cape town | Centro Luigi Di Sarro

Paolo Bini – Premio Cairo 2016

November 10, 2016

Congratulation to Paolo Bini! He won the XVII Edizione Premio Cairo 2016 in Milan, one of the most relevant prize focused on the emerging talents. Paolo Bini was selected for our ARP-Art Residency Project 2013 to go for a monthly art residency in Cape Town and this experience definitely opened his southafrican adventure. Now the Centro Di Sarro are very proud about this award. The ARP is an exchange programme focused to the young talents. In RSA ARP is active from 2009. The new edition will be in march 2017 in Cape Town.

Paolo Bini and Alessandra Atti Di Sarro during the ARP project 2013 in Cape Town

Paolo Bini in Cape Town during the ARP Project 2013

ARP Project – Machepha’s Residency ended

June 14, 2016

Last hours in Rome for the 26 years old Zwelethu Machepha who ended his artistic residency within ARP – Art Residency Project, at the Centro Luigi Di Sarro he had the final interview by the filmmaker Angelica Farinelli which is building the documentary about the whole project. As location, the ‘virtual piazza’ that the big Machepha’s works had crowded into the central room of the exhibition space of the Center for Documentation of Contemporary Artistic Research in Rome. All around, on the walls and the floor, the huge sheets spread out like the many figures who crowded the six weeks of meetings and emotions. After the opening, Machepha continued to visit the City. Together with Emanuele Meschini, who accompanied him throughout the period of the residency, he noted the different architectures of neighborhoods, as Eur, Flaminio, Historical centre, Villa Borghese. He visited the MAXXI, the Roman temple of contemporary art and the Auditorium Parco della Musica, the Colosseum and the archeological sites at the Foro Romano, and the Vatican Museums with the wonder of the Sistine Chapel.

Finally last week for the young South African artist even a day trip to Florence thanks to a meeting with the sculptor Nicola Rossini who drove in the cradle of the Renaissance, and accompanied him in the visit to the Academy of Fine Arts of Florence.

Fine Arts Academy – Florence – Nicola Rossini

Fine Arts Academy – Florence – Professor Alessandra Porfidia – Sculpture classroom

Nicola Rossini, Shoa Memory, 2013, sculpture, Central Station Florence

A millennial history summed up in a forty-five-day trip that probably will bear fruit in the coming months. “I will need time – said Zwelethu Machepha – to rework the multitude of informations and emotions that I got. If I think about it now, I feel just overpowered.” What will remain of the meetings, human and artistic exchanges, the wires stretched between worlds, definitely not so far, are some works created during the residency, one of which, entitled “Made in Rome” entered in the Centro Di Sarro collection. The ARP project is now preparing for the second phase. The team will travel to Cape Town, South Africa, to prepare for the arrival of Valentina Colella, in February 2017.

Final Interview at Centro Di Sarro with Angelica Farinelli

Z.Machepha – 2016 “Fatta a Roma” – Centro Di Sarro Collection

"Not a Line (a shadow line)" Paolo Baraldi, 1 settembre - 15 ottobre 2014, SMAC Art Gallery, Cape Town

ARP 2014 – NOT a LINE (a shadow line) – Paolo Baraldi a Cape Town

October 5, 2014

NOT a LINE (a shadow line)
A project by Paolo Baraldi selected for the Artistic Residency in Cape Town, South Africa, September 1- October 15 2014

The second edition of the Italo-South African artist’s residency exchange programme, facilitated by the Centro Luigi Di Sarro, Rome Italy and SMAC Art Gallery is marked by the arrival of Italian artist Paolo Baraldi in Cape Town. This follows on Paolo Bini’s visit to Cape Town from September to October2013 and South African artist Jake Aikman’s visit to Rome from May to June 2014. The Art Residency Project in South Africa is supported by the Consulate of Italy in Cape Town and the South African Embassy in Italy.

PAOLO BARALDI will be living and working on a specific project in Cape Town for a period of 30 days, after which , he will present a solo exhibition at SMAC Art Gallery in Cape Town. The project “Not A Line (a shadow line)” is an urban art intervention, focused on and projected onto the grid map of the new MY CITY bus route in Cape Town which has revolutionized public mobility in Cape Town. The title “Not a Line”, in its literal sense is relevant as the map or network of bus routes is far from linear. Baraldi also sees the movement of people as a form of human exchange. My City buses concurrently run through the well-known tourist spots, and the various suburbs of the city. Each bus stop will represents a new discovery and encounter for the artist with places, people, situations and images which he aims to reproduce in shadow form, creating a body of work which is both a social survey and study in urban ethnography.

Paolo Baraldi describes the project in Cape Town as follows:

“Drawing, photography and engraving, are steps in a process of memorization: the faces, the lives, the lights and shadows of people who might meet in my experience will be stored and played back in memory.

