Mary Cinque, Viviana Rasulo, Geppy Pisanelli, Antonella Masetti, Linda Kunik, Richard Slechta, Maidy Morhous, Staphanie Sydney, Catherine Rouane

Villa Di Donato Piazza S. Eframo Vecchio – Naples
29/05/2019 – 10/06/2019

 

Once invited to reflect on the past and the future (which, to protect myself, I stopped doing long time ago), I realized these concepts are less objective than I’ve thought. People from different countries may have different perceptions of what is past and what is futurist.

I have therefore shifted my attention from the history of the Western population to my personal history and found a fertile thread: coffee and the places where this drink is consumed.

Almost two years ago I moved to London, home of tea and of the first industrial revolution as well; great was my surprise then, in discovering that the young and rampant Londoners are, for many years now, obsessed with coffee. They drink it at all times, they worship it, they are even coffee awards and competitions. And as “when in Rome do like the Romans do” I started drinking more coffee myself: more than I was drinking while living in Naples, a city where coffee is a cult.

I haven’t failed to spot the irony of the thing and this made me continue studying the phenomenon to discover that among the most popular coffee beans here are those from Ethiopia, a country where I spent part of my childhood, and that strongly influenced all my artistic research.

My artwork for “On the edge of the History” will therefore unfold along a geographical timeline that, starting from the origins of humankind (Africa), passes through the evolution of the dominant modern culture (Europe) up to a future (America?) that I imagine still informed by the exciting drink.

If at the beginning coffee shops have represented the places where the intellectuals met to discuss new ideas and organize revolutions, in the course of history “having a coffee” has acquired a stratification of meanings and motivations and rites, that vary from place to place.

The city of London, like all the metropolises, is inhabited by numerous foreign communities thus allowing the opportunity to discover the different rites that revolve around coffee. As if this were not enough, almost every person has their own way to perceive, desire and consume this drink, as shown by the interviews with the people I portrayed drinking coffee, during the last year.

In Los Angeles I intend to present this documentation, which I would then like to integrate with a visit to Little Ethiopia, so as to add another piece to my research, towards its next Neapolitan stage.

-----------------

Published on 23-Nov-2020
Tags: acrylic, addis ababa, art, art1307, coffee, color, london, los angeles, marycinque, naples, napoli, newington green, painting, people, pic nic, portraits, saatchi, sennelier oil pastel