“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, member of The Osaka Group of Dynamic Structuralism.
A series of works inspired by a Giuseppe Sermonti’s book, “The alphabet descends from the stars … on the origins of writing”, and dedicated to the universe and to the observation of that tine part of sky and stars we see from Earth.
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
Opiemme, Black hole sun, 2017, Kapitana Stefana Pogonwskiego 5/7 Street, Łódź, Poland. Urban Forms Ph: Paweł Trzeźwiński
Opiemme, Black hole sun, 2017, Kapitana Stefana Pogonwskiego 5/7 Street, Łódź, Poland. Urban Forms Ph: Paweł Trzeźwiński
Opiemme, Black hole sun, 2017, Kapitana Stefana Pogonwskiego 5/7 Street, Łódź, Poland. Urban Forms Ph: Paweł Trzeźwiński
A freestyle painting for Urban Forms, which composition is based on the repetitive rhythm of elements in the white boxes. These elements viewed from left to right produce the illusion of a slowly growing movement of the subject, similarly as for the single film frames or a stop-motion footage. The black and white background consisting of calligrams and large planes of color contrasts with the tones of the city and the sky.
While painting Opiemme was thinking about the obvious stillness of giant objects observed in the universe. They may appear static because of their vast dimensions. That relates space to time. The title of the mural, “BlackHoleSun”, refers to the Soundarden’s song that was stuck in the artist’s mind during the creation of the work. The wall is dedicated to the memory of Chris Cornell.
Opiemme, Black hole sun, 2017, Kapitana Stefana Pogonwskiego 5/7 Street, Łódź, Poland. Urban Forms Ph: Paweł Trzeźwiński
Opiemme, Black hole sun, 2017, Kapitana Stefana Pogonwskiego 5/7 Street, Łódź, Poland. Urban Forms Ph: Paweł Trzeźwiński
Opiemme, Black hole sun, 2017, Kapitana Stefana Pogonwskiego 5/7 Street, Łódź, Poland. Urban Forms Ph: Paweł Trzeźwiński
Opiemme, Black hole sun, 2017, Kapitana Stefana Pogonwskiego 5/7 Street, Łódź, Poland. Urban Forms Ph: Paweł Trzeźwiński
Opiemme, Black hole sun, 2017, Kapitana Stefana Pogonwskiego 5/7 Street, Łódź, Poland. Urban Forms Ph: Paweł Trzeźwiński
A video by school “Via Giuseppe Messina”, Cinecittà, Roma
A new collective mural painted with the partecipation of 1000 children from 3 to 13 years old of the school “I.C. Via Giuseppe Messina” in Roma. The children choose negative words to be deleted by throwing eggs filled with colors in a collective performance.
Than some new positive words were suggested by children to be painted on these colors. The mural represents constellation of Pisces, a symbol of renaissance.
Sibilla Aleramo’s first novel “A Woman at Bay” (Una Donna) describes her arrival in the town of Civitanova Marche, when she was about 11 years old and saw the sea for the first time. Doplhins are symbol of this connection, as well are letterforms, calligrams composed with words by Aleramo’s first impressions of the sea,collected from the first pages of her first book: “The sea was a bad expanse of silver, the sky an infinite smile resting upon my head…“. “My lungs drank in with avidity all that free air, that salty breath. I would race up and down in the sun on the shore and face the waves as they curled on the sand.” “Dolphins” is a site-specific mural refering on the hard life of Sibilla Aleramo. A vortex of dolphins, a downard spiral, aims to create a relationship between the sea described in her words, and what she passed through before arriving to this town: being raped by a brutal husband who worked for her father.
The composition of the mural, with the spiral of dolphins, and the constellation of Delphinus running through it, refers to the series “Vortex” of Opiemme. In mythology, there are many stories connecting dolphins with rescue. Sibilla Aleramo became a symbol of a new woman that rules her own life, a woman that saved herself from a written life. The latin proverb “per aspera ad astra” (top right – “through hardships to the stars”.) works as comment to Sibilla Aleramo’s life. Opiemme’s signature (top left) is combined with a phrase by the artist: “The wind shakes my thoughts”
On occasion of a mural painting dedicated to Sibilla Aleramo in Civitanova Marche for “Vedo a Colori” and artist Giulio Vesprini, a new series of stencil on paper born. The dolphins vortex is a calligram composed by words by Sibilla Aleramo written in her novel
“Una Donna” (A Woman)where she described her first meeting with sea of Civitanova. If you’d like to see all the pieces of this series, please write here.
