BEYOND

For several decades, our contemporary world has been characterized by an attempt to overcome boundaries, whether national, cultural, disciplinary or ethical.

 

At the same time we are witnessing the multiplication of antithetical movements that aim at maintaining the established order, the preservation of certain identities and values ​​worlds, which are inexorably giving way to new realities.

 

Therefore, We felt it was only right to confront the concept of borders, understood not only as geographical limits, but as political, cultural and artistic borders. A concept, to limit, in which every person, idea and form of expression is enclosed and delimited. Once recognized, we have the tools to define and identify what is inside the boundaries of a certain reality. The definition, therefore, is seen as the act of establishing the limit. It’s a route that simultaneously shows the ‘Other’, what is outside, and ‘I’, that for which a boundary was wanted.

 

The construction of a limit is somehow a performative act by an individual or a community to declare a certain reality as a complete, finished, or defined. Think of the Great Wall of China: a huge and ambitious work that even before being a military construction was an affirmation of identity. On the one hand the civilized world, the Chinese empire, the other the indefinite, barbarism. What has been enclosed by that huge work is actually an attempt to define the perceived perfect identity, which ended in implicitly sanctioning its end.

Once established and raised, boundaries, in fact, cannot contain an evolution. There remains the need to limit that which is perceived as dangerous, avoiding the commingling that invariably leads to new forms and identities that are still not defined and are therefore dangerous.  

 

Through the limit we experience the Other and this brings with it the fear of the different.

 

At the same time, fortunately, the need to go beyond these boundaries, to go beyond the established limits, is an innate need in man that distinguishes his existential experience. In fact, establishing a boundary brings with it the desire for discovery, leading to the need to open up and discover, it builds dialogue and stimulates research. Breaking boundaries brings the will of renewal in order to grow and move limits, finding a new synthesis of thought.

 

Now in its seventh edition, Outdoor, Festival places at the core of its investigation these reflections.  Therefore, the chosen title, Beyond, wishes to be a omen for overcoming the limitations and boundaries that distinguish our collective life.

 

Some artists who participate in this new edition confront these concepts by interacting with the barracks’ architecture, going beyond its own borders, going beyond their own conceptions of artistic work, putting themselves to the test with media far from their normal way of working, trying to go beyond the limitations imposed by the means that define their artistic style. Whether this be the digital environment fabricated by Felipe Pantone, the phantasmagoria of Virgilio Villoresi, Joy’s theatrical scenes, Tellas’ enchanted settings, or the giant photographic posters by Fakso.

 

Others will implement this reflection precisely on the media with which they typically operate, elevating it from support to protagonist of their artwork.  This includes the festive dance of the characters and the passing through of death by Honet, the immersive installation by Tundra in collaboration with the Kuril Chto crew, Filthy Luker’s alien invasion of space with a shapeless form, the didactic irony of Mobstr, AFK’s stencils, the monochromatic, abstract explosions of American Craig Costello, the game of viewing interrupted found in the work of the two Spanish artists Sebas Velasco and Xabier Anunzibai, and  Vlady’s large labyrinth.

 

Some of the exhibition spaces themselves, organized again this year as pavilions by country, are ideally and physically joined by breaking down the walls and creating a barrier-free path, along which will be presented new spaces that were not visited during the last edition—unveiling them and displaying new rooms.

 

The festival itself will respond to this mission by hosting other national and international organizations working in contemporary art, called to curate the pavilion assigned to them, such as Asalto Festival from  Zaragoza and the Street Art Museum in St. Petersburg, the Nuart Festival in Stavanger, the Sicilian Cultural Farm cultural Park of Favara, the Wunderkammern Gallery in Rome and organizations connected to training in the cultural sector such as the IED – European Institute of Design.

Explore, search, collaborate.  Test yourself with the unknown. Reconsider viewpoints, share, break down boundaries. All this is BEYOND. An attempt to openness to the world, that is an effort to build bridges instead of walls. A way of communicating. Because we believe in the end, as shown by Wittgenstein, that the limits of our language are the limits of our world.  Text by Antonella Di Lullo 

With Honet we are in front of a work with strong allegorical connotations. Along the wall we find a collection of figures, more or less familiar, that dance in long along the wall toward their destinies, passing beyond their own demons--death. Through Honet the reference to a macabre medieval dances takes on a sweet and playful tone, perhaps demonstrating how the contemporary mindset is devoid of gravitas in regards to the limit that more than anything else distinguishes our lives. In selecting the characters, the French artist draws from his mind a selection of historic, contemporary and arcane icons or fairy-tale and cartoon characters. The bizarre mix, like a carnival parade, appears on one hand to want to exorcise this presence and the one the other in a way show the spirit of our time, that thanks to its technological component predisposes the world and time in an eternal present, where everything is present simultaneously.

