Made by Josep Soler Casanellas

Patrick Bongoy 1980, Kinshasa. Democratic Republic of Congo, líving in South Africa Bought in 2018 The Revenant IV, 2019 176x45x70cm. 25kg. Sculpture recycled rubber tubes on fibreglass castrubbed, “Hi Patrick, Thanks for your reply through Facebook. I loved your work at auction because fitted perfectly in my collection and my idea to help artists to do political and social works. That's why I bought another African artist like Michael S.Soi. Works that normally are not commercial for big public, but a must for a good collector. This series of Revenants (talking about Revenant III) is really wonderful, very powerful with a big content. I really don't understand what happens at Bonhams, I wrote Eliza that told me was in contact with you as well regarding if stands or not the work. I wrote them as well after the auction, it's not normal to offer 10.000GBP without waiting the opening bids with an estimate of 4.000 and one of your works auctioned in February in SA for 3700GBP. It could be really nice if the price was achieved trough a war of bids, but not something like this. Probably for you is good at short term because your price rise, but I'm concern at mid term, because was not tested if it was a few collectors interested or not. There were also other incidents in this auction, well... art market is like this... and then after the Bansky self-destructed in Friday... well... no comment. Coming back to my commission. I'd like a work in the Revenants series, of course you're the artists and your creativity it's fully free. I commissioned works before and always very happy with the results”. Although he now lives in South Africa, Bongoy's work remains deeply informed by the socio-economic context of his home country. Born in Kinshasa in 1980, the artist was raised in a climate of fear and persistent violent conflict. As the Cold War waned in the early 1990s. The use of rubber references the exploitative practices of the country's European colonisers prior to independence in 1960. The wealth of natural resources was the primary reason for Belgium's annexing of the Congo, and rubber was the main export. Bongoy's subject matter and medium tell the story of his people's suffering – a narrative of depleted natural resources – but they also speak of survival and defiance. The discarded rubber may have lost its original use, but through the artist's creativity, it has been recycled into something new; there is hope even in destruction. “I’m not telling people what they know; I’m offering them my world of possibilities and the way I’m seeing life through death, the process of transformation,” Bongoy says. The Revenants. This works speaks to the movement of displaced peoples, forced into on going migration, evicted from the space of belonging by war, depletion, corruption or erosion of various resources. The human vulnerability and fragility as a result of this expulsion is worsened by the physical impact of long, difficult paths of navigation, the literal exposure to the elements, no shelter from harsh weather or dangers of the natural environment. The instability this creates is also psychological as the upheaval and being bereft of home, brings extended grief and uncertainty as to whether you will ever return, to the life or home you once knew. Women have the added threat of sexual exploitation and violation along the way. Her children, sometimes still in utero, also experience the trauma, whether by witnessing it, the overwhelming sense of helplessness or death as a result of this. This precocity of existence is that the shift from a known environment also affects the generations ahead, as well as the country, the population left behind. Their exodus is a loss, to the ones who will be born far from home, who will struggle to make a new site home. It is a drain on the human resources of the original country over generations. There are visible and many more invisible losses and trauma as the reluctant travellers are transformed into outsiders, aliens who carry as much as they can bear on their bodies but also this substantial internal damage. Being deprived of the opportunity to feed and protect themselves or loved ones, the entire sense of self, dignity, ownership of property and personal agency, is abruptly lost or stripped away gradually as migration continues. And what kind of returnees will they be...even if that were possible? Damaged, polluted, reshaped and forced to remake or hold oneself together – this journey and its hostile environments transforms a person, Their being. Will your own people even recognise you after this profound change? The compromise or loss of indigenous language etc. becomes further barriers to their retorn. “About this particular piece, it's reflecting the vulnerability and ashame of women in this ostille environment of war, patriarchy etc. The work explore also the none-belonging of women in our society where mostly we do not consider or give them space to speak among men. She's wearing a veil, sign of shame. Covered by her own anguish.” PB. SLAVERY, COLONIALISM, DISPLACEMENT, ABUSE, WOMEN The misery of the mankind, not only abuse other humans beens, but abuse women as well. ANd still we don’t learn anything about the black holes of the history.