Opiemme, Dolphins, 2017, spray su carta on paper, 50 x 35 cm
Opiemme, Dolphins, 2017, spray su carta on paper, 50 x 35 cm
Opiemme, Dolphins, 2017, spray su carta on paper, 50 x 35 cm
Opiemme, Taurus, 2016, Lodz (Poland), Urban Forms Foundation
A site specific project for Urban Forms Foundation at 20 Jaracza Street in Lodz, Poland. The local community took an active part in this collective performance. A word “blame” (in Polish “wina”), stenciled on the wall, has been erased by throwing 300 eggs filled with colorful paint. Opiemme painted a minimalist Taurus constellation, and the erased word “wina/blame” was replaced by both “destiny” and the Polish word “możliwości” that means “opportunities”, and fits best the location.The mural is a part of Opiemme’s “Vortex” series, in this case inspired by Taurus constellation as well as the zodiac sign of the most
famous Lodz architect Hilary Majewski (15 May 1838), who lived nearby the area. Majewski, through his architectural designs, largely shaped the historical center of Lodz. The larger colored circle on the left is the result of the collective performance, and represents Aldebaran, an orange giant star located about 65 light years from the Sun in the zodiac constellation of Taurus. Taurus symbolizes an idea of power, re-birth, and reinassance.
Opiemme, Taurus, 2016, Lodz (Poland), Urban Forms Foundation
Opiemme, Taurus, 2016, Lodz (Poland), Urban Forms Foundation
Opiemme, Taurus, 2016, Lodz (Poland), Urban Forms Foundation
Opiemme, Taurus, 2016, Lodz (Poland), Urban Forms Foundation
Opiemme, Taurus, 2016, Lodz (Poland), Urban Forms Foundation
Opiemme, Taurus, 2016, Lodz (Poland), Urban Forms Foundation
Opiemme, Taurus, 2016, Lodz (Poland), Urban Forms Foundation
Opiemme, Taurus, 2016, Lodz (Poland), Urban Forms Foundation
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
The Woman of the Apocalypse (or Woman clothed in the Sun, γυνὴ περιβεβλημένη τὸν ἥλιον; Mulier amicta sole) is a figure from Chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation (written ca. AD 95). The text describes “a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars” (12:1). The woman is pregnant and about to give birth, “travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered” (12:2).
Light installation is situated in a private church close to Siena, Tuscany Phrase: A woman dressed in light
Opiemme, The Woman of the Apocalypse, 2016, 140 x 140 x 15 cm
Opiemme, The Woman of the Apocalypse, 2016, 140 x 140 x 15 cm
Opiemme, The Woman of the Apocalypse, 2016, 140 x 140 x 15 cm
Students from “Liceo Vieusseux” of Imperia painted the hall of their highschool. A tribute to Felice Cascione, an important figure in italian partisan resistance. He composed “Fischia il vento”, an Italian popular song whose text was written in September 1943, at the inception of the resistenza.
The phrase of mural is from this song and says: “the stars guide him through the night, strong his heart and his arm when they strike”. This relates the work to the Vortex’s quest.
From the 6th of March to the 18th of April 2015 new works of “VORTEX” will be showned in Portanova12 Gallery. Photos: thanks to Rosy Dennetta and Mario Covotta
“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, member of The Osaka Group of Dynamic Structuralism.
Opiemme is in Italy with a series of shows entitled “VORTEX”, the Latin word for swirl, whirlpool, a reference to the spiral, a symbol of life, which mirrors the shape of our galaxy, the Milky Way, a perfect spiral. Having been influenced by a book by geneticist Sermonti, “The alphabet falls down from the stars”, and by a fascination for all the mysteries governing the universe, Opiemme paints stars from which letters fall, like stardust. In Opiemme’s new vision, the universe is a symbol of perfect balance, and all ils elements are interconnected. An inspiration to Stephen Hawking’s “theory of everything” is beginning to emerge.
“Opiemme takes a leap and leaves the street art of his beginnings, making it evolve into a personal version of visual poetry,” critic Olga Gambari writes on the pages of “la Repubblica”, and again, “There is painting, which hovers on everything as a symbol, stark black shapes that leave a mark and transform primary signs and the alphabet into icons” (Torino, La Repubblica, 5th March 2015).
There are two different style on the same theme: in the first colour is the protagonist, with a thick dripping that, when painting becomes more figurative, recalls pointillism, the action painting, abstract expressionism, and yes of course, J. Pollock; the second is characterized by sheets of old newspapers and maps, wherever painting is essential, minimal, dry, and basically black.
