Three female artists met in the latest editions of the Venice Art Biennale, MIART and Milan Design Week talk to L'OFFICIEL together with the director of the Madre Museum in Naples.

<h3 class="p2" style="text-align: center;">SANG TO HAN SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA</h3>

Sang A Han is a Korean artist, born and raised in Seoul. She presented her work for the first time in Italy at <a href="https://www.miart.it/en/manifestazione/miart-2021.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Miart 2023,</a> a work that talks about daily life, about being a mother and a woman. THE OFFICIAL ITALY: What is the history of the sculpture presented at Miart? Sang A Han: Not having a religion, I realized that I needed to create my own to live in this world full of uncontrollable situations. The work presented at Miart, " Twelve-armed Mother of Mercy", goes in this direction. Since my two children have grown to the point where I can no longer hold them in both arms, I have thought that I want more bodies to take care of them, so by doing so I would be a better mother. I came across the painting &ldquo; Thousand Handed Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva&rdquo; which seemed to me to be the description of the perfect mother. From there, the inspiration for the work was born. LOI: Has motherhood changed the way you approach art? SAH: I spend half of my day being a mom and the other half being an artist, it's hard to separate my identities. Up until last year, I was working and taking care of my children from home. Fabric was the material that best suited my need. I painted when they napped and sewed when they fell asleep at night. In those moments I realized that the way you live your life also has a huge impact on the aesthetics of your work.
LOI: What's the first thing you think of when you look at your kids? SAH: A feeling of insecure but warm love. LOI: And when do you look at your work? SAH: It's like a self-portrait, regardless of the shape. LOI: Do you think society or the art industry supports mothers? SAH: Luckily the social atmosphere has changed a lot since I became a mother. I wouldn't say it's enough, but I've seen improvements. There are several projects and exhibitions on the subject around the world, and I expect this to lead to more support. LOI: Is there a woman who has inspired you as a person and as an artist? SAH: My mother. I've never met anyone with such strong motherly love, but maybe that's what everyone thinks of theirs. When I was pregnant, I remember watching a documentary with a fierce and protective leopard mother with her cubs, which reminded me of my own. Since then leopards have appeared frequently in my work, representing my mother and who I hope to become one day. LOI: What emotions do you want to convey to your viewers? SAH: I feel my fabric works take care of my heart. I wish they did the same for viewers. It's my way of hugging and comforting them. LOI: What visual images inspire your work? SAH: In general, I collect scenes from ordinary experiences from my daily life. When I need inspiration, I look at many Eastern and Western religious paintings, especially Buddhist ones. LOI: Why did you choose to work only in black and white? SAH: In East Asia, meok (Indian ink) is called Hyeonsaek, which literally translated means black, but it can also mean something mysterious or profound. In the East it symbolizes the true color of the universe that exists without sunlight. Thus, the difference in depth, or light and shadow, contained in that color represents the thousands of colors that make up everything. Show endless changes and possibilities. This is why the meok is not just "black". It is material that I treat with great respect and that tells my story well. I hope that visitors who come across my works can experience its beauty. LOI: How much of traditional Korean culture is there in your work? SAH: I was born and raised in Korea, Korean traditional culture and heritage are deeply rooted in me. My background is the Orient, I love our mood and our aesthetics. &nbsp;
 Text by Giulia Gilebbi

