanford Biggers, Seymour Chwast, Jeremy Deller, Sarah Entwistle, Enam Gbewonyo, Rochelle Goldberg, Oliver Laric, James Lewis, Ibrahim Mahama, Paul Maheke, Matt Mullican, Otobong Nkanga, Kiki Smith, Walid Raad and specially commissioned work from three Welsh artists Manon Awst, Adéolá Dewis and Paul Eastwood.
Temporary Atlas was on view at Gallerie delle Prigioni in Treviso, Italy, from February 5 until May 29, 2022. Curated by Dr Alfredo Cramerotti, this exhibition has been supported by the Arts Council Wales, Fondazione Imago Mundi and Fondazione Benetton Studi e Ricerche. Associate Curator: Kalliopi Tsipni-Kolaza.
Atlante Temporaneo. Cartografie del sé nell’arte di oggi @ Gallerie delle Prigioni, Treviso
Curated by Alfredo Cramerotti and organised by Fondazione Imago Mundi / Fondazione Benetton Studi e Ricerche
Temporary Atlas: Cartographies of the Self in the Art of Today
5 February – 29 May 2022
Curated by Alfredo Cramerotti
The exhibition presents an idea of mapping that is alternative to the traditional conception. We know that there are two maps – an objectively-driven mapping and an individually perceived one – after all, not every aspect of our environment or our life has the same value. Equally, there are cartographers-explorers and cartographers-artists.
The fourteen cartographers-artists of Temporary Atlas do not gaze exclusively on the outside but rather focus towards themselves, aiming to investigate their perceptions, identities, emotions, physical and mental sensations. They adopt the traditional approach to mapping (a representation of reality) but expand it along unconventional paths – identity, spirituality, subconscious, feelings or memories that interact upon each of us.
Walking through the exhibition, the visitor realises that however an artwork can engage reality, and reality is understood beyond representation, it is also true that much depends on which criteria we adopt to manifest this relationship. What we read in a representation (cartographic or artistic) depends on what methods and rules we intend to follow in this reading.
Temporary Atlas is an attempt to identify the fleeting border between these two extremes: a reading of the person who, in the midst of a global pandemic yet to be resolved, re-evaluates their own priorities. The exhibition aims thus to describe our emotional, political, aesthetic horizon. It explores, in other words, the visitors’ expectation that art can allow us to reflexively understand our daily reality.
Participating artists: Oliver Laric, Jeremy Deller, Paul Maheke, Matt Mullican, James Lewis, Kiki Smith, Walid Raad, Ibrahim Mahama, Otobong Nkanga, Rochelle Goldberg, Seymour Chwast, Enam Gbewonyo, Sanford Biggers and Sarah Entwistle.
MOSTYN: Launch of 2019 Summer Season of Exhibitions
MOSTYN Open 21
13 July – 27 October 2019
Exhibition opening event and announcement of winner of MOSTYN Open Award and Exhibition Award: 13th July 2019 from 4.00pm
SELECTED ARTISTS:
David Birkin, Rudi J.L. Bogaerts, John Bourne, Alexandre Camarao, Javier Chozas, Martyn Cross, Eugenia Cuellar, Jessie Edwards-Thomas, Sarah Entwistle, Expanded Eye, Julia R. Gallego, David Garner, Thomas Goddard, Oona Grimes, Georgia Hayes, Nick Hornby, Sooim Jeong, Nancy Jones, Adam Knight, Piotr Krzymowski, James Lewis, Neil McNally, Irene Montemurro, Anna Perach, Jessica Quinn, Ariel Reichman, William Roberts, Samantha Rosenwald, Klara Sedlo, Corinna Spencer, Chris Thompson, Richard Wathen, Paul Yore, Madalina Zaharia
Selected from over 750 submissions from across the globe, the 21st anniversary edition of this internationally significant exhibition presents over 30 artists working in disciplines including textiles, photography, painting, sculpture, installation and film and video.
A prize of £10,000 is awarded to the winner of the main prize, selected by the judging panel, with a further Audience Award of £1,000 granted to the artist who receives the most votes from visitors during the exhibition’s run. New, for MOSTYN Open 21, the ‘Exhibition Award‘ will award an exhibition at MOSTYN to the artist/collective that the selectors feel would most benefit at this point in their career.
SELECTORS
Jennifer Higgie, Editorial Director, Frieze, London;
Katerina Gregos, Independent Curator, Brussels;
Hannah Conroy, Co-Director and Curator, Kunstraum, London;
Alfredo Cramerotti, Director, MOSTYN.
The visiting public for the ‘Audience Award’
Elisabetta Benassi: EMPIRE
Elisabetta Benassi‘s EMPIRE is an installation of terracotta bricks, hand-crafted in the UK from clay ranging in colour from red to black. The bricks are configured as a site-specific installation – the size, shape and appearance of each installation determined by its relationship to the setting; self-supporting structures assembled without mortar and in an intrinsically stable conformation. The work addresses the crux of the relationship between ancient spaces, archaeological heritage and the contemporary museum.