We too are called to participate, having to select whether to face and overcome our fears represented by the figure of death placed covering the exit, in order to continue to see the exhibition or choose to remain imprisoned in this carnivalesque limbo.

 In the Seventies, in a New York pressed by a social war created by the closure of factories and by the increase of unemployment, the first writers started to go in the subway warehouses to paint on trains, quickly leaving their names to avoid to be arrested by the police. At first the public opinion  evaluated that as an act of defacement of public spaces, but for them was just the funniest and most exciting thing to do.  Shortly after this phenomenon become established in all the metropolitan cities in America and Europe.

For almost half century, thousands of impulsive kids repeated these actions all over the world, while the law was against them and the public opinion considered them vandals.

But they didn't care.

The photographic exhibit  In your face by Alex Fakso that we present as the first event of the Outdoor festival, follows the same concept. It's something that cheekily is presented to us without fear and filters.

Alex Fakso is an Italian photographer who lives in London, and with his work he became the voice and direct witness of this world, giving to it more intensity by his personal stile and photographic cut.  

In your face wants to report the writing phenomenon that has imposed in the urban collective unconscious, changing the perception of common spaces.  His enormous photographies cover entirely the walls of some of the pavillions where the Outdoor festival took place in 2015. And in some of the rooms these photos cover symbolically the objects founded in the ex Barracks, creating an expressive short circuit that overturns the ethic universe tied to the past of the structure, which plays with the legal/illegal dichotomy. The place that once contained military corps, is transformed in a challenging way by celebrating its opposite. That creates a cognitive disorientation in the spectator world values. 

But this exaltation is just apparent, in fact Alex Fakso's work has always been intended to show, without any judgement, an underground world unknown to the most, with the aim to report by images the controversy of this artistic expression. What is not a simple documentary is the way the photographer chose to place his blow ups: the expressive short circuit between legality and illegality is activated by the actions shot in the pictures, and for the artist is an incitement to reflect on writers vandalistic act  in opposition to the aggressive actions made by the establishment as well. 

Verticality, repetition and geometry. These are the key words of Joys’ artistic work.

Always inclined to use geometric patterns that, through the use of different tones, create the illusion of three-dimensions, in this work Joys goes beyond the two-dimensional support through the use of panels and bands arranged along the space. This creates a work that is dynamic and operates differently depending on the perspective, inviting the viewer to follow it and to cross through it.

On the wall the arrangement of lines and colors in strong hues is the background to the large bands descending from the ceiling, deployed in the enormous room like theater wings creating the suggestio were deployed in the huge hall like theatrical wings, creating a scenic suggestion that recalls, according to the author, the sacred dimension that is felt walking in Gothic cathedrals.

Text by Street Art Museum Sant. Petersburg. Saint-Petersburg Street Art Museum is a platform for free creativity. Young ironic street art crew “Kuril Chto” and media-artists from “Tundra Collective”, one of the most progressive multidisciplinary team of musicians, sound engineers, programmers and visual artists in Russia, united specially for Outdoor Festival 2016 in Rome. In their festival artwork all participants attempt to invent unique approach to developing art installations with a view to come up with their own visual language based on reconsideration of traditional graffiti and its combination with multi-media performances and kinetic light sculptures. Hall of fame – Kuril Chto on the wall are written the names / surnames / place / date / other important things, one way or another, influenced the work of the group, formed a style and way of thinking. For example, film directors – Fellini, Antonioni, Tarkovsky, Hitchcock, Jarmusch, Sokurov, painters – Kandinsky, Malevich, Rothko, writers – Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Mayakovsky, Pelevin, favorite cities – Rome and Saint Petersburg, and for example “Petrogradka” – bohemian neighborhood of St. Petersburg, where you can meet a lot of work on the walls of the group. On the opposite wall is an invitation for the public: look back, sometimes is necessary look back for moving forward. As for artists from Tundra Collective they are responsible for the transformation of exhibition space.

Over the past few years Felipe Pantone has fully scaled the Mt. Olympus of urban art. His career has developed through a progressive blending of his two souls — graffiti writer and artist. In recent years his research focuses on the three-dimensionality of his graphics and on an aesthetic that takes cues from 8-bit and the early web. With this work he wanted to push himself, leaving behind the wall and creating an immersive installation for Outdoor, one that materializes three-dimensionality in a space with strong virtual connotations. In the space assigned to him, boxes and cylinders hang from the ceiling, stretching across the room. The forms are painted with black and white stripes and bright hues reminiscent of the 90s Paintbrush palettes. As happens daily during our internet usage, Cyberspazio Tubolare (Tubular Cyberspace) leads the viewer to explore a digital world materialized and multiplied by a series of mirrors installed on the floor, referencing a soft edged vaporwave aesthetic.