<h3 class="p2" style="text-align: center;">AMY LINCOLN NEW YORK, USA</h3>

His abstract and vibrant landscapes have been exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in the major cities of the States. The attention of the international public has allowed her access to the art capitals with exhibitions in various institutions in London, Paris, Tokyo and Beijing. "I started more than 20 years ago when I went to college, but even as a child I already drew a lot," says Amy Lincoln . &laquo;Today it is a great satisfaction to spend time alone in my studio and be able to solve painting problems, for me it's like solving a puzzle! I have a great group of friends in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn and we have permanent galleries where we show our work with vernissages every week. We are a very interesting scene of artists and I have never regretted choosing this path&raquo;. L'OFFICIEL ITALIA: How does one become an artist today? AMY LINCOLN: You know, I've been painting for a very long time, so for me it was about prioritizing my painting. I will not deny that for many years I have not been able to monetize my works and I have found myself involved in other works. But I have always considered my paintings important, and the dedication to cultivate my community and to maintain an active comparison with other artists. In the last eight years, Instagram has become an important tool for the art system and today it is easy to find that the consensus of the public comes from social media. LOI: For the <a href="https://www.lofficielitalia.com/design/moda-eventi-progetti-collezioni-design-week-2023" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Milan Design Week</a> you collaborated with Marco De Vincenzo for the "Woven Spectrum" project by <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/fashion/etro-mens-show-autumn-winter-2023-24-collection-photo-look" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Etro </a>. How was this meeting? AL: Lovely, they contacted me to create six works that were converted into digital format with photoshop. I work a lot for color gradients, I mix shades to get different shades and it was nice to see my figurative art transform into digital. In this process the retoucher gave me the possibility to establish the colors, then we worked with the levels of transparency on different versions. Together we have produced a lifestyle capsule with a series of luxury blankets for the home and a site-specific installation for the Etro Home store in Brera. In the past I had had the opportunity to work with the interior sector, but not in a creative way, Marco De Vincenzo has &nbsp; very clear ideas in terms of color combinations; the creation process and the discussions we had were linear. LOI: Do you think it's a good time for painting today? AL: The languages ​​of art today are more interested in figurative painting, because it translates perfectly for digital media. When I finished my studies in 2006 at Temple University's Tyler School of Art, I remember the art scene was more interested in installation, performance and video art. They were all focused on a different aesthetic, I was interested in visual power. LOI: What do your works want to communicate? <span class="s2" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0px;">AL: <span class="s1" style="background-color: transparent; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant-ligatures: inherit; font-variant-caps: inherit; font-weight: inherit; letter-spacing: 0px;">They don't contain specific messages, I like to let people perceive sensations and emotions from my abstract landscapes in an individual way. I grew up in the nature of the West Coast in Oregon between beaches and forests, and when I arrived in New York I really missed all this. With my art I seek a kind of peaceful escape from the regularity of life. Living now in an urban context, I believe with my landscapes that I have tried in my own way to recreate the nature around me. LOI: Who are your reference artists? AL: I'm attracted to folk art, naive paintings and the idea of ​​filtering reality simply or deliberately na&iuml;ve. So I appreciate Henri Rousseau, David Hockney and the works of friends like Matthew F. Fisher or Loie Hollowell, his dad David Hollowell was my professor and I think he influenced me a lot. LOI: What are the fundamental elements for the perfect painting? AL: Color gradients are my trademark, I always sample three colors and add white which helps me limit the color options in some way. Finally repetition, another formal element that plays an important role in my art. LOI: As an artist what would you like for your future? AL: It's a good moment, so I would say: continue on this path. 
Text by Simone Vertua

