Mosaïque magazine n°1 English edition

3 « Editorial »

by Renée Malaval

Translation Alexia Noirot  

      You are just about to discover Mosaïque magazine, 72 pages entirely dedicated to the art of mosaic, unusual and unique, you will find it twice a year and as long as it will have readers.

The desire of singularity is expressed with the contribution of talented artists, some of whom have participated to the first edition; other artists, and not the least, will take part on the following issues. Over the pages, the reader is invited to discover the diversity of expressions contemporary mosaic offers; through the creation of men and women, French, Italian, Scottish, Japanese, American mosaicists… that use marbles, granites, natural stones, enamels of Briare, gold, glass, powder blue, and other materials, to create a piece considered a “one off”.

Even if mosaic is mostly characterized by its diversity, it remains a way to comprehend time, space, material and light. The connection with time is as important in mosaic as it is in life, and the time of achievement disappears when a new piece takes shape. As other forms of art, mosaic defines a space, what defines it best is the limit between the tesselle and the interstice, specific to each artist, as it reflects the movement and the drawing. The material offers unlimited possibilities through its colours, density, nature, but at the same time sets the limits to the artist. Light, essential in mosaic, trapped inside, transforms the material into a bright image, which is revealed to the spectator.

Mosaïque magazine has clear ambitions: increase artists’ visibility and readability, by highlighting the creative energy coming from the world of mosaic, by introducing artists’ creations beyond the usual circle of amateurs and specialists, and by confronting artistic experiences and creations, and their different forms of modernity and contemporaneity. Thereby, Mosaïque magazine will inform, spread knowledge, show, make understandable and enlarge the vision of the world of mosaic. The magazine will hopefully make the readers want to attend mosaic exhibitions and even acquire pieces.

Mosaïque magazine also wants to participate to the debate regarding the relevance of mosaic in contemporary art: not to confine it, but to give it the impulse that will propel it in front of the stage.

Mosaïque magazine also has the ambition to become necessary for the amateur, able to discover the complexity of mosaic’s different forms of expression; he will find a section called “workshop secrets” aiming at the improvement of his artistic practice.

Some articles are testimonies of the artists themselves, others are written by art critics, historians, teachers, and independent editors known in the world of mosaic, so that Mosaïque magazine becomes a reference review.

The French version of Mosaïque magazine will be enriched with a notebook of English translations in order to widen the perimeter of distribution.

The team is continuously growing: forty persons have contributed with passion and enthusiasm to this issue. Each of them should be warmly thanked.

The revue is articulated in such a way that the reader is guided and finds in every new issue: news, events, articles relative to the world of contemporary, sacred and antic mosaic, but also reports on private collections and remarkable sites.

For centuries, mosaic has taken multiple facets and can be found not only in architecture, but also in decoration, popular or contemporary art; as a consequence it can be a floor, a mural ornament, a sculpture, a picture of easel, or an installation.

Mosaic is a fully-fledged art, which is best described by Marcel Duchamp quote: “a game between all men at all periods.”

Mosaic remains accessible and direct. Its success might echo to a deeper quest, dating back to childhood, to assemble, organize elements in order to find back unity, referring to the meaning of life each of us pursues? Mosaique magazine will allow you to dream, and to share the exception.

6 ECHOES OF THE CURRENT TOPICS

“Event: Riccardo Licata, from Airaines to Paray-le-Monial”

by Renée Malaval

Translation Cloé Herrero

According to the biographies, Riccardo Licata is a painter, born in 1929 in Turin, who lives between Venice and Paris.

His painting of signs came through in 1949 on the fringe of the current fashion. In other words, Riccardo Licata found his style as early as 1949. While it cannot be denied that Licata is influenced by Paul Klee's theory on the representation and the form or by the experimentations of automatic painting by the Surrealists, he creates a free, new and pure language that is fully personal. His main inspiration comes from the music: listening to some music, he creates a spontaneous graphic writing. His wife Marie was a musician and guided him into the music field. The images get rid of all figurative representation, some pure signs come through, and some abstract signs organize themselves along the rhythm into the space, according to a musical rhythm.

The music might be at the origin of his language of signs, but his "expressive code" is subject to many other influences. First, the artist has an intense way of living the present through all its political, cultural and emotional sides, which is turned into plastic impulses in work. Even though he uses abstract signs, the artist considers himself as a painter of reality; his language is the expression of his feelings, his sensations, his thoughts as well as his memories, and represents both his daily life and his intellectual activity.

