QUIET ENSEMBLE

Quintetto from Quiet ensemble on Vimeo.

Quintetto promo from Quiet ensemble on Vimeo.

QUIET ENSEMBLE /// QUINTETTO

Sound design | Fabio Sestili
Electronics | Pixelorchestra
Production | Quiet ensemble | Aesop studio


Quintetto is an installation based on the study of casual movement of objects or living creatures used as input for the production of sounds. The basic concept is to reveal what we call "invisible concerts" of everyday life. The vertical movements of the 5 fishes in the aquarius is captured by a videocamera, that translates (through a computer software) their movements in digital sound signals.
We'll have 5 different musical instruments creating a totally unexpected live concert.


☁ QUIET ENSEMBLE
☁ QUIET ENSEMBLE QUINTETTO

LUCONG

New paintings by LUCONG

Lu Cong was born in Shanghai, in February 1978. He immigrated to the United States in 1989 at the age of 11. After graduating from the University of Iowa with degrees in Biology and Art in 2000, Lu chose to pursue portrait art over medicine. His early works were large and sensational, though they were painted with exaggerated melodrama and pathos, his keen insight and sensitivity towards his subjects were nonetheless evident. Between 2003 and 2007, Lu was recognized by a number of art publications as a notable emerging artist. Since then, Lu has developed a distinctive look that many has regarded as an original approach to figurative realism. His portraits do not simply capture the physical or emotional likeness of the subject, rather they beckon to establish an authentic engagement - interaction that ensues when one comes face to face with the sensual, the inexplicable, and the unsettling.


☁ LUCONG
☁ LUCONG PREVIOUSLY ON LE ZEBRE

JANA BRIKE

JANA BRIKE

"I was born in 1980 in Riga, Latvia - a small country of just 2 or so million inhabitants, in the North of Europe - which was at that time under Soviet occupation.

Both of my parents were computing device engineers, trained to operate strange ancient computers in a size of a room, in Soviet science institutes.

I myself was a recluse dreamy child, searching for the most appropriate occupation in different fields of culture since early age. Around the kindergarten finishing time the future was clear to me at last - I was going to be a painter. I was incredibly inspired by the children book illustrations, by painting school of Russian realism, by incredible Soviet animation masters, by the subtle images of my devoutly Catholic granny's religious postcards reproducing European Renaissance masters' Biblical theme paintings etc.
A prospect of being one of the people able to create such powerful visual imagery was equal to a prospect of being half-god myself.

My parents approved my profession choice, as being an artist meant a respectful and prosperous life in Soviet Union - as long as one was tractable to the system of course.

I entered maybe the most respectable art elementary school in Latvia, at the age of 10, and, guarded by the best Latvian professional artists, was pressed to paint and paint, and paint, at least 5 hours a day just painting, more and more hours of painting with each year, to achieve the craftsmanship of old masters. It was like a factory for producing skilled workmen. I started participating in international professional shows, events and projects
since 1995, age of 15.

The Soviet occupation was just over; Latvia was a free country struggling for political and economical self-dependence and stability. The public space was overflown with colorful profuse imagery of the western pop culture, for me - rare secret items, surrounded by mystical atmosphere, making my heart gallop.

Being an artist was not so preset, plain and settled path anymore. But I went on, to the Art Academy of Latvia, finally receiving my Fine Arts Master's degree in painting.

I've been searching and creating, making my images since then, experimenting with ways and means to depict the poetry, symbolism and magic of the everyday life of the bizarre insubstantial world we're living in.

I have exhibited and sold my work in events, shows and prestige galleries all through Europe (UK, Belgium, Germany, Italy, France, Russia, Finland,Belorussia, Switzerland etc.) as well as in several parts of US.

I still live and work in Riga." (JANA BRIKE)

☁ JANA BRIKE

HENRY HORENSTEIN

HENRY HORENSTEIN /// ANIMALIA




HENRY HORENSTEIN

Born in Massachusetts in 1947, Henry Horenstein was on a path to becoming a historian when he discovered photography. Captivated by the work of Robert Frank and Danny Lyon, Horenstein entered the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) where he studied with Harry Callahan and Aaron Siskind. After completing his MFA at RISD in 1973, Horenstein’s first major project was a documentary survey of the people and character of country music. As a long-time fan, Horenstein recognized that the culture of country music was changing, losing the homey, down-to-earth character of “hillbilly” music, and adopting the slicker nature of contemporary country music. His goal was to preserve a vanishing culture by capturing it in photographs, and for nearly a decade, he traveled throughout the United States, documenting the artists and audiences at honky-tonk bars, outdoor festivals, and community dances. The body of work that Horenstein created (published in 2003 as Honky Tonk) is a remarkable portrait of a distinct period in American cultural history.