CANDICE LIN LOS ANGELES, USA

Candice Lin, Asian American artist, was noticed by the Italian public during Alemani's Venice Art Biennale with two monster/chimera sculptures: Xternetsa. In the same year he won the Arnaldo Pomodoro Prize for sculpture. Now he is in Milan, at the GAM, with his latest work &ldquo; Personal Protective Demon &rdquo; (PPD), a gigantic anthropomorphic green body. L'OFFICIEL ITALIA: Where does Personal Protective Demon (PPD) come from? CANDICE LIN: The work was specially designed for GAM's elliptical balcony with spiral staircase. He refers to ancient apotropaic objects such as medieval sculptures of vaginas riding penises or mythological creatures such as Baubo and Sheela na Gig, female figures that show the vulva enlarged and open like a screaming mouth. I was also inspired by 17th and 18th century European chinoises, a devil carving, Tang Dynasty funerary pottery and Buffy the Vampire Slayer! I thought it would be fun for the visitor to look up the skirt of the sculpture as they walk up the stairs and be confronted with all of this.
LOI: Considering the title of the work (PPD), what are the demons of our times? CL: There are many demons in our world, most evident since the post-pandemic: global climate catastrophes, economic crises and the rise of right-wing fascist politics in many nations. Some, on the other hand, are micro-demons, more individual: like the inability to be present in reality without the mediation of technological tools. I first watched TV during the pandemic (my parents forbade it) and realized how quickly it became a sort of filler. At first the change was exciting and my dream scenario also changed, it became more vivid. But as time went by I missed the richness of my imaginary life, books and art. I'm going back to my old habits. LOI: Many of your works depict chimeras, why? CL: Chimeras, human-animal hybrid forms, emerge from my research on Asian imagery, anthropology and natural history. An example is Sir John Mandeville's 14th-century travelogue, describing the dog-headed cannibals of Nacumera Island (present-day Nicobar Islands, South Asia) or George Psalmanazar's 18th-century drawings on the life in Formosa (ancient Taiwan) showing a devil god with several animal heads. I'm not interested in the etymological aspect of the violent, horrible or hedonistic aspect of the bestial trait, but in trying to understand what is human and what is not. LOI: What visual scenarios inspire your work? &nbsp; CL: A lot of it comes from my imagination, but also from encyclopaedic illustrations and art books, even if I didn't go to a museum until university! I was fascinated by medieval and gothic engravings as well as Chinese ink paintings and these two aesthetics melded together. LOI: There is a continuous East-West reference&hellip; CL: Absolutely. For the Arnaldo Pomodoro Prize exhibition, I carried out extensive research on the visual representations of Asia in the European imagination. For the 2020 one, &ldquo;Seeping, Rotting, Resting, Weeping &rdquo; , I focused on patterned fabrics that reflected moments of intercultural change, where the image was a sort of hybrid of various symbolic elements from different nations. For the piece for the <a href="https://www.lofficielitalia.com/arte/l-emozione-dei-colori-nell-arte" target="_blank" rel="noopener">GAM</a> I wanted to research the Italian chinoise fabrics of the Antonio Ratti Foundation. The curator Federico Giani introduced me to Chiara Buss' writings on the subject, which inspired me to create the fabric that drapes and hides the sculpture. In my drawing I have put a bear shaking a log, on top of which a dog is perched and a bird of paradise gliding towards a tree where a snake with the head of a dog is coiled. I transformed everything into stencils and printed with the Japanese method of katazome paste (a process that derives from the traditional printing techniques of kimonos with white and indigo motifs in imitation of blue and white porcelain). These layers of cultural translation, racial skewing, and fantasy are representative of what I do. LOI: Your works are technically complex and multi-material. CL: I like working with different materials, linked to ancient, cultural and global histories. I love doing and learning and I'm always looking for something new. In the future I would like to learn how to work glass. LOI: Color also plays an important role in your work&hellip; CL: I studied the specifics of coloring materials: such as cochineal (reds and purples), indigo, porcelain and bone black. I wanted to understand the social implications of color, associated for example with the concept of race or purity, or how a color could communicate visual pleasure or how the desire for some of these could shape entire systems of commerce and production. We like to think that the aesthetic is somehow outside of larger political frameworks, but in reality it has shaped and motivated many aspects of colonial expansion, wars and economies built on slavery. LOI: Any particular person who influenced you? &nbsp; CL: All the friends of the Los Angeles community (humans and cats), my students and everything I see and read. Recently I have been fascinated by Yoko Tawada's stories, Howard Chiang's research on gender in Chinese culture and literature, reality shows and Chinese costume soap operas.
Text by Giulia Gilebbi

<div class="page" title="Page 3"><div class="section"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><h3 style="text-align: center;"> EVA FABBRIS DIRECTOR OF THE MADRE MUSEUM, NAPLES</h3></div></div></div></div>