The influence of landscapes can also be felt in his work: the northern countries' trees he discovered when he travelled to Finland are found in his paintings. His travels to oriental countries have as well deeply influenced his writing.

Runic, Phoenician, Greek or Arabic writings have also influenced Riccardo Licata's work, and the contact with Primitive Art contributed to the appearance of the signs, evoking remote human representations.

As the time goes by, the artist interprets the signs with a full imaginative freedom. The form of the signs works closely together with the processing of the surface and the use of the color. Just like the signs, the color is determined by feelings and experiences of all kinds. For Riccardo Licata, there is a close relationship between the sign and the color, as well as between the ambiance and the color.

That is how Licata's compositions evolve from a unique "sign-color" relationship that overruns the whole space, to some "sign-color" rhythmical sequences distributed in friezes, which leads to a chromatic explosion on an even surface.

Riccardo's genius lies nevertheless in his polyphonic characteristic: while many visual artists go through various mediums, few manage to excel at such a wide artistic exercise. So, in addition to oils, his pictorial language goes from watercolors for his travel books, fresco, silk-screen printing, glass, or tapestries to mosaics.

His language is indeed able to adapt to the various mediums and techniques, while still respecting each of their intrinsic qualities. According to Enzo di Martino "he has found the golden way for the expression to arise at all times, in every situation, and on any medium".

If Riccardo Licata is at first a painter, he is also a deserving heir to the roman and Byzantine mosaic masters. Since 1950, when he made his first mosaic, this medium has been the activity that translates at best Riccardo Licata's creative passion. That is the medium by which he projects at best his language of graphics and dynamic rhythms, that echoes beautifully with the marble and smalt tesserae lines, with rich colors.  Moreover, he managed to pass the love of mosaics on to a whole artists generation.

10 IN THE ART OF MIRROR

Masters mosaïsts of Ravenna

By Rosetta Berardi

Translation Cloé Herrero

Summary

      The exhibition From Azzaroni to the Signorinis, the Story of Ravenna's Mosaics was shown in the Mosaic Arts Institute's Sala Espositova from October 15^th till November 27^th, 2010. It was dedicated to the Signorini family, which has marked the story of mosaics in Ravenna for more than one century, and still does nowadays. That exhibition was organized by Felice Nittolo and Saturno Carnoli, and was part of an ambitious tribute project to Ravenna's great mosaic Masters, developed by Felice Nittolo in the Niart Gallery. The story of this family of artists pieces the path that Ravenna followed to become the capital of mosaics together again.

A catalog full of unpublished documents and texts by Saturno Carnoli has been published for the occasion.

The story begins with Alessandro Azzaroni -drawing virtuoso and Carlo Signorini's great-grandfather- and goes on with Ulderico David, talented news photographer during World War I.

The exhibition puts into relief the predominance of Renato Signorini, who was the Academy of Arts' Mosaic School's headmaster. He founded the Ravenna style, and invented a new technique on a temporary medium, while he was trying to recover the technique used by the Ravenna mosaic artists of the 5^th and 6^th centuries in the city's mausoleums and churches. The marble and smalt tesserae were laid down on a different angle, which allowed obtaining an uneven surface, so that the light creates a characteristic vibration and changes throughout the day.

Carlo Signorini, Renato's third son, assisted his father during twenty years and then carried on with the family tradition with his studio "Il Mosaico", and gained an international recognition. Many mosaic artists have been trained in that very studio, such as Giovanna Galli, Marco de Luca, Verdiano Marzi, Francesca Fabbri, Felice Nittolo, Sandro Pocaterra, Paolo Racagni, Giulio Babini, and many others.

12 FROM AN EXIBITION TO ANOTHER

International Chartres’ mosaic meetings “

By Renée Malaval

Translation Alexia Noirot

The eighth edition of the international Chartres’ meetings took place from the 23^rd of october until the 21^st of November in lycée Fulbert’s chapel.

The international mosaic meetings were created in 1996 by an association called the 3R. In the chapel’s interior and in the school hall, they welcome every two years, and occurring pair years, internationally renowned artists. This year, 230 amateur and professional mosaicists, of fifteen different nationalities, were gathered, during a month; series of conferences and debates took place, on topics that passion the world of mosaic.

We can only admire volunteers’ work, and in particular the one achieved by Mrs Yenkamah and Mrs Fraval, respectively president and vice-president of the “3R” association, and also Patrick Macquaire’s, director and creator of the international meetings. This year again was a great success, three thousands visitors attended the event.