In the critical texts, his work is described by Maria Letizia Tega as at first “undermining de Saussure’s analysis, separating meaning from significance, there is no more mutual presupposition, and the letters are stripped of their role.They do not catch the eye of the beholder constructing words, they become just spots of colours, abstract elements.” Daniele Decia further emphasizes how an abstract component appears in Opiemme’s work, defining it with a play on words combining informal and visual poetry, “informal letters”: “He creates images made of words (letters), and now these become fragments and the letters circle around, gaining a new abstract (informal) component.” The connection and attention to art-history bring to a play with letters, to a design with words, and a work on poetry. This leads Opiemme to a deep closeness with Italian visual poetry, and with all those movements that have used the word combined with images. The artist himself admits he owes much to these movements, finding in gallery spaces, in white boxes, the perfect places for a dialogue with the avant-gardes of the past. The research Opiemme did on “Vortex” makes it possible to the viewer to see the Turin based artist’s work in its entirety. Often defined “the poet of street art”, Opiemme constantly works to bring poetry into public spaces (without distinction between outside and indoor places) in order to take the texts closer to the eyes of the people who read them. Street art, in this process/manifesto, has always been just a medium for his works. The medium of freedom, in works which were inspired and are deeply characterized as public art. This is evident in a mural-tribute to Wislawa Szymborza in Gdansk, Poland, a site-specific work on a ten–story building, which was later appreciated by the Foundation of the 1996 Nobel Prize winner for poetry itself. Opiemme thus continues working in a way that in galleries becomes even deeper, entering into the syntax of his search, showing us its different forms.
Timetable Thursday, Friday, Sunday from 4 pm to 7 pm Saturday 10 to 12 am, 4 to 7 pm
INFORMAL LETTERS An extract from Daniele Decia’s critical text.
[…] Why “informal letters”? It is actually a play on words I use to mix two kinds of art, informal art and visual poetry, just like the artist mixes them in his walls and paintings. “Vortex” is the title of a series of exhibitions in which Opiemme’s work turns to the sky, the universe, the suns, planets, and stars, which the artists discovers as a different self; an interior, dreamy and consoling self. He creates images which are made of words (letters), and now they are fragmented, and the letters float, acquiring an abstract (informal) quality. There is something more powerful, much stronger than human action, something that can create and reset everything. Man is not too precious. The Earth’s balance, the beauty of life, are precious, brutality of survival notwithstanding. The stars are a great place to keep your dreams, reflections, poems. It is by these reflections, born from a thorough study of Giuseppe Sermonti’s text, “L’alfabeto scende dalle stelle”, (The alphabet falls down from the stars), that Opiemme is fascinated, and they take him to this new world, transforming his recent works, from Poland to Thailand and South America, into radiations of letters, creating real mural visual poetry. […]
Setup Fair is the occasion to show new works of “VORTEX” series focused on stars and universe, letters and poetry. “Vortex” will be as well a series of solo show that will take place in Biella (February 6 – BI-BOx), Bologna (March 6 – Portanova12) and Milano (November 12 – Studio D’Ars).
Stand 11 – BI-BOx Art Space, Biella Stand 12 – Portanova12, Bologna
Setup Fair Bologna, Piazza XX Settembre 23-25 January 2015
In this quick street piece painted with David de la Mano in the center of Montevideo, the artists wanted to relate the figure and the words to the nearby church of Nuestra Senora de los Dolores Tierra Santa. Appropriately titled “Asunciòn”, it is based on a poem by Julio
Cortàzar, the novelist, short story writer, and essayist. “Oh noche, asiste” is about outer space as well, Opiemme tells us, and he used the portion of the poem that says “Oh night take care of your lonely stars”.
David De La Mano + Opiemme, Asunciòn, 2014 Montevideo
David De La Mano + Opiemme, Asunciòn, 2014 Montevideo
David De La Mano painting under the church of Nuestra Senora de los Dolores Tierra Santa
David De La Mano + Opiemme, Asunciòn, 2014 Montevideo
“Irradiation” is a new mural by Opiemme in Bologna, located in Piazza XX Settembre, close to the Central Station, and right up the roof of Autostazione bus station. “Vortex” and “Irradiation” is a series of work inspired by stars, sky and universe.
“I wanted to paint this little spot since 2012. Then in January 2014 I won a prize in Setup Fair and I met the direction of Autostazione. I immediatly ask them: may I paint that?” Opiemme
He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven by William Butler Yeats
Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half-light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
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.
A performance for F.A.C.K. Festival in Cesena by Opiemme and OperaRotas in MARATONA PERFORMANCE, curated by Paolo Angelosanto. “In search of lost means of communication on a carpet of stars and letters, amidst dreams, hopes and doubts, the performer (OperaRotas) embodies Gaia Earth, ethereal and pure, which is seeking to re-establish contact with humanity through words and poetry.” Photos by Abele Gasparini