This project fits into the body of work which I have been developing around public spaces over the last few years, in Bilbao (Spain), Tampere (Finland), Rome and Bergamo (Italy). Recurring themes and devices in my work are issues surrounding equality, as well as highlighting the acquiescence and complicity of the individual to change appearance within the public context, reflecting a specific visual and cultural aspect, which is provoked and encouraged through artistic intervention. The extent and nature of these interventions relaxed or intensified, depending on the context.”

The timing of the project coincides with various initiatives surrounding the City of Cape Town as World Design Capital for 2014, and the conceptual basis of the project aligns itself with this theme: artistic intervention and urban intervention are interrelated and connected as tools in contemporary new social planning. In recent years, there has been increased criticism and concern about commercial art practices and the art market which stifles creativity and authenticity in artistic production and there is a move back towards a vision of art which is more closely linked to the creative act, where the artist is an interlocutor, engaging with its audience, operating from within an open/public space.

Paolo Baraldi will also have a live workshop with the photography and graphics students from the “Ruth Prowse School of Art” based in Woodstock working with them at the near My City bus stop.

ARP 2014 Cape Town – Paolo araldi workshop at Ruth Prowse School of Art

ARP 2014 Cape Town – Paolo Baraldi NOT a LINE project

ARP 2013 – Brink of the Ocean – Paolo Bini in Cape Town

September 13, 2013

Paolo Bini – Brink of the Ocean/Dinanzi all’Oceano

In collaboration with the Centro Di Sarro in Italy, the Italian Consulate in Cape Town and SMAC Art Gallery, Italian artist Paolo Bini presents his first South African solo exhibition entitled Brink of the Ocean/Dinanzi all’Oceano. Bini chosen by the Centro Di Sarro presents a new body of work completed during his one month residency, facilitated by the ARP – Art Residency Project, in Cape Town.
This exhibition will be hosted at the Provenance Auction House in Cape Town and runs concurrently with the program of the 13th Week of Italian Language in the World under the High Patronage of the President of the Italian Republic.
Brink of the Ocean/Dinanzi all’Oceano continues Bini’s experimentation with lines and colours while incorporating the unique South African geography that permeates into the fabric of this new body of work.
An artist deeply inspired by geographical forms, colour and abstract landscapes, Bini has acknowledged that the context of this residency has had “an important impact on the directions and gesture of [his] art,” remarking that he can see a transformative difference in what he has produced during this period.

ARP 2013 Cape Town – Paolo Bini – Brink of the ocean project

In response to his new environment, Bini searched across his own personal colour palette and points of reference. Bini believes that colour directly reflects emotion, which he dubs as “emotional chromatics,” citing the influences of Neo-Expressionism and artists such as Julian Schnabel.
The effect and significance of rendering “the line” is part of the artist’s vision as well. Affected by the unique landscapes that he absorbs, from the winelands of Stellenbosch to the rugged terrain of Cape Point, Bini has created spontaneous paintings of a fluid and transcendent nature.
The materials used are of importance to Bini. Monochromatic and fluorescent paint is applied to various surfaces ranging from canvas to long stretches of paper tape on wooden board. When the tape is covered in acrylic, the work acquires a new dimension, highlighting a “transformation” of his materials. The artist feels free with paper as he finds the medium “poetic, soft yet textural, and able to take colour passionately,” creating abstract compositions with a vibrancy of colour and line in response to the landscape and sights he encountered in South Africa.

ARP 2013 Cape Town – Baylon Sandri, Paolo Bini, Edoardo Maria Vitali, Alessandra Atti Di Sarro

LINDEKA QAMPI SHOWS AT 2010 FIFA WORLD CUP VILLAGE IN ROME ‘DAILY LIFE’ PROJECT

June 14, 2010

It’s called “Daily Life” and is a self-presentation project. The picture of Africa seen with the eyes of Africa itself. Lindeka Qampi‘s photographs will feature, from June 22, 2010, at Fifa Fan Fest, in the magnificent location of Piazza di Siena. The event, organized by the Centro Luigi Di Sarro and Erdmann Contemporary together with the Embassy of the Republic of South Africa in Rome, proposes the work of the South African photographer, known beyond the boundaries of his nation, just for the talent and heart that puts in every shot. Qampi lives in Cape Town, in Khayellitsha township, a huge suburb where more than a million people live.

In the Lindeka Qampi’s pictures formal areas and slums, but also gestures and glances in which misery, joy of life and great dignity are mixed: everything is enclosed in her shots that capture the most salient features of daily life, in a still poor context, but with deeply rooted habits and traditions. The selection chosen for the occasion portrays the passion of the black community for football.

The Daily Life project promoters will sell Qampi’s photos and will send the full proceeds to the artist to allow she to continue her work. With these funds, in fact, her self-presentation project will be able to go on. As the same said: “After graduation, I sold my clothes all my life, just like my mother did. I started taking photos only a few years ago. I started photographing my family. Then I went to weddings, though I was not invited, and sometimes the people were surprised, seeing that I was taking pictures and not knowing who I was. I did this to learn. ”