At the end of the mosaics’ exhibition, a jury attributed the Picassiette price to the four competing categories: groups, amateurs, enlightened amateurs, and professionals. Visitors also awarded their own choice with the Public prize. The mosaicist Amado Fiscgrund announced the results.

17 FROM AN EXIBITION TO ANOTHER

SOLO MOSAICO in Moscow

Translation Alexia Noirot

An important contemporary mosaic exhibition took place in Moscow, at the Artplay centre, from the 8^th October until the 7^th of November 2010. Organized by SOLO MOSAÏCO, the third edition’s theme was “Architecture and mosaic”.

Ten international artists were invited to express their interpretation about this year’s theme; they presented pieces and installations that represented interactions between these different types of art. The constraint imposed by the theme did not restrict artists’ creativity, quite the contrary, each of them developed its own vision according to their personal representations; as a consequence the exhibition offered a large overview of different artistic expressions in the architectural, cultural and urban, actual context.

A part of the exhibition was dedicated to works done by children from the mosaic school of Dimitri Kotov of Moscow and the school of Encho of Raina Rachevi in Bulgaria. A catalogue, imagined by Ismail Akhmetov, founder and president of SOLO MOSAÏCO, realized by Egor Larichev, curator of the exhibition, has been published. It is available on the following website www.solo-mosaico.com as well as details on the event.

Dusciana Bravura  « Alchemy »

It is an interpretation of the transmutation of metal into gold and silver. This installation composed of great pipes covered with glass printed with the 1000 most famous art masterpieces since the end of the 19^th century until today, was presented to the public in such a manner that visitors could walk around the pipes.

Marco Bravura   « Primary Architecture »

Built with gold tesserae, alike the millstone installed in the park of the Mausoleum of Galla Placida, “birds’ gold nests” pay tribute to architectural ingeniousness, to intelligence and hard work of “primary architects” that birds have been for million years.

Nane Zavagno « Stones »

A big rose-window of stones placed in concentric circles. Pebbles are used as  tesserae - black on a white background on one side and white on dark background on the other side. This piece is represented on the cover of the exhibition’s catalogue.

18 FROM AN EXHIBITION TO ANOTHER

« Free tesserae”

Traduction Alexia Noirot

The exhibition allows visitors to appreciate the progression achieved by Cécile Bouvarel: besides numerous unseen pieces, which result from two years of work, she hung mosaics realised at the time she attended l’Atelier de Licata at the Beaux Arts of Paris in 1985. She found her style during this period, nourished by the practice of lyrical singing. Since that time, she creates original and very personal pieces in her workshop located in Pantin or in the one called “Les petits pavés” located in Saint Sauveur le Vicomte in the Cotentin. A part of her work is related to sacred art, which gives her the opportunity to collaborate with the sculptor Vincent Kressman.

Mosaic, récup’art, music, graphism are as many disciplines that have shaped Cécile Bouvarel’s artistic personality; they become entangled in each of her creations. Some tesselles have flown away from her mosaics and have been replaced by a great diversity of materials, positioned in their right place on a mortar surface, to compose pictures and dream-like scenes, in a world imbued with musicality. At the frontier of abstract and figurative art, the lines drown by metal strings shape story-telling pictures.

Richard Plaa, journalist, talks about her work. “Cécile Bouvarel uses materials that appear dance-like, as a stop through time, in the harmony of shapes, colours and space. Her pieces are not neutral, but filled with a quest, a match between colour and material, volume and depth of field, that makes you want to touch the picture, to feel the minor details. We happen to be in a universe close to the Little Prince of Saint-Exupéry and the spiritual poetries of Claudel, two universes that give to human its place on earth and to humanity its right to dream. A luxury nowadays.”

Cécile herself talks about her work. “Everything starts with the pleasure of materials: here’s my main source, my raw material, my real gold mine! Since childhood, I gloat over gathering them at all winds with a strong emotional focus, juggling it with these ingredients of all kinds, most of the time standard: minerals directly extracted from nature or manufactured, every kind of treasures already used, mistreated, coming from my father’s reserves, friends’ workshops or carried along the sea, kept as it is or reworked, added with the metal in order to get the graphic value.

