“The return to the use of maps, at a time when we are used to see ourselves as avatars on our GPS, leads us to a recovery of the memory of places. The very gesture of opening and folding the maps takes us back to a slower and more careful use, more than doing the same thing with the geolocation of our smartphone screens. “Staring at the maps , I see shapes and memories – Opiemme said – I like to read them. Orientating myself without devices… “.
Thus, flying letters arise from the morphology of places, leading across words which then become forms, awaking emotions, filtering memories and experiences. “My drawings swim in them. And they take on values that are unknown. Just as the words of a poem can have different meanings, depending on the emotions and experiences of who reads them.“ Text by Karin Gavassa
17 January – Extended until April 20th In memory of Giuseppe Sermonti
“The sky is a plastered wall waiting to be painted with primordial signs, stray words that fall like scales from a black (or white) circle, that can be a new moon or a dawning sun. Or a black hole. In the beginning there was the word.”
Giuseppe Sermonti, Osaka Group of Dynamic Structuralism
The Latin concept of “limen”, the threshold of the house, the first limit to cross to discover what surrounds us, is conceived by the artist both in a physical and political sense. The use of vintage geographical maps as a support for the pictorial interventions of visual poetry offer a strong and current contextualization to the concept of border: be it an imaginary line, but increasingly real and impassable, which separates the nations; or the sea, that real threshold to which contemporary migrants rely, just as, for different reasons, the ancient time explorers relied, founding their ultimate limit in the concept of the high open sea.
In these works, phrases, single words, black letters traced in acrylic on the maps with stencils, seem to land on the ground from sidereal distances, covering portions of territories, graphically coding the current condition. Opiemme’s works show an unprepared world facing a drastic change in the geopolitical paradigm and does it from an unusual, detached perspective, which makes their message even more insightful. Burning Giraffe Art Gallery, Via Eusebio Bava 8/A, Torino (IT) Hours: Tuesday to Saturday 14:30 – 19:30, Sunday only on appointment. +39 011 583 2745 – info@bugartgallery.com The gallery will be closed: from 23rd of February till the 6th of March, and from the 20th till the 25th of March
Opiemme, Vortex - Impressum, 2018, tempera and spray on board, cm 82x83
A pic by Tecla Azzarone
A pic by Tecla Azzarone
Opiemme, Iglesias, 2016, acrylic on map, 20,5 x 15,5 cm Courtesy Burning Giraffe Art Gallery
Whitelight Art Gallery, in collaborazione con Copernico, porta a Milano, Torino e Roma “di Parole faccio Arte”, una mostra tematica composta da tre personali e una collettiva in tre delle maggiori città italiane. Protagoniste le opere di Giorgio Milani, Sabrina D’Alessandro e Opiemme: tre artisti e tre diverse prospettive per un viaggio itinerante alla riscoperta della parola e della sua rappresentazione nell’arte visiva.
Tre linguaggi per comunicare una forma espressiva che collega parole e immagini, che esalta la poesia trasformandola in arte urbana, pittura, scultura, installazione interattiva e campo di ricerca. La parola eletta a protagonista di un viaggio a tre corsie, che in parallelo mostrerà tre visioni e tre espressioni, tre generazioni e tre generi a confronto.
Detail of “Mi gran ti”, 2016, acrylic, ancient maps and glue on canvas, 30 x 30 cm
Martedì 30 gennaio 2018 sarà presentato il progetto presso la sede della Whitelight Art Gallery, in via Copernico 38 a Milano, con vernissage alle ore 19 della mostra collettiva, visitabile per tutto il 2018 (orario: da lunedì al venerdì ore 10-18, sabato e festivi su appuntamento info@whitelightart.it).
Le date e le location delle personali di Opiemme saranno: a Roma – Clubhouse Barberini Via San Basilio, 48 dal 2 marzo 2018 al 23 aprile 2018 a Torino – Copernico Garibaldi C.so Valdocco, 2 dal 18 maggio – al 10 settembre 2018 a Milano– Copernico Centrale, Via Lunigiana, 13 dal 2 Ottobre – al 21 dicembre 2018
Visite solo su appuntamento da lunedì a venerdì, contattando m.menegon@whitelightart.it, Whitelight Art Gallery
16 July – 2 October 2016, Pinacoteca Civica, Follonica
Apnea, 2016, spray on canvas, 300 x 150 cm
From 16th of July to 2nd of October a new Vortex chapter at Pinacoteca Civica Modigliani (Follonica) in the group show with Ufo 5, titled “Heart-shaped box”, curated by Karin Gavassa.
