Curating
Collections.
Monica Lazzari X
Valeria Napoleone
Curating Collections commissions artists working from supported studios to curate projects with artworks from an established international collection.
For Art et al.’s third Curating Collections, Arts Project Australia artist Monica Lazzari was paired with the international contemporary collection of Valeria Napoleone. Arts Project Australia is a creative social enterprise that supports artists with intellectual disabilities, promotes their work, and advocates for their inclusion in contemporary art practice. This is the final Curation Collections series as part of Art et al. X AU/UK Season of Culture.
Monica and Valeria met for a virtual session, and then Monica continued to work online with Art et al. founding curators Sim Luttin and Lisa Slominski for virtual mentorship sessions discussing selecting artists for a project and forming a theme of ideas.
The outcome is Monica’s curated project SOMETHING DIFFERENT presenting a diverse group of international women artists from the private collection of Valeria.
Something different.
excerpt of ’Something Different’ by Monica Lazzari from e-catalogue
People respond to work they like, but then sometimes I look at a piece I don’t like and try and find something I like about it. It’s a journey I take, you know, I didn't like it at the start and now I like it. But then sometimes you can't get it — you can’t fake it you know. Sometimes, when I was working on this, I was confused about why I selected something. Then I’d go for a walk, come back to it, and go ‘oh yeah, I get it now. Yeah, I get what I was doing. I'm not so confused about it anymore.’ I thought about the themes for this exhibition hard. I thought about what looks good as an image online.
Something Different
Below is the selection of works that Monica chose from the collection of Valeria Napoleone to curate her project, Something Different. Each artwork represents one of the three themes explored in her digital project: People, Nature and Something Different. Her ideas and the full selection of artworks can be seen above - viewable through the ISSUU catalogue, or available as a downloadable PDF for you to look through and zoom in and out of.
PEOPLE
Aliza Nisenbaum Las Talaveritas (2015), oil on linen, 162.6 × 144.8 cm
NATURE
Anthea Hamilton Transposed Lime Butterfly (2019), foam digitally printed organic panama cotton, printed cotton, faux fur, 257 x 216 x 5 cm
SOMETHING DIFFERENT
Hell Gette, (#WokeUpLikeThis) 2k20 (2020), mirage-print and oil on canvas , 160 × 200 cm
“The Something Different theme has a lot of work in it. It’s hard to define what it is. You can’t really say it’s a person and you can’t say it’s nature. Because you can’t technically put, say, ‘nature’ in the artwork, then it’s something different. They are, maybe, more ambiguous. The pieces in something different also have a different materiality.”
- Monica Lazzari
“My journey with art has not been one in solitude, it has meant building a community with many incredible individuals whose support has been and is critical to build the collection and engage in significant projects. It is part of the Napoleone Collection’s DNA to share and to partner with like-minded realities for the sake of women artists. It has been exciting to collaborate with Art et al. and a real inspiration to see the collection through the artist Monica Lazzari’s eyes.”
- Valeria Napoleone