To create my own universe, I need to look at it in a good and offensive way, transfuse my own energy as to give it a second life, liberating it from its silence, and re-enchanting it if possible. Then I feel guided, transported by this face-to-face, that feeds my imagination, inspire my composition, in a direct and extreme confrontation, giving space to a series of unpredicted annoyances: I let my hand go to every possibilities, spot the fragments from which emerge the sparkle, and keep these graved in the mortar, if only every thing sounds and resounds as I want to hear it.

Settlements are sometimes complex but they train my creativity and open new horizons to me. I try to sublimate these materials until a smooth, aerial writing comes up and give to each piece its freshness, lightness and light.

The impression of easiness and spontaneity that arise from my works is often in complete opposition with the arduous and physical process implied in the development and in the achievement. But I love playing with paradoxes and conceal know-how constraints skillfully. However surprise, astonishment, and unknown also have to be found. As a consequence, the mosaic only truly displays when my implementation fades humbly before the unforeseeable: this “I don’t know what” of miraculous that make the piece glow.

All this turmoil, swarming of substances and assembling techniques have, in the end, only one objective; spiritualise the material, tinge my pieces with musicality and poetry, and invite to an active contemplation.”

A suspended time, a breath in the current world.

Luciano Petris

In 1970, Luciano Petris is graduated from the school of mosaicists located in Frioul. In his workshop of Codroipo, he realizes mosaics that translate internationally renowned artists’ portfolios, as Christian Ludwig Attersee, Anton Lehden and Joze Ciuha. But above all, he realizes personal pieces, characterized by the use of heterogeneous materials, giving a particular sensitivity to his works. Unevenness, resulting from the introduction of various materials, combined with a very precise tesselle’s cut, stimulates the material itself, becoming abounding, nearly organic. It results in a powerful piece, impressive, sometimes threatening, from which we guess a premonition of suffering world’s future.

France Hogué

France Hogué lives in Paris but keeps strong boundaries with Dinard where she was born. Her favourite material is definitely the fresh mortar. “There’s smoothed mortar and smoothed mortar: she, smoothes it differently and that’s what makes her pieces so unique” says Gérard Brand; she works it indefinitely, by successive stratums, making it fluctuating, before fixing securely, in the way of a scarce piece, a colour or a raw material. It’s this sculpted bind, with its folds and cracks, that give to the piece its structure, which is France Hogue’s stamp, enshrouding by a delicate harmony her compositions, whatever the feelings and emotions she expresses.

The editor Richard Plaa talks about it too: “Above all the stand, the bottom, the mortar, are at the root of France Hogué’s work, who is going to rely on these grey-whites, giving them relief and shape to, in the end, reveal the picture by the juxtaposition of tesselles or materials. Gold, tins, and coppers suddenly light up these bottoms that result from a delicate work, creating at this point, several scenes and universes that are an invitation to reflexion and travel. You must take the time to look, letting your eyes discover the tracks laid down by the artist, in order to discover the world to which she wishes to drive us…

A delicate work, an appropriate use of materials and colours, a subtle game of shapes and volumes show us that the artist travels as her creations dictate, letting us discover the contrast of a few snapshots placed on the mortar.”

Boxes

“France doesn’t talk a lot but I feel a lot of depth, decency, and the search for this vibration that must be present in a creation. France tells us the presence of only one tesselle allows a piece to be considered a mosaic. But the grains of sand aren’t they miniature tesselles?” Gérard Brand

“France Hogué’s mosaics contain a lot of unexpected coming from elsewhere. Are you guessing the sand? It is mortar, coloured in the mass. Are you looking for tesselles? They are like rare pieces, stones carried out from other shores, taking the colour of tin, copper and marble! You cannot find the size, are you looking for the caesura, juncture, rupture? One can only find in her mosaics harmony, a balance imposed by the movement and entirely taken by the wave. Let yourself go.” Patrick Macquaire

22 PORTRAIT OF A CONTEMPORARY ARTIST    

Luca Barberini

by Renée Malaval

Translation Patsy Mutso

Luca Barberini is part of a new generation of artists; he isn’t yet thirty years old. He scrutinizes life with the eye of an artist and has chosen the language of mosaics to express himself.

“La folla”, The crowd

This is the work that first drew public attention to him; it was spotted at the ‘Opere Del Mondo’ at the church of San Domenico in Ravenna during its Mosaic Festival in October 2009. It won Luca Barberini the nomination of  "Best in Print Artist 2011"  awarded by the jury of "Exhibition in Print" organised by Mosaic Art Now.