EMPIRE takes the basic building unit, the Roman brick, and transforms it with new symbolic and aesthetic meaning.
The work is exhibited for the first time in the UK at MOSTYN and at the Italian Institute of Culture before travelling to various venues in Rome.
In-sight 17
Helfa Gelf artists in our café
A new collection of work by artists from North Wales upstairs at MOSTYN, in partnership with Helfa Gelf Art Trail.
Catherine Bailey / Elizabeth Bolloten / Jenny Ford / Eleri Jones / Nerys Jones / Lucy Elizabeth Jones / Dave Roberts
The exhibition is curated by Barry Morris, MOSTYN. This showcase offers you a glimpse of Helfa Gelf Art Trail, Wales’s largest open studio event, which takes place across Gwynedd, Conwy, Denbighshire, Flintshire and Wrexham. We see this as a valuable opportunity for our visitors to experience some of the exciting and diverse work being produced in the region.
Ann Bridges
The Welcome
Inspired by her travels to India, Vietnam, Singapore and Thailand, Ann Bridges fills her sketchbooks with colourful observational drawings of textiles, food, flowers, animals, objects and moments in time. These visual diaries are then developed into beautiful print-based images.
Each piece is unique, usually produced in a small series combining an eye for detail with an imaginative interpretation. Using monoprint techniques, oil based printmaking inks are applied to the picture surface using small rollers and hand cut stencils to define areas of the composition.
Prints are for sale framed or unframed, and the Collectorplan scheme allows you to spread the cost of your purchases over 12 months interest free.
Portffolio Student Exhibition
4 June – 14 July 2019
What is Portffolio?
MOSTYN’S Portffolio programme is an Arts Council Wales funded initiative for young people with a passion for the visual arts. Aimed at students in Conwy aged between 14 and 18, the programme sets out to nurture and support more able and talented students. Experienced artists from a range of disciplines will share their work and help you develop your skills in exploring materials and techniques you may not have used before. There will be opportunities for you to discuss your work and develop your personal portfolio. Experienced artists from a range of disciplines will share their work and help you develop your skills in exploring materials and techniques you may not have used before. There will be opportunities for you to discuss your work and develop your personal portfolio.
More information on exhibitions at MOSTYN here.
IDEAL-TYPES [Chapter 2]
Curated by Alfredo Cramerotti and Elsa Barbieri
Marignana Arte
Venice, from 7 May to 7 September 2019
Opening: Tuesday, 7 May, 5:00 – 10:00 pm
Special openings: from Wednesday 8 to Sunday 12 May, 10:00 am – 8:00 pm
Inspired by Max Weber’s theory, whereby for studying a social action without reducing its particularities to a collection of individual events we must start from the perception that the individual has of the real world, this ongoing exhibition project is designed as a speculative tool which makes possible to measure reality: the ideal-type (Idealtypus).
Athanasios Argianas, Maurizio Donzelli, Nancy Genn, Artur Lescher, James Lewis, Alice Pedroletti, Antonio Scaccabarozzi, and Verónica Vázquez, are the eight international artists invited to formulate an artistic language that visually translates the thought relationships when trying to set out a concept; they do so through the dialogue between their respective art works, and with gallery spaces. A methodological paradigm that is never traceable empirically in its conceptual purity, the ideal-type is intended as a utopia that shares characteristics with real objects, even if it does not correspond to any specific example. With it, the materiality of existence must be compared in order to illustrate the
significant elements of its empirical content.
It is thus a matter of adopting something imaginary or intangible to better understand the concrete. The concept does not copy real life but underlines its most intrinsic connections. Without any expectation of objectivity, the artists build a kind of seductive, meticulous and inconsistent verisimilitude to verify empirically. By isolating a particular phenomenon from the complex of interactions, and catching uniform elements in the repetition of the same, each one proceeds in structuring the ideal-type that operates as a unilateral and rational measuring device of reality.
