We have been to at least a dozen new places in the past week and a half. All of this activity precluded last week’s Artnotes, but now I have a bucket of new inspiration.
The most unusual and perhaps most moving place we visited was the Ustica Memorial, outside of Bologna. It is monument to a mysterious plane crash and subsequent art project by Christian Boltanski, a French artist. The architecture of the building itself is unique, having been fashioned from old tram sheds, at the edge of Bologna, not far from the airport.
Itavia flight 870 crashed in June of 1980, and no definitive reason for its demise and the 81 people on board, has ever been revealed. It is rumored to have been shot down (they know it was an external force) by NATO, or France, or Italy, possibly in an attempt to assassinate Gaddafi. In any case, no one survived. |
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 | Swallows at Hammonnasset Laurie Fox Pessemier Commission |
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| Through the efforts of a sister of one of the passengers, the hulk of the plane and all its contents (we don’t see those), were washed (baptized, in the words of the artist) and reassembled in this building. It looks like a puzzle, all the bits, most about 6 x 6 inches each, patched together. The plane is oddly complete, at least on the outside, and you can see through the DC 9 structure. But it’s the setting that the artist created that brings it back to “life”. 81 lightbulbs hang around the structure, slowly illuminating and dimming, to represent the passengers, almost fading away, but never completely. There are likewise so many smoky mirrors around the room with the voices of those passengers talking about what they will do when they arrive: eat dinner, get results of a test, hold mommy’s hand. It is a little disconcerting, but at the same time, not forgetting, not ,glossing over, but asking still, “what happened here?” |
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 | Native American for our MAYPOLE Laurie Pessemier Acrylic/canvas 58 x 28" 147 x 71cm 750.00 |
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I am not sure what our guest made of it, but as an antidote, we went afterward to the Modern Art Museum in Bologna (MAMBO). Now, that was weird. We were nearly denied entrance because we had 2 cents less than the entry fee for the three of us (we had to resort to a credit card, which certainly cost the museum more than the two cents). The goony girl at the counter recommended we visit the permanent collection.
It was the most hilarious visit of our 12 day adventure. There was a video of an artist trying to board a train while wearing an outrageously large inner tube, for example. There were all sorts of oddball things like this, but the museum itself won the award for bizarre performance. The guards were mainly older women, oddly dressed (judged by me, who is always oddly dressed), sitting in chairs and completely motionless throughout the exhibits – I though one was actually a Duane Hanson sculpture until I almost touched her. Were they meditating? The weirdest person was the ticket taker, who dashed toward us as we approached an exhibit, and in fact, bumped into me. Did he think I snuck in? It was all completely hilarious and an insane contrast to the morning’s somber memorial. |
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 | Egg Cup Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/wood 4 x 13" 10 x 33cm 190.00 |
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| The day was a success from the sublime to the ridiculous, and set the tone for the rest of our adventures. And Artnotes returns. |
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 | Where my Muse Lives Laurie Fox Pessemier Acrylic/canvas 10 x 9" 25 x 23cm 290.00 |
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INVITING All Artists to present their Work: Paint, Literature, Crafts, Food....
Pessemier's Sunday Salon
Weekly on Sunday No Reservation Necessary
How it works: Bring a piece of your ART: that could be visual, like painting or printmaking; or literary, as in poetry or prose; or crafts, like metalwork or knitting; or food, or music. Something you made, or feel particularly inspired by. You have about 5 minutes to present, and we'll ooh, ahh, or answer questions you have. You can also come and see how we work before diving in. Just show up on Zoom at a minute or two before the hour.
No selling, no networking until after everyone has presented.
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