Some of Horenstein’s later work has followed a similar theme, creating documentary portraits of distinct American sub-cultures, such as the worlds of horse racing, boxing clubs, and baseball. In recent years, Horenstein has also developed an extensive body of work that combines elements of portraiture, abstraction, clinical documentation, and landscape photography. Working with animals as well as human subjects, Horenstein creates compelling and frequently ambiguous images that explore the patterns, textures and geography of skin, scales and hair. Mixing the exotic and the ordinary, and making it difficult to tell which is which, Horenstein causes the viewer to pause and look closely. In doing so, we are made to re-examine ourselves as well as the world around us.

Horenstein's work has been exhibited in galleries and museums both nationally and internationally, including the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History, Washington, D.C.; the International Museum of Photography, George Eastman House, Rochester, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and Fabrik der Kunste, Hamburg, Germany. Photographs by Henry Horenstein can be found in many public and private collections including the Library of Congress, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia. Horenstein is the author of over 30 books including several monographs and a series of highly successful photography textbooks that have been used by hundreds of thousands of students around the country. Horenstein currently lives in Boston and is a professor of photography at RISD.



☁ HENRY HORENSTEIN
☁ HENRY HORENSTEIN @ BASSEDEF

SIMON SCHUBERT

SIMON SCHUBERT /// FOLDED PAPER



☁ SIMON SCHUBERT

OLIVIER DE SAGAZAN

Extremely disturbing works. I post here only the ones I could bear, because some paintings on Olivier de Sagazan's site gave me stomach cramps. I feel pain and sickness when I look at this work. I keep telling myself it is just paint on canvas but my emotional brain won't listen! Feels like a twisted Francis Bacon...


☁ OLIVIER DE SAGAZAN

ANNA BARLOW

Porcelain, earthenware, Glaze

ANNA BARLOW
Anna Barlow has always been fascinated by the way we eat food, especially by the rituals around celebrational or indulgent treats that have developed; the way they are assembled, displayed and then eaten.

She is also interested in how food tells a story of the people and place it’s in. A full stand of ice creams could suggest a hot day or treats abandoned for some mysterious reason.

The beauty of food left to melt and ooze holds a fascination for her. It is something that is usually over looked and temporary but this can be captured and frozen in time with clay and glaze.

She has focused on ice cream as it is such a momentary and yet memorable treat that most of us have experienced and therefore can evoke memories of sensations and tastes, as well as prompt a fantasy of desired indulgences.

She is firstly inspired by the materials she uses. She finds that clay, porcelain and glaze have so many wonderful possibilities and often translate well to represent food.

This is the reason she likes to work with the materials’ own properties, for example, the dry translucency of high fired porcelain suits the biscuit texture of wafers and ice cream cones, while the colourful liquidity of a silky opaque earthenware glaze is used to capture the quality of dripping ice cream.

Her aim is to combine these techniques to create a “visual edibility” to her work; it is up to the imagination of the viewers as to how they will taste.


☁ ANNA BARLOW @ LE ROYER
☁ ANNA BARLOW @ BICHA

MIKE BYRNE

MIKE BYRNE /// WE WILL FIGHT


☁ MIKE BYRNE

KARINE JOLLET

KARINE JOLLET /// FABRIC SCULPTURES


ARTIST STATEMENT

The body as an enigma,
I explore it, step by step, like a space that I need to reconstruct, to unify.

Fabrics are materials that came naturally to me as an analogy to our own biological tissues: bones, fibres, cristalls...

I start with old bed sheets and shirts, embroided handkerchieves and second-hand fabrics that I cut up, put the fragments together, pad them and then sew them by hand.

In this way I reconstruct different body parts (arms, legs, heads) and several organs and bone structures.

Then, acting as a mirror to anatomic parts, I create symbolic forms: cristalls made of pearls, flowers, animals, fantastic creatures, allegories, dreams.

My inspiration derives from old traditions as well as from primitive beliefs and votive practices.

Amongst these multiple dimensions, naturalism and symbolism interact with each other through a common language: white.

A tribute paid to the spirit-body union. Celebration of Life.



☁ KARINE JOLLET