Alexia Aslanidis: Art

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Conceptual Creations | Armando Testa

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Born in 1917 in Turin, Italy, Armando Testa is considered the father of modern Italian advertising. He was most known for his wor...

Born in 1917 in Turin, Italy, Armando Testa is considered the father of modern Italian advertising. He was most known for his work as an illustrator, cartoonist, graphic designer and all around conceptual artist. His great talent lied in creating poster art by use of conceptual images in his artwork. Conceptual images aimed to give meaning to something by using metaphorical objects, these objects would ultimately represent one thing while meaning something else.

Armando Testa, poster for Pirelli, 1954. The strength of a bull elephant is bestowed on the tire by the surrealist technique of image combination

Even outside the specific context of poster art he was a master of communications, a creative artist who invented new languages, always adopting the most technologically advanced means. It is possible to differentiate his production depending on the function it was meant to carry out, from advertising messages to cultural promotions, from ironic greeting cards to community service posters.

Armando Testa is in fact not only the name of this great mastermind, but also that of the communication agency he eponymously founded in 1956; ‘Armando Testa Group’. Amongst which represent some of the most highly acclaimed, important clients worldwide.

During the 1960s, colour photography, a typical product of mass culture, progressively replaced drawing in the world of advertising. Armando Testa, being the head of an agency destined to become a leader in Italy and beyond, adjusted unconditionally to the new medium, conceiving campaigns that would mark a new era in his own country.

It is the largest advertising agency in Italy, by revenue and activities and has three offices in Italy; Turin, Milan and Rome and five offices in Europe; Brussels, Frankfurt, London, Madrid

Thursday, October 08, 2015

Legendary Portrait Taker | Michel Comte

Thursday, October 08, 2015

Born in Zurich in 1954, Michel Comte is one of the world’s busiest fashion and magazine photographers. He trained as an art restorer a...

Born in Zurich in 1954, Michel Comte is one of the world’s busiest fashion and magazine photographers. He trained as an art restorer and then later taught himself photography. In 1979, he received his first advertising commission from Karl Lagerfeld for the fashion label Chloé and moved to Paris.

In 1981, he moved to New York and later to Los Angeles for his work on American Vogue. He describes his restless life with the words: ‘I have always lived on the edge’. As soon as he notices that his life is lacking risk, he moves on and focuses on something new.

In addition to portraits and fashion photography, Comte has also increasingly moved towards photo-reportage. On photo assignments for the International Red Cross, for example, he has traveled to war zones and unstable areas in Iraq, Afghanistan and Bosnia.

Thursday, October 08, 2015

Blow Up | Michelangelo Antonioni

Thursday, October 08, 2015

Blow Up (1966) is written/directed by Michelangelo Antonioni through his view of the world of mod fashion, and an engaging, provocat...

Blow Up (1966) is written/directed by Michelangelo Antonioni through his view of the world of mod fashion, and an engaging, provocative murder mystery that examines the existential nature of reality interpreted through photography. It was set in mid- 60s London, a locale fairly unfamiliar to the director, although well known at the time for its trends including the Beatles, stick-thin fashion model Twiggy, and the mod styles at Carnaby Street.

This was Antonioni’s first film in English, and it quickly became one of the most important films of its decade, and it was his first international box-office success. It was also a milestone in liberalised attitudes toward film nudity and expressions of sexuality. The taut and provocative film about perception and voyeurism was a combination murder mystery, a look at the world of fashion, and one of the greatest films ever made about watching and making movies.

Thursday, October 08, 2015

Art-World Colossus | Andy Warhol

Thursday, October 08, 2015

The man with the funny wig needs no introduction. However; Andy Warhol was an American artist who was a leading figure in the visual a...

The man with the funny wig needs no introduction. However; Andy Warhol was an American artist who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art.

Artwork created by him is more popular now than it was three decades ago when Andy Warhol passed away. In 2012, Andy Warhol Art Sales exceeded $380 million, surpassing all Artists, including Pablo Picasso.

The International popularity of Andy Warhol traces to a broad range of Art that he created in a range of media, subjects and price points and the target audience for Andy Warhol Art can be anyone.

Over the course of his career, Andy Warhol transformed contemporary art. Employing mass-production techniques to create works, Warhol challenged preconceived notions about the nature of art and erased traditional distinctions between fine art and popular culture.