A view of the opening Ph: Andrea Landini
Opiemme, History is migrant, 2016, spray on paper, 130 x 130 cm
Opiemme, Magma, 2016, spray on wood, 136 x 96,5 cm
A collage on newspapers from early 1900. Borders of Europe are showned as they were before I World War. Exhibited in 2016 at Pinacoteca Modigliani in Follonica, for “Heart-shaped box show” (from 16th of July to 2nd of October), curated by Karin Gavassa.
Opiemme, History is migrant, 2016, spray and ancient newspapers on canvas, 130 x 130 cm
Opiemme, History is migrant, 2016, spray and ancient newspapers on canvas, 130 x 130 cm
Opiemme, History is migrant, 2016, spray and ancient newspapers on canvas, 130 x 130 cm
Portanova12 Gallery (Bologna) in Swab Fair. In that occasion I showned some new works of the series “Charta – Map” with a curatorial text by Karin Gavassa. Big up to Gigi Piana for this nice experience together. This was the occasion for making a combo with Alessandra Maio.
Here is the curatorial text by Karin Gavassa “Opiemme begins his journey in the late ’90s in Turin with an meticulous research on poetry and with the intention to bring it to the streets, closer to the people, exploring new ways to present it in order to realize its expressive potential. In 2013, among other projects, Opiemme created a poetic route of street poetry that became the manifesto of his poetic philosophy: “A Journey of painting and poetry,” narrated by the American Huffington Post. A site-specific painting style was developed that brings together the planning skills intrinsic in public art, attention to the history and the different lyrics of each place, and technique, such as stencils, spray, wall paint, chalk accumulations, and installations. Opiemme’s entire work takes the form of a research on poetry which opens up to both the inner and geographical spaces, starting from a personal and intimate point of view. His inspiration draws from international movements and the iconic artists of visual poetry. The thin demarcation line between poetry and image is what interests Opiemme the most, in particular the way in which the word can be transformed into a graphic sign and be enriched with new meanings. Recently, in the spectacular setting of the Teatro delle Rocce (Gavorrano, Grosseto), poetry becomes a sign through which new images can be drawn. Images to read, words to look at. Messages that are poetically expressed yet accessible to all. The return to the use of maps, at a time when we are used to see ourselves as avatars on our GPS, leads us to a recovery of the memory of places. The very gesture of opening and folding the maps takes us back to a slower and more careful use, more than doing the same thing with the geolocation of our smartphone screens. “Staring at the maps , I see shapes and memories – Opiemme said – I like to read them. Orientating myself without devices… “. Thus, flying letters arise from the morphology of places, leading across words which then become forms, awaking emotions, filtering memories and experiences. “My drawings swim in them. And they take on values that are unknown. Just as the words of a poem can have different meanings, depending on the emotions and experiences of who reads them.“
Heart shaped box, 2015, acrylic paint on map of 1956, 107 x 73,5 cm
From the 6th to the 9th of November some new drawings on maps will be exhibited at The Others Fair (Turin/Torino), stand A16-A18, for BI-BOx Art Space gallery, directed by Irene Finiguerra. Artists represented: Francesco Casolari, Foto Marvellini, Alessandra Maio, Opiemme
It is a strong fascination with the sky that brings Opiemme to reflect on the great interdependence between man and cosmos, and to deepen a knowledge, that was once empirical, of a sky that gave life and advice. At the beginning of 2014 the artist created a series of works on canvas titled “Vortex” and “Irradiation“. These are passionate works that mix different emotions and create an aesthetic deconstruction of the words and letters.
Winner of prize “LA MOLISANA FOOD FOR ART”, SETUP FAIR Opiemme, Tuna & Anchovies, 117x 77, 2014 courtesy BI-BOx Art Space, Biella (Italia)
“A giant tuna fish escaping from a shoal of anchovies united to form the shape of a shark and a citation from Italo Calvino, swimming over a map of the island of Elba: OPIEMME’s “Tonno e Alici” won the “La Molisana Food for Art” prize at the 2014 edition of the “Set Up” art fair in Bologna.” Italy Traveller
18.10 – 18.11 SpazioBlue (Via Gandino 3, Bologna ) presents “OPIMAIOr Minor Cessat“. Two site-specific, “DOMUS” and “PISCEM VORAT MAIOR MINOR”, by Alessandra Maio and Opiemme, curated by Marta Gabriele.