Willie Bester 1956, Montagu, Cape, South Africa Bought in 2019 "ANC Lives", 1990 aluminium cans, acrylic, barbed wire and wood 155 x 37 x 7cm (61 x 14 9/16 x 2 3/4in). Bonhams Willie Bester is regarded as one of South Africa's most important resistance artists. He incorporates recycled material into his paintings, assemblages and sculpture, usually commenting on political injustices and human rights issues of the day. Born in the small town of Montagu, South Africa in 1956, Willie Bester’s creative genius was apparent from a young age. Making toy cars from recycled wire just like the other kids, Willie’s draadkars would stand out from the rest with elaborate decoration and metal work. Willie’s passion for political and social issues was ignited when he had to leave school at 10 to help the family financially due to the forced removal from their home under the Group Areas Act. With a Xhosa father and coloured mother, Willie was classified ‘other coloured’ under the Apartheid laws, which meant their mixed race family was not allowed to live in a “coloured” area. As a migrant worker, the only lodgings available to his father were single-sex hostels in large fenced-off compounds. The only option for the family to live together was in informal housing in other people’s backyards. Bester’s first works consisted of paintings in oil and enamel in bright colors displaying life in the black townships. These pieces also incorporated cardboard, photographs, and debris collected from local trash dumps, often embedded with descriptive words about daily life or text from newspapers and legislation, all in response to the racism and discrimination that was, and still is, rampant in South Africa. Often comprising a plethora of recovered objects, these works reflect the waste of consumer society, and the excesses that sometimes remain beyond the reach of black and minority township residents, yet which are often deposited in facilities near these very townships: Coke cans, war toys, scraps from electrical appliances, shovels and paddles, automobile parts and license plates, parts of weapons, and other salvaged objects. This work is just before becoming a professional artist in 1991 and the same year Nelson Mandela was released from prision. "We were naïve about the state of things in South Africa; we thought things would be different. We wanted to believe that our culture had changed, because we so badly wanted things to be different so that we could move forward. But it’s impossible to forget the past because it influences our future. This is why I document these events, so that we do not forget." "I am sometimes tempted to go to the seaside and to paint beautiful things from nature. But I do not do it because my art has to be taken as a nasty tasting medicine for awakening consciences." Bester emerged as one of South Africa's most important resistance artists. He is recognised internationally for his ground-breaking anti-apartheid work. In more recent years, Bester has explored contemporary themes arising from the challenges of post-apartheid South Africa such as crime, greed, poverty and corruption. For him, resistance to apartheid was fundamentally about humanity and human rights, which he continues to be vigilant about. Willie Bester’s organic, gritty and tangible art speaks, unmediated, from his heart and soul. While his inspiration no doubt arises from the life experiences that have forged him, it stands as a metaphor for the life experiences of all South Africans. His art is a vital part of our national consciousness. WAR SIRS, CORRUPTION, BLIND FOLLOWERS, HUMAN STUPIDITY and INSPIRATIONAL as well I liked the theme at the first glace, but I liked as well the connection with arte povera. Don’t need to have an expensive crazy white canvas to express your feelings and transmitt a strong message to the audiences. But as well the fight for freedom inside the appartheid, one of the most terrible règims humanity has been able to create. The peaceful fight by Mandela, the war inside and outside the ANC, the delopments and fight for power inside the ANC... A dark history of humanity. But a so inspirational man like Nelson Mandela. I’m sorry, it’s not comparable, but currently Catalan politicians are facing a trial or/and exili because they organised a legal referèndum for the independence of Catalonia in October 1st 2017. Already facing more than one year in jail before the trial started in March 2019.