&laquo; A museum is a device for relating to the community. Res public, in Latin, what is public &raquo; . Eva Fabbris, from Vicenza in 1976, curator of the <a href="https://www.lofficielibiza.com/fashion/the-glass-age-two-icons-one-prada-campaign" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Prada Foundation</a> in Milan since 2016 and independent curator at Italian and European institutions, including the Madre &ndash; where in 2021 she co-curated with Andrea Viliani &ldquo;Diego Marcon. The Parents' Room&rdquo; &ndash; is the second woman at the helm of the Neapolitan institution. THE OFFICIAL ITALY: How did you get into the art world? EVA FABBRIS: I have been breathing art since I was a child, my parents are both artists. After a short period of thinking about studying law at university, I chose the humanities. From there my path was quite natural: after an experience as a guide at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice where I understood my passion for teaching, I started working as an independent curator in Milan and abroad. LOI: You have held conferences and lectures in various institutions including the Center Pompidou in Paris, the Daimler Foundation in Berlin, the GAM in Turin as well as numerous Italian universities. Are you fascinated by teaching? EF: The first professional steps I took in the art world were &nbsp;just in teaching. It is important for anyone who is an art professional today to work on visual linguistics, to acquire sensitivity in the story to involve different audiences. There is no univocal narrative to convey when it comes to art, but a method of looking to offer to the community. Teaching fascinates me because it allows you to get in touch with the words of the present. LOI: What are your plans for the Madre di Napoli? EF: I connect to what was said earlier: I would like to bring the present. The museum is an expression of society, an emanation of the city in which it resides. It is no coincidence that topical issues are at the center of the productions of younger artists and artists. They have a sensitivity that allows them to transfer instances that are in the air into artistic language. The beauty of art is to transcend contingency and through a linguistic passage to touch the universal. I would like the Madre to be perceived as a home for all the artistic players in the area and as a laboratory for new perspectives for the city and with the city. My programming will be based on the study and research of formats that offer readable threads without stiffening and remaining isolated from the contemporary world. LOI : What is the Neapolitan art scene like at the moment? EF : I'm still in a phase of listening, meeting and getting to know each other. Neapolitan culture and tradition are extraordinarily stratified, right now my work is similar to that of an archaeologist. There are many actors: gallery owners, a solid network of collectors, artists and artists who work in the area and others who continue to maintain a strong bond with the city even though they no longer live in Naples. LOI: Is there an artistic movement you are most fond of? EF: The concept of current belongs to our immediate past, today we are faced with a rethinking of the canon and a historiographical rereading. I would speak of the artistic area: I love working with and for Italian art. LOI: A project that you have curated that represents you the most? EF: In recent days I happened to think back to an exhibition that I organized at the Arnaldo Pomodoro Foundation together with Nevine Mahmoud and Margherita Raso, two sculptors who evoke the theme of the body through matter: blown glass for the first, works with fabrics for the second. Two visions in comparison, and in dialogue, with the artist Derek MF di Fabio whom I had asked to create a display. He preferred to shift attention to the situation, rather than conceive something physical: a laboratory conducted in prison where an audio guide was created that narrated the works on display through poetry. &nbsp; An operation that I had never thought of delivered the story of the object to a place devoid of objects (prison), thanks to the power of orality that often transcends tactility. LOI: What are the challenges for a public institution like the Madre? EF: I believe that the mission is to produce culture for the community, maintaining a strong identity bond with the territory and interpreting the urgencies and demands of our time. The challenge is to create a balance between local and international, enhancing the material and immaterial culture of places. I like to think of the museum as a mirror, not only oriented towards itself, but able to turn around and reflect the outside. The Madre is the emanation of a larger project for the revaluation of the Neapolitan cultural tradition, immersed in a Mediterranean geographical dimension. The museum is a relationship tool by definition, the challenge is to render &nbsp; alive and concrete this thought. LOI: Can you tell us something about your first exhibition for the Madre? EF: The decision to dedicate the first exhibition (opening on July 6) to the Japanese artist Kazuko Miyamoto (born in Tokyo in 1942) coincides with the museum's desire to tell the story of more recent art through less conventional figures. She was the first assistant of Sol Lewitt, master of Minimalism, whose works are part of the Madre's permanent collection. The works of the Seventies can be inscribed in the current of string construction in which the rigor learned from Lewitt is transformed into a direction of a vibrant, almost animalistic, I would say "furry" tactility. In the following decades she experimented with performances, expressing a completely unique poetics in merging memories of traditional Japanese dance and suggestions from street life recorded in Soho, where she co-founded some feminist exhibition spaces dedicated to non-Western artists. It is a solid artistic practice, never shouted, politically committed, sometimes playful, longing for beauty. 

Text by Cecilia Corsetti

Artistic Ways: art is in the hands of women

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