In the last few years Filthy Luker has dedicated himself to the creation of inflatable urban art pieces that interact with public space. With this intervention, a sort of shapeless mass reminiscent of the gelatinous monster in the celebrated film Blob, appears on the roof of one of the pavilions. Spilling over the roof, it seems as though it is about to pour onto the pavement below. This ambiguous presence strikes a balance between threatening and sympathetic. It’s a sort of invasion of the former barracks’ space that seems to, on one hand, represent fear in the face of a threat from a depersonalized urban context, and on the other hope in a new way of conceiving space through urban art.

Mobrst has gained fame thanks to the provocative phrases left on wall around the world. Their irony leads the viewer to a moment of reflection beyond mere aesthetic enjoyment. For Outdoor the artist created a large outdoor mural, painting black the floor and three walls that one encounters while entering the former barracks. Conversely he let emerge, by leaving the remaining surfaces untouched, two simple captions tag: mural and floor. The piece activates linguistically by reversing the semiotic plans, matching the signifier and the signified with the work itself, elevating his act to an abstract level. The artist shows us the last form of the art is expressive and linguistic, made of signs and tools that we use unconsciously to decipher the world, managing to experience the essence only when the interpretive mechanism jams, just like in this case. The title Hashtag of everything highlights the communicative dimension of the network, the scale of which often reduces the existence of things to their online presence online label.

Text by Franco Ottavianelli. His artistic training occurred in Bologna. A multifaceted artist, he moves from drawing to engraving, from environmental installation to public art. Nature is his inspirational muse, whether it be the orderly cataloging of Linnaeus or the complex laws of chaos. Imagining points of view within a carefully prepared landscape is the delightful task asked of visitors to the articulated work Points of View. Observing an occupied scenario is something the artist does continuously, and he invites the viewer to do the same. The perspectives might differ, overlap, or reflect. Viewpoints with a soundtrack that give us perspective of an ever-changing mind, one inhabited and lived day after day, at all times. This space is an imaginary dwelling, one that is seemingly real. In reality it’s an enchanted landscape, a house suspended in the air, where perfect order and great chaos live simultaneously, day and night. Its landscapes evoke the tales of Murakami. Here, time passes very slowly; you can find pieces of your forgotten self, memories imprisoned by imperceptible ripples. Dream of counting your memories, like stones of the mind hidden in grassland. In secret, splinters sing, each with its own story. Maybe it is possible to rearrange them comfortably in order to compose interconnected scenes. Enter the space in order to travel in a time so slow it can be caressed.   In thirty days those stories will undergo the mutations of an ordinary landscape, transitioning from daring accumulations to melancholy dispersions, turning from night to day, tidying up other tales. Dream of furnishings like the stones of an invented land. Tellas, Sardinian stones.

Text by Festival Asalto (Zaragoza, Spain). Sebas Velasco and Xavier Anunzibai are part of the great cast of Spanish contemporany artists with solid roots on the Graffiti scene. The work of Sebas Velasco (Burgos, 1988) revolves around urban scenes. His photographic style, full of expressive and technically accurate brushstrokes, contrasts with the kind of scenes he paints where Graffiti, its spots, methods and atmosphere are the central axis. Xabier Annunzibai (Beasain, 1985) has a wide range of artistic skills as a result of his continuous experimentation with new materials, techniques and supports. Their works usually mixes materials typography, colored shapes and layers to create complex scenes full of meanings and messages. Masters of their own style, their combined proposal for Outdoor proves, once again, that multidisciplinary work is the best way to accept new artistic challenges and get the most out of the intervention space. The relationship between in and out is the concept behind this intervention, where the observer can look through the door’s painting to discover the inner space and be part of the established dialogue between both portraits.

Virgilio Villoresi is not your ordinary filmmaker. With his short films and music videos he has collaborated with a wide array of creative worlds, preferring vintage animation techniques that rely on “know-how,” rather than the digital, such as the use of stop motion or shadow cinema. For Outdoor he wanted to tackle techniques that were unusual for him, but that harken back to the remote past of pre-cinema, bringing a backlit rotating sculpture that project colorful shadow puppets on the wall. In its movement, the sculpture projects, for a moment, a hidden figure. It’s kinetic art that reveals and conceals the subject constantly, as if to poetically underscore how much our examination is partial and is derivative of the spatial and temporal perspective in which we are placed. The work, therefore, is an invitation to recognize the fragmented nature of our point of view and to take the proper time to observe and pass judgment on things.