Gianfranco Gentile 1949, Verona Bought in 2019 Vite di cartone, 2016 Crayons on assembly of packing cartons, cartons for packaging, 230 x 300 cm. Artantide Italy From the mid-1990s he began his journey into the pictorial art that leads him to the present day, using mainly pastels and mixed techniques, with a particular attention to the everyday common visual reality that the frenetic and inattentive contemporary life tends to make meaningless. For some years, through the use of recycled pastel dry cardboard packaging and the invention of a technique based on an accurate removal of the unpainted surface, Gentile proposes an operation of memory, an industrial archeology that reflects aesthetically on human invention and its passing, on the rusty myths of positivist thought and on the second beauty of the object, no longer functional, created by the flow of time with its oxidations and corrosions of matter. The dramatic and often tragic events of recent years, linked to the flight of thousands of refugees from war and hunger, have "led him to reflect on the" historic "link between this material and poverty. In my mind resounded words from my childhood, memories of a country that seems to have lost its memory, our migrants who left with cardboard suitcases, so they said, and basically this poor material has always been the last precious home of those who have nothing left and live on the margins of society. As in the works of industrial archeology, in some of my recent works the cartoon (ri) assumes the sense of fragility of these people suspended between life and death. " The work is handmade with dry pastels on the surface of 6 recycled and assembled packaging cardboards. The dramatic often tragic events of recent years, linked to the escape of thousands of refugees from wars and hunger, have led me to reflect on the "historical" link between this material and poverty. In my mind are words of my childhood, memories of a Country that seems to have lost memory, our migrants leaving with cardboard suitcases, so it was said, and in the end this poor material has always been the last prescious home of those who live on the margins of society. In these my recent works, cardboard takes on the sense of fragility of those people suspended between life and death. HUMAN CRISIS, POVERTY, MIGRATION, OPEN ARMS, BUSINESS I spend a lot of time thinking to add this work, at some point I have to stop. I’m not a collector with huge resources. But I couldn’t resist buying it. Reflects where Europe is right now in 2019, poverty, immigration, aroud us without almost take care about. People escaping from Africa for a better future in an old Europe, tired, without economical growing, the opposite of the anti immigration parties which growth. People who finishes living in cardboard. Citizens between citizens, cities between cities.

Chen QiuChi 1954, China Bought in 2019 Plum blossom, 2010 acrylic on canvas, 200x400. Directly to the artist He’s a friend, well has become a friend because he is a wonderful human being. Unfortunately his works are not appreciate in China because any political or social reference is banned and against the teories f the great leader and dictator Xi Xinping. But as he told me once, it’s what I want to paint. Middle 2019 he was not in his best economical moment and asked me support buyng any work almost at any price, he was desperate and in the edge to be spit off from his studio and without any alternative to go. Me neither economically but I did my best, probably not enough and I have to supply that at any moment in the future. I asked him to sell me the work below, I was attracted to it before to but the cloud mushroom, but was so big and the proce so high that finally I bought the cloud mushrooms, but plum blossom has been always in my shopping list. We made an agreement. CLIMATE CHANGE This will be the issue of 2019 and years ahead for new generations. Population is growing, need of rough materials at the same pace, dictatorships like China or Russia not aware, by the way like United States to maintain his industrial and military supremacy over the planet. The work is not only stetical awesome, the contrast grey and red, the dessert in grey, the red flowers of the plum blossom the heads laughing, the plum blossom branchs in grey as well like death… A powerful message. I don’t know if I’ll have the possibility to see it holded, I don’t have space. Let’s see.