The artworks on display question the viewers by encouraging them to develop always new readings on the being within a visual and spatial conversation. The three wall low reliefs from the series “Clay Pressings” (2016-18) by Athanasios Argianas suggest a liminal space where systems and mechanisms freely swap with intuition. The tapestry “Angelicato” (2014) by Maurizio Donzelli is the result of in-depth research about the manipulation of the image. Works on paper by Nancy Genn, “Construct Blu I” (2003),
“Construct Yellow” (2003) and “Rainbars 6” (2011), are earthy, solid, layered, full of spirituality. Their pure and raw material fits in the unique variations of colours and textures, releasing a sharp and delicate lyricism. The steel sculpture “Sem Título, Da Série Nexus #2” (2013) by Artur Lescher is composed of single pieces in suspension, which highlight their volume and deny the action of the force of gravity. The wood,
paint, resin and lead work by James Lewis, “Diseases of Warm Lands (Rhombus)” (2018), corresponds to an extinct star constellation and is a visual monument to the impossibility of defining the parameters of human understanding and endeavours. “Study for a sculpture” (2016-19) by Alice Pedroletti is a series of photographs and paper sculptures, accompanied by sketches, that recreate a hypothetical landscape. They are fragile and temporary prototypes that constitute a city inspired by organic shapes. The works from the series “Essenziali” (1990-95) by Antonio Scaccabarozzi are self-representations of the pictorial body; free strokes of pure colour, wide, oblique, accurate and strong, without any support. Result of the interpretation of the practise of assemblage and contemporary weaving, “De la série tapices con metales” (2016), “Escultura en acero I” (2016), and “Sin Título” (2018) by Verónica Vázquez express the reperforming value of the material
Artists:
Athanasios Argianas (1976, Athens, Greece; lives and works in London)
Maurizio Donzelli (1958, Brescia, Italy; lives and works in Brescia)
Nancy Genn (1930, San Francisco, United States; lives and works in San Francisco)
Artur Lescher (1962, São Paulo, Brazil; lives and works in São Paulo)
James Lewis (1986, London, England; lives and works in Vienna)
Alice Pedroletti (1978, Milan, Italy; lives and works in Milan)
Antonio Scaccabarozzi (1936 – 2010, Lecco, Italy)
Verónica Vázquez (1970, Treinta y Tres, Uruguay; lives and works in Uruguay)
TOMORROW TODAY: On Being in the Middle, curated by Alfredo Cramerotti
Galerie Hubert Winter, Breite Gasse 17 , 1070 Wien, Austria
September 11 – November 7, 2015
Opening reception: September 10, 2015, 6 – 9 pm
Image: Toril Johannessen. Expansion in Finance and Physics. 2010
Holding a distorted mirror to capitalism as a structure that safely governs our relations in life, and to art as a set of activities that questions these relations (and itself) at every step, the exhibition presents works that adopt an oblique view to both – the financial mechanisms within which we live, and an expanded idea of what these mechanisms, speculative reflections, and counter-measures may be.
Notions such as the economy of time, the capital of image, the value of representation, the politics and aesthetics of money, the management of attention and the capitalization of anxiety are either bared out or disguised in front of the viewer, yet without being prescriptive about their narrative and interpretation. Each artist invites the public to take a short journey on a path that traverses daily preoccupations and poetic reflections. We may never know where we exactly are on this journey, which is actually the point when we come to think about our involvement in capitalism and art.
Alfredo Cramerotti (2015)
Danilo Correale (*1982, lives and works in New York)
David Garner (*1958, lives and works in Argoed Gwent, Wales),
Goldin+Senneby (since 2004, working offshore)
James Lewis (*1986, lives and works in Paris)
Toril Johannessen (*1978, lives and works in Bergen)
#inthemiddle #curatedbyvienna #galeriewinter
Additionally, a marginal note from the distinguished collector and art dealer Carl Laszlo, written in 1960:
Appel au luxe
Le luxe, c’est la liberté. Le luxe est accessible à un chacun. Le luxe, c’est avoir ce qu’on veut avoir et renoncer à tout ce qu’il faut avoir. Le luxe fait de vous le souverain incontesté de votre propre Cour. Le luxe, c’est posséder en tout et pour tout un morceau de vieux velours. Le luxe, c’est habiter 17 pièces vides avec une icone et un petit chien. Le luxe, c’est ne posséder aucun produit de série. Le luxe, c’est être très riche ou très pauvre au sein d’une prospérité généralisée. Le luxe, c’est n’être que convoitise, et le luxe, c’est tuer les convoitises. Le luxe, c’est dire ce dont personne n’ose parler. Le luxe, c’est la liberté. Le luxe oppose aux sentiments d’infériorité et de supériorité des autres la conscience infinie du Moi. Le luxe rend indépendant, courageux, et honnête. Le luxe n’aborde tout ce qui est naturel et humain qu’avec la plus grande réserve. Le luxe préserve de la jalousie et de la fausse vanité, suscite des besoins personnels et soutient l’initiative privée et les petites entreprises. Le luxe est garantie de jeunesse et de santé, il active la digestion. Le luxe nous fait mépriser avec horreur les cupides missionnaires et les massacreurs à l’esprit boutiquier. Le luxe combat pour ce qui est rare, pour tout ce qui est singulier: pour les livres précieux, pour le tirage limité dans tout les domaines, pour l’ex-libris, le monogramme, le portrait, pour le caractère magique d’un signature de créateur, pour le charme, le rituel, les objets lourds de signification, pour les pierres et les êtres rares, pour la volupté, la convoitise, l’ascèse et les lettres manuscrites. Le luxe, c’est s’exercer en permanence dans l’art de mourir, c’est l’adieu incessant. Le luxe, c’est accepter le destin dévolu sans y succomber. Le luxe, c’est faire uniquement ce qu’on tient pour juste. Le luxe, c’est la liberté.
Carl Laszlo (1923 – 2013) was a Hungarian-Swiss art dealer, collector and author.
Curatorview [Alfredo Cramerotti] 
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