The Waves installation is brought to life—a suspended and organic wave, which changes shape from the force of wind and gravity. The strobe light imprints the spectator’s retina with static images alternated with dynamic lit moments that allow you to admire the details of the forms in new ways. 

Text by Andrea Bartoli (Farm Cultura Park). Now more than ever, artists, curators, gallery owners and cultural operators in general, have to change register. It’s over (even if not everyone has understood). The era of the contemporary art LIONS, the white cubes, the VIP entrances to contemporary art fairs, the astronomical prices, the aesthetics for aesthetics, the participation aimed at membership. In this era of widespread atrocities, continued human rights violations, war, terrorism, beheadings, journeys of hope and loss of life, each of us has been “sullied.” We are constantly learning of tragedies in the news and metabolize everything, continuing to eat as if the information we receive is fiction. This size of global suffering unfortunately does not preclude the existence of local malaise, created, on the one hand, from marginalization, poverty and ignorance but also from arrogance, cronyism and waste. Not only waste of economic resources, but also of talents and territories, without identity and future. Vlady has understood this moment; he has accepted the challenge and has taken his responsibilities. He challenges the established order, complains, reflects, opens his eyes, turns to reality, moves his sense of perception, and puts you in the conditions to make you question things. In his artistic research he doesn’t hold back from territorial militancy and doesn’t ever shy away from the next challenge. He movies in the forgotten provinces or abandoned peripheries, in the middle of people, in small resilient communities, in order to bring beauty where it doesn’t exist and where there is no thought about who has been deprived of the ability to produce it. The work presented by Vlady is the result of the exchange between Outdoor Rome and the Cultural Farm Cultural Park in Favara (AG). It deals with our daily borders, taken as physical and mental limits. The large maze is intended as a metaphor of the fixed course, a compulsory freedom, a probation. Free, under the terms and conditions imposed on us. All around, a dozen decontextualized sentences (from computers to walls) allude to the EU and to our contemporary society. The holed out flag is a symbol of revolution. It’s a metaphor for an imperfect Europe—unfinished, permeable, private, outraged. They are not easy offerings, nor answers, but keys to understanding: entrance gate, exit, or an invitation to go further.

Craig Costello became famous on the American graffiti scene thanks to his silver tag KRINK, left over the years on the streets of San Francisco and New York. His dripping line, repetitive and unknowingly provocative, has become the trademark of his style, first as a writer and over time, without his name, in an increasingly abstract manner. It’s moved to museums, ending up in fashion and design products. His name, gradually disappearing from his work, established itself as the name of a company that produces paints, markers, and tools for painting. The violent gesture to “vandalize” a wall is expressed in its essence, appears in its purest form, emphasizing how the action of painting is the same as the act of painting. The walls of the room were covered with black paint and on them fall drips of white paint, which, as a living fluid, seem to cascade from a pulsing organism—the room itself. With Craig Costello, the space in the barracks takes on an ethereal appearance, bringing the viewer into a metaphysical environment leading to contemplation.

Text by James Finucane (Nuart festival). AFK is a Bergen-based artist whose monochrome stencil-based artworks are often laced with political undertones. In the past few years he has established himself as one of Norway’s leading street artists with his work being among some of the most exceptional examples the country has to offer. For his participation in Outdoor Festival, AFK took the current global migration crisis as the starting point for his installation, which touches upon psychology, biology, current affairs and statistics in reflecting upon the causes of this on-going crisis. “With all the information we are fed about political, religious and racial differences being the cause of so much unrest, could we be neglecting to acknowledge what is at the heart of the matter? Regardless of all the reasons we may assume to be the cause, there is one consistent factor that unifies most of the violence in our world…men. This is no revelation of course, yet we continue to emphasize and group these perpetrators by their affiliations rather than their gender” says the artist. It is commonly recognised that education is the dominant factor that determines levels of poverty, social unrest and the manifestation of violence. Likewise, the most extreme examples of academic suppression are in societies where men make all the rules. Psychologist, Steven Pinker perhaps sums it up best in the following statement: “The parts of the world that lag in the decline of violence are also the parts that lag in the empowerment of women.” ?AFK’s two murals for Outdoor Festival, titled ‘Hard Wire’ and ‘The Climb – Struggles To Connect’, invite the viewer to meditate on these ancient residues of aggressive behavior and their manifestations in contemporary everyday life.