Dale Lewis 1980, UK Bought in 2019 Princess, 2019 oil, acrylic and spray on canvas, 200x170. Edel Assanti, UK “I hope you are well? Dale Lewis forwarded me your enquiry about his work and asked me to reach out to you. I see from your email that you are specifically interested in work dealing with issues of transgender. As it happens we have one painting in London that may be of interest. Princes was completed this summer whilst Dale was on a residency in Athens. Appropriating the compositional framework from Bottacelli's painting of the three graces, Dale has depicted a scene he observed in one of the city's most notorious transvestite clubs. The central figure has the head and torso of woman but as the viewer pans the figures physiology contorts and evolves into that of a man. Dale describes the figure as 'ejaculating their male self' as though ridding them self of this part of their person. Like the best of Dale's work the painting is infused with satire and anecdotal references. Dale’s work presents a collective portrait of urban society from the high street to its fringes: 9-5 jobs, consumerism, multiculturalism, gay culture, class divides, drug addiction and hooligan violence. Whilst the unsettling, parodic works inherit their scale and compositional inspiration from canonical art historical painting, Lewis’ lyrical style of painting leaves the works in suspension, underdone rather than overworked. His oeuvre is furnished by a spectrum of contrasting imagery – the collision of ancient with new, abject poverty alongside grotesque displays of wealth, sacrilege taking the place of religious symbolism.” That’s how all starts. Like many graduates, Dale Lewis began his art career on the lowest rung, as an assistant first to Damien Hirst, then Raqid Shaw. Two and a half years with Damien were spent on kaleidoscope paintings, which meant placing thousands of butterfly wings in patterns onto paint, while his four and a half years with Raqid were spent working in minute detail on photorealist paintings. It was when he became involved in the year-long Turps Banana painting programme that Dale’s style moved away from the labour intensive processes he’d learnt under Damien and Raqid. TRANSGENDERS and HUMAN CONDITION I saw his works at Saatchi one or two years ago, fascinating, big, clever, strong, realistic, not political correct, a fist in the face, new, fresh, unconventional, disturbing, node, sex, violence, delírium, hallucinatory yet convincing stories of the young, multicultural, gender-ambivalent, debauched and a class-divided society.... depicting the life as it is, you like or not like. To see it there make me consider his work unaffordable, mistake. A few months ago I saw one work at auction and withdraw it immediately, offensive price and I liked someone, the gallery, takes control of these things. I wanted to know more, contacted galleries and tried to contact Dale as well and see if he had something about transgender. Why transgender? It’s a subject that fascinates me in the last years. Hidden, persecuted, prostitution pushed, sexual objects... just because nature is like it is and the humans decided that had to be binay, one way or another. This work goes beyond, not only transexualisme, but other hidden humans sex behavoirs, hidden mostly. Mixing addictions to tabac. Probably what it’s behind the image that a mirror reflects for a lot of people. That’s why I like the Dale’s words: “I hope people can identify with the work and see beyond the surface. Read the paintings in a more formal way instead of just identifying the narrative on the surface that informs them, but it doesn’t really matter if they do or don’t.”

Sheng Qi 1965, China (UK) Bought in 2020 5 angels, 2016 acrylic on canvas, 200x150. Kohn auctions, FR It’s a lot of time since I was searching for a painting about Tiananmen; I was behind a Hsiao Chin but didn’t make a deal. I’ve always liked this work of Sheng Qi, was first in an auction in Belgium unsold a few years before, I tried to make a deal but not accepted, and now in Paris the same history, but the deal has been successful. There are a lot of works in the history of contemporary art or art in general, but only a few can be considered historic. This one is an historic piece. A very few Chinese artists had and have what is needed to painting or talk about Tiananmen. The risk is to be completely banned and worst risk jail and maybe dissapearence in an educational camp, which obiously doesn’t exist. That’s why I say that’s an historical work, one day if China becomes a democratic country, the true history of the Country has to emerge, and with this history Tianamen and the youngest murdered or executed by the Government. 