Top 10 not commonly known facts about Andy Warhol:

1. He was obsessed with celebrity and consumerism:

2. He worked in several mediums

3. He was gay

4. He made art more accessible

5. He used assumably line production for his art 6. He was shot and injured by a friend

7. He was born in Pittburgh

8. He moved to New York City in 1949

9. He was Catholic

10. He owned many wigs

Thursday, October 08, 2015

Booming Vases | Analogia Project & Alessio Sarri

Thursday, October 08, 2015

Analogia Project– push ceramic towards the limits of experimentation (literally). “Booming Vases” by Andrea Mancuso and Emilia Ser...

Analogia Project– push ceramic towards the limits of experimentation (literally). “Booming Vases” by Andrea Mancuso and Emilia Serra in collaboration with master Italian potter Alessio Sarri, show its consistency, heaviness and fragility in the form of exploding vases.

Geometric blocks of white refractory ceramic were sculpted and colored while the clay was still fresh. They were then “exploded” and that moment was fixed in the matter.

These vases have been created by Alessio Sarri, who has collaborated with artists and designers like Matteo Thun and Ettore Sottsass. The concept of “wrong ceramic”, using unconventional techniques and materials, comes precisely from the maestro of the Memphis movement that Sarri and Analogia borrow.

Unlike traditional ceramic processes, these vases were made with thick pieces of clay, a combination of ceramic and porcelain that was colored before the pieces were dried and cooked. As Sarri explains, they were manufactured without considering the material’s limitations, but rather by following an experimental method, through a series of trials and by establishing relations of cause and effect. “Booming Vases” is the result.

Thursday, October 08, 2015

Spanish Surrealist | Salvador Dalí

Thursday, October 08, 2015

“There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane, I know I am mad.” Salvador Dalí Salvador...

“There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane, I know I am mad.” Salvador Dalí

Salvador Dalí’s paintings are among the most easily recognisable in the world. Oozing pocket watches, bleak expansive landscapes, erotic and grotesque nudes, melting body parts supported by precariously placed crutches, spindly legged elephants that seem certain to topple. All are among the many classic components that so often frequent Dalí’s hallucinatory dreamscapes and serve to distinguish him as both a preeminent painter and a complete weirdo.

The artist’s Surrealist imagery was loaded with symbolism, some of it straight from Freud, and some of it from Dalí’s own imagination. The symbolism was often sexually significant, in which he gave inanimate objects and animals symbolic.

meanings relating to for example, rhinoceros horns a symbol of chastity and the Virgin Mary, and that eggs represented purity, perfection, intrauterine life and rebirth.

“Surrealism is destructive, but it destroys only what it considers to be shackles limiting our vision.” Salvador Dalí

Dalí, who lived from 1904 to 1989, was a member of the Surrealist movement. And like many of the Surrealists, he dabbled in other artistic genres apart from painting and writing. There’s no question that Dalí completely captured people’s attention, by his often off-the-wall behaviour.

His strange artistic outpourings and shockingly outlandish claims have at different times been called scandalous, brilliant, bizarre, appalling, inspired, disgusting and flamboyant, just to name a few.Dalí designed jewellery, magazine covers, costumes, advertisements and furniture. He created sculptures, lithographs, installation art– and in everything, he was, above all, experimental.

“The secret of my influence has always been that it remained secret.” Salvador Dalí

Wednesday, October 07, 2015

Brutalist Architecture | The Torre Velasca

Wednesday, October 07, 2015

The spectacular skyscraper, The ‘Torre Velasca’, erected in Milan in the 1950s. Reminiscent of the old fortress palazzos, it is incred...

The spectacular skyscraper, The ‘Torre Velasca’, erected in Milan in the 1950s. Reminiscent of the old fortress palazzos, it is incredibly symbolic in Milan’s rush towards development and reconstruction from the post-war years. This monumental building has an unusually strong physical presence given by its construction which lends a purpose for conveying ambitions of its makers.

An architectural progression of its time, the edifice is 106 metres in height and from an on-lookers perspective is suggestive of a mushroom type shape. The architects and designers for the Torre Velasca included Gian Luigi Banfi, Lodovico Barbiano di Belgiojoso, Enrico Peressutti and Ernesto Nathan Rogers. These individuals are known as BBPR, an acronym for the subsequent masterminds behind the project.

A masterpiece in its own right, the tower is synonymous for the first generation of modern architecture and known as being both ‘neo-liberty’, 19th century buildings and also portraying a prosperous economic subsequent decade. Made of reinforced concrete, it’s unique style dubbed ‘Brutalist Modern’ captures the essence of medieval fortresses and castles by use of the lower parts built narrower, while the higher parts are propped up by wooden boards or stone beams.

The tower evokes a pivotal era of change, where execution of new developments and progression were starting to be implemented. All the while still remaining in Milanese context; this is what the Torre Velasca historically accomplished.

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