5 angels will be finally remembered. Any exhibition about Tiananmen or human rights or freedom will have, or would have to have, this work in their walls. In a Country of more than one billion people there are just a few that confront the State and fight for democracy with the arms they have, mostly speech, a lot could do it, as well as artists, but they prefer the comfort of the yuan/dollar rather than incomodate the Party. And who does pay a huge price, or prison inside China or exile. Sheng Qi, who was in Tiananmen and cut his finger in protest, went to exile. And create a historical work to denounce the massacre of Tiananmen. FIGHT FOR FREEDOM, DEATH FOR? FORGETFULNESS One of the biggest and dramatic moment in the contemporary history and silenced by action and by default. And that shame extends after more than 30 years of the events. By action because the Chinese Government apply an absolute silence and repression about any reference about Tiananmen. The great wall avoids access to any reference close or far about what happen in Tiananmen. By default because after the first protests of the Western Governments and a few boycotts to China and asking for the respect of Human Rights, in view of the growth and China, the factory and the consumer market of the world, they decided to look to another direction. No one has the balls today to say anything about it. Shame on Europe and USA who always talk about Human Rights but only regarding small communities of weak countries. Never about China. Tiananmen Square incident or Massacre, also called June Fourth incident or 6/4, series of protests and demonstrations in China in the spring of 1989 that culminated on the night of June 3–4 with a government crackdown on the demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Although the demonstrations and their subsequent repression occurred in cities throughout the country, the events in Beijing—and especially in Tiananmen Square, historically linked to such other protests as the May Fourth Movement (1919)—came to symbolize the entire incident. By the beginning of June, the government was ready to act again. On the night of June 3–4, tanks and heavily armed troops advanced toward Tiananmen Square, opening fire on or crushing those who again tried to block their way. Once the soldiers reached the square, a number of the few thousand remaining demonstrators there chose to leave rather than face a continuation of the confrontation. June 3–4 a “massacre.” The Chinese government arrested thousands of suspected dissidents; many of them received prison sentences of varying lengths of time, and a number were executed. However, several dissident leaders managed to escape from China and sought refuge in the West. From the outset of the incident, the Chinese government’s official stance was to downplay its significance, labeling the protesters “counterrevolutionaries” and minimizing the extent of the military’s actions on June 3–4. The government’s count of those killed was 241 (including soldiers), with some 7,000 wounded; most other estimates have put the death toll much higher. In the years since the incident, the government generally has attempted to suppress references to it. Public commemoration of the incident is officially banned. However, the residents of Hong Kong have held an annual vigil on the anniversary of the crackdown, even after Hong Kong reverted to Chinese administration. In our Young statges we embrace idealism, we feel that our missiom is to fight for ideals, and we do it generation after generation. And, I guess we have to do it. But, what happens when this ideals are crashed by the State and trying to cover it under tones and tones of lies and worst forbidden after forbidden until deny the existence of it. Tiananmen is this case, forbidden in China, very low speaking for in the West. People dissapear, was murdered in situ or executed afterwards. No one knows how many and only a few names are known. Of course all sourrounding the massacre of Tiananmen is covered in China, you cannot talk or write about and neither exhibit any reference to that “incident”. The words are blocked in Internet and you cannot access to the information if you are in China, so people, young people after now more than 30 years remains ignoring what happens there. This is my small contribution to avoid history been lost and small homage to people who died and their names cannot been named in China. Gao Brothers 1956-1962 China Made in 2019 May God Bless Catalonia, 2019 Digital, 2019, directly from the artist I’ve always liked the work of Gao Brothers because of your use of the brands and the colourful of their works in the beginning of the Chinese contemporary art, later stopped by the Dictatorship of Xi Jinping. The Gao Brothers are two Chinese artists named Zhen (born 1956) and Qiang Gao (born 1962) from Jinan, in the province of Shandong (located in the north east of China). Their works tend to be charged with political and social nuances, including their recurring use of Mao's image. Gao Zhen, the elder of the brothers, explained through an interpreter that "1968 was a crucial moment in the Cultural revolution, where political 'cleaning' took place. Our father, a simple laborer was thrown into jail. We still don’t know if he actually committed suicide as the authorities told us or if he was killed during his incarceration". At that time, Gao Zhen was 12 years old and Gao Qiang was 6.In recent years they have been very involved in to sustain the Hong Kong free movement, an exception between Chinese artists who prefer to be lower profile and live a comfortable life. Through Instagram I contacted them and explain about the Catalan independence movement and they accepted to make this contribution. From the exchange of emails: “Thank you for your email. It seems you know China and Chinese people well. Conscience is the most dangerous thing people possess within the harsh political reality in China. It has destroyed too many people who waked it up. That's why most people are used to being silent regarding social issue... We admire your great enthusiasm on Chinese contemporary art and human rights issues... We were aware about the situation in Catalonia...We are sorry we didn't do any works for Catalonia, hope you would inspire us...We will do it as soon as we get an inspiration. We are happy you are interested in our new work on Hong Kong protest movement. Thanks and hugs” Later on “We think Catalonia revolution is as heroic and moving as the umbrella revolution in Hong Kong. Inspired by Catalonia flag and the idea Be Water of Hong Kong protesters,we just did the work MAY GLORY BE TO CATALUNYIA. We see this work as the symbol of the process of achieving freedom and hardship and glory of the process, hope you like it.” And in another mail they suggested to change the title to May God Bless Catalonia. FREEDOM, AGAIN And again

’ Joe Doe UK Loch Ness Enchantress 80x100cm, photography, 2019, piece unique, UK I’ve been touched by this photo since the moment I saw it. A beautiful body, naked, inmerse in the nature. Weak, strong, beauty, sensual, erotic, sensible, feminine… Just a human body referred to an individual. Later I saw the exhibition “Kiss my genders” at Hayward Gallery in Southbank. Spanning the past 50 years, Kiss My Genders brought together over 100 artworks by artists from around the world who employ a wide range of approaches to articulate and engage with gender fluidity, as well as with non-binary, trans and intersex identities. With photography for example by Catherine Opie depicting bodies, but I found them completely boring or just a picture of a human being. In this case, the body is transcending itself, because surrounded of virgin nature, isolated from society conventionalisms, pure but strong of reaffirming his identity and proud to be of. A completely spontaneous photo can contain much more significance rather than a prepared one in a studio for days. GENDER BEAUTY There’s a lot more to being male, female, or any gender than the sex assigned at birth. Your biological or assigned sex does not always tell your complete story. It’s common for people to confuse sex, gender, and gender identity. But they’re actually all different things: Sex is a label — male or female — that you’re assigned by a doctor at birth based on the genitals you’re born with and the chromosomes you have, it goes on your birth certificate. Gender is much more complex, it’s a social and legal status, and set of expectations from society, about behaviours, characteristics, and thoughts, each culture has standards about the way that people should behave based on their gender, this is also generally male or female, but instead of being about body parts, it’s more about how you’re expected to act, because of your sex. Gender identity is how you feel inside and how you express your gender through clothing, behaviour, and personal appearance, it’s a feeling that begins very early in life. Even as the LGBT community has seen social and legal progress, transgender people still face pervasive discrimination in many areas of life, including work, school, housing, and public accommodations. Transgender people are individuals whose genders differ from the genders they were assigned at birth. A person transcending gender may have two aspects to the variation: the person’s gender identity—a feeling of being “born in the wrong body”—and the person’s gender expression—dress or behaviour not typically associated with the genetic gender. Some transgender people undergo gender reassignment surgery, while others don’t seek surgery or don’t have that option. People should be protected based on both the gender they identify with and the way they express their gender. Transgender references reach back into antiquity. Plato’s text Symposium mentions a myth of a third sex. Some translations of the Kamasutra include references to the behaviour of such a sex. In the Indian subcontinent, a long tradition persists to this day of hijras, male to female transgender people, who are recognized by law as a third sex. From so remote and we not yet assume that nature is complex and is not binary? And the enjoyment of our bodies neither? In too many countries, being lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex (LGBTI) means living with daily discrimination. In all too many cases, LGBTI people are harassed in the streets, beaten up and sometimes killed, simply because of who they are. Many intersex people around the world are forced to undergo dangerous, invasive and completely unnecessary surgeries that can cause life-long physical and psychological side effects. By the way, until now I wrote anything about her sex? Who matters, isn’t it?

Patrizio Vanessi Italia Portrait of Tomorrow 16x2 meters, acrylic paint, colored polyethylene sheets, 2019 “Caro amico”, it can be the start of a letter or as it’s a statement. Starting from a business relation between client (Marketing Director me) and provider (Creative agency him) that became a friendship during the time. In 1998 we organized the Premio Koiné/Seat award for art in the spaces of Palazzo Forti when I was finding new ways to position the automotive brand Seat like appealing and better recognition. The legacy survived four years, although I couldn’t see one, been transferred to Paris from Verona. We kept the contact and asked him to perform the “cut work” in Paris as well in a dealers meeting. I have always researched things out of the box in my work in order to standing out between other more powerful brands, looking back there is a similitude between my work in marketing and the work of Vanessi, always thinking ahead, finding new ways, experimenting, trying, analyzing, didn’t matter if approved by standards or not. In the province of Verona, since he was 14 he attended the artists’ studios of different backgrounds and was immersed in art: from the figurative to the abstract, from Arte Povera to the Transavanguardia. In all cases he has always had a rebellion against the teachings and always suffered the technical / didactic part and breaking with the Academy of Fine Arts. Despite having succeeded experiences in the world of communication and creating events from scratch innovating new forma and rules, he always worked in the art of researching artistic languages and techniques outside the box. His first exhibition in the 1970s collided with an art market that required him to replicate his personal “style” over and over again. Other local exhibitions left him struck by the rules that the Art Market imposed. From 1995 to 1998, he performed the “cut work” performances. In the 2000’s, he began his experience with the digital world in computer-processed photography printed on Ciba, developing up to the manipulation of plastics, plexiglass and PVC. Leaping between interdisciplinary and profound concepts such as past / future, reason / instinct, irony/ philosophy, the specificities of languages has claimed a new vision of creative autonomy. Summarising, if it’s possible for a so complex and creative artist, Vanessi is an artistic personality who, with his continuous research, works the IM-PERFECT side of his identity, in a scenario where many artists usually replicate their style endlessly as a guarantee of recognition. For Vanessi, movement and change is life, the embodiment of perception and confirmation that it is in synchrony with everything that exists and transcends. Rather than embrace the illusion of stillness, he explores the movement of discovery with enthusiasm to experiment: for example ith a sheet of 16-meter-long plastic, covered in random acrylic colours, then placed over with another sheet, squashed by walking on it and lying down, using hands, feet, knees, legs. After that, this “coloured snake” like flowers that bloom like a river of colours, transcending its contact with nature, becoming a cruel criticisme on the edge of humanity in the management of its resources. I have other works from him like two cuts from his performances, the original drawing of the Paris one, several “portraits of live” works made by “impression” with natural gradual saturation of colour and a “divisioni” from 90s, a new catrame but although I liked them very much didn’t fit in the concept of the collection (like others from other artists by the way). NATURE and HUMAN FOOTPRINT In his words: Starting in 2013, the awareness of plastic materials that have now become the “problem” of the whole world began. The interpretation, however, is changed by offering a new analysis on the subject. Plastic and Nature live together in a mutual exchange to the point that this simple strip of PVC becomes the last defense of a fantastic garden in the artist’s residence. Hence the transformation of plastic, becoming light and amorphous, encouraged by creativity and color, into a giant dragon threatens anyone who wants to damage the environment that surrounds it. The title “NATURALWORK” tells how passionately this material can perform its function as “DEFENDER” of our future. In fact, the enemy is precisely human beings who do not know how to use and “recycle” a material so present in our everyday life. PORTRAIT OF TOMORROW is an installation I liked, it express all what Vanessi is as artist: provocative, sensual, beauty, imperfection, advanced, concerned, conceptual, mixing media, pushing the boundaries, creating new ways of art. It’s an Installation with the presence of a seated model to bring to light a 16 meter “plastic river”. A vision that represents the drama of the presence of PLASTIC on the planet. This presence is “born” of human foolishness incapable of USING and RECYCLING plastic, which is useful and decisive material and product for the evolution of man. A cruel criticism on the limit of humanity in the management of its resources. The used plastic is biodegradable and used in agriculture. Acrylic color tracks crumbles over time and are part of the whole, which are signs that existence is slowly consumed. https://youtu.be/pfwzO8BYgmE

Pak Unknow A cube NFT, Sothebys/Niftygateway Yes, a NFT. I don’t believe at them, but I could not resist having one and I took the opportunity in the first auction by Sotheby’s. I understand it’s a way for other artists that until now couldn’t reach the masses to go through. It has been the boom in 2021, if art will be remembered in 2021 will be because of the fever of NFT, related to cryptocurrencies. For how long? NFTs and cryptocurrencies are making headlines across the art world. Recent news about Beeple auctioning the first NFT ever at Christie’s has opened up the gates to crypto art and NFTs. Investors and art collectors are rushing into the crypto art market and buying anything they can. Beeple is the top-selling artist in the NFT space who is dominating headlines worldwide, a feat which has been well-deserved due to his years of hard work. The 2nd top-selling artist is Pak. Who is Pak? Pak is an artist who is pushing the limits of this new art medium. Pak is controversial, and a mystery since nobody knows who Pak is. Some people from the crypto community have even labeled Pak as the “Satoshi of crypto art” due to Pak’s hidden identity. Satoshi Nakamoto is the unknown creator of Bitcoin. The Fungible started on April 12 and ended on April 14th. It was released in collaboration with Sotheby’s exclusively on Nifty Gateway, a marketplace specializing in the sale and auction of non-fungible tokens. The sale yielded a total of $16,825,999 USD between April 12 and April 14. NFT Digital art captures numerous forms of creative media constantly in a state of evolution, redefinition, and novelty. Since its nascence in the 1960s, it has grown into a pervasive mode of artistic expression. Digital Art has flexed, expanded, and evolved limitations of our human creativity, using technology as an augmentative tool to create new mediums and styles for consumption. In collaboration with technology, artists have not only unlocked their own creativity, but found new ways to engage viewers and collectors by leveraging the capabilities of technology. As technology evolves, so does digital art, providing an ever-expanding opportunity for experimentation and exploration on the part of both artist and observer Vincent Mink 1974, Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, The Netherlands Commissioned in 2022 Club of 27 180x100, Acrylic on canvas, 2023 One of the side effects of the covid pandemic has been to be bored during lockdown times, discovering new ways to spend money without sense and fight against these boring times. First was gardening in the balcony, but too seasonal. Later was collecting Bang&Olufsen vintage equipment but a bit expensive. Finally, buying vinyl’s in web auctions and later on in flea markets. My favourite website has been Catawiki, easy, clear and trustable (money doesn’t go to the seller until you click the item has been delivered to you). Mixed with vinyl there were always a few works of art showing portraits of the singers most of the time. Not matching my collection, although interesting as decoration. I hate that, a work of art choose because of its decorative side? So, although, I can like the artists style and quality, I’ll never buy one. At some point, thinking around, the club of 27 come to my mind, don’t ask how, just thinking to match to buy a work of art from him but related to my social and political issues collection. I searched about him, send a message on IG but he didn’t answer it in one day. So I searched again and clicked on LinkedIn. And… the funny think is that he’s a neighbour. So, I had no election not to contact him again and commission a work. Most of the works around club 27, not so many, almost all prints and a few known graffiti featured the 6 biggest artists, someone added Johnson and others Basquiat, but surprisingly is not a recurrent subject. So the challenge has been not to copy the already done but adding something new. CLUB OF 27 The 27 Club includes popular musicians, artists and actors who died at age 27, often as a result of drug and alcohol abuse or violent means such as homicide, suicide and transportation-related accidents. The "club" has been repeatedly cited in music magazines, journals and the daily press. Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Jim Morrison all died at the age of 27 between 1969 and 1971. At the time, the coincidence gave rise to some comment, but it was not until Kurt Cobain's 1994 death, at age 27, that the idea of a "27 Club" began to catch on in public perception. When Kurt Cobain died a reporter knocked at the home of his mother, Wendy O’Connor, who remarked ruefully: ‘Now he’s gone and joined that stupid club. I told him not to join that stupid club.’ The term coined by Mrs O’Connor in her grief, encompassing all the stars who had died at 27. In 2011, seventeen years after Cobain's death, Amy Winehouse died at the age of 27, prompting a renewed swell of media attention devoted to the club once again. Three years earlier, she had expressed a fear of dying at that age. Blues musician Robert Johnson, who died in 1938, is one of the earliest popular musicians to be included in lists of 27 Club members. Likewise, Jean-Michel Basquiat has been included in 27 Club lists, despite the relative brevity of his music career, and his prominence as a graffiti artist and painter. Mia Zapata was an American musician who was the lead singer for the Seattle punk band The Gits. After gaining praise in the emerging grunge scene, Zapata was murdered in 1993 while on her way home from a music venue, at age 27. The crime went unsolved for a decade before her killer was arrested in 2003. One of the last (2017), but chosen because of our west-centric culture avoids us to look forward. An apparent suicide note left by K-pop star Kim Jong-hyun — the SHINee singer best known by his stage name, Jonghyun — revealed the depth of his struggles with depression before he died. The music idol’s death left millions of fans around the world in shock and forced a spotlight on mental health in South Korea. The list is longer but maybe they can be a good summary of Youth, drugs, depression, fame, misfortune, drink, worldwide, all times… all related.