The idea came to Barberini from a friend, who took a photograph of a television screen just at the moment when the camera captured spectators in the stands at a football match. He designed a bozzetto which is a small, 10cm x 6cm, watercolour sketch depicting hundreds of spectators: each face indicated by two dots for the eyes, a line for the mouth and dressed in a dazzling yet monochrome style. This was his point of departure and his particular source of inspiration for the mosaic itself. He then created ‘Spectacolo’ where each face is composed of about fifteen tesseræ: one can see an old woman, a man wearing spectacles. . . Finally, Barberini refined his work until each face was identifiable by only four or five tesseræ without losing individuality : each individual has a face, an expression and clothing. He creates the mosaic spontaneously, choosing colours as the work progressed, using smalt tesseræ for the bright colours of the clothes and marble and smalt for the softer, more subtle colours of the faces. The work confronts us, proclaiming our unity and also our rich diversity.

The theme of the crowd  still challenges Barberini who is now creating a ‘white collar’ crowd, reduced to identical heads on a dark background. The artist is evolving towards a mosaic on the boundaries between abstraction and figuration.  Another creation shows us a crowd of individuals ‘The Blues’ representing workers leaving a factory. ‘White Collars’ and ‘The Blues’ are all identical, formatted, with a clear message behind.

‘Art in a suitcase’ (this is about nomadic art)

The initiative for this came from the Slovenian Commissioner for Exhibitions Vasja Nagy : he brought together nine artists and offered the opportunity for each one to create an art work but with the requirement that the resulting exhibition should fit into a suitcase.  The itinerant exhibition travelled around Europe form Koper to Istanbul via Vienna, Budapest, Prague, Dresden, Berlin, Mola di Bari, it could be presented and exhibited almost anywhere.  The initial works by Ursula Berlot, Marco Brecelj, Vesna Bukovec, Gani Llalloshi, Ziga Okorn, Bojan Radovic, Tilen Zbona were enriched by those of artists encountered along the way.  ‘Art in a suitcase’ was shown at the Mirada Gallery in Ravenna on 17^th September 2010. The dialogue was established between the artists.

What should be the subject of this discussion in Ravenna, in an art gallery?  Luca Barberini responded to the question and the invitation with an installation of his own. He created tesseræ from a dictionary using a tiny hammer and hardie, then piled the tesseræ of paper in the corner of the exhibition space and called it ‘Talking about’.

This installation follows the traditions of Felix Gonzalez-Torres who piled up sweets in blue paper, and even of Guiseppe Penone. Thus, paradoxically, the mosaic becomes ephemeral.

‘On a barrel of (crude) oil’

One of best known images in mosaic art is certainly that of doves drinking. Since Sossos of Pergamon via Byzantium, 17^th Century, right up to now, this scene has been depicted by mosaic artists. Like the doves on the Galla Placida Mausoleum in Ravenna, Barberini’s (picture p. 26) stand out from a dark blue background of glass tesseræ; they don’t however, drink from the fresh water that fills the cups; Barberini’s doves drink from a barrel of (crude) oil. In other words, crude oil with the money it represents, has replaced fresh water as the source of life and has become the center of our lives in contemporary society. 

By putting side by side on the same image, the peace symbol birds and the pollution that hits them, the artist questions us.  What is coming next, what will our future be?

As a genuine contemporary artist Luca Barberini digs for inspiration from all sources, even the most contradictory; he mixes noble traditional and contemporary cultural references. Only the message is important, not the medium. It matters little whether one chooses to be film director, painter or maker of mosaics. Mosaics is a language like any other.

Condominium

A condominium is a territory over which, a number of nations have a joint sovereignty. Thus a rare and unstable form of governance. Luca Barberini plays here on the notion of scale. This building is man’s territory, where he lives. We are shown little anecdotic scenes : a party on the third floor, people watching television, on the second floor, a man who’s drunk too much and has collapsed on on the table, flowers in the first floor window ; this is a building with inhabitants like many others in all towns in all countries of the world.                               

Who is it entering the building?  ”Carpe Diem” is Barberini’s response. 

In this work, he is deconstructing, his work as a maker of mosaics is opened up to ‘Installation’.  Deconstructing mosaics leaves one with loose tesseræ: they float in a container of water. These aren’t marble, glass or smalt, but bits of polystyrene separated by interstices that move. Tesseræ and interstices : a mosaic is re-created.

Luca Barberini was trained in the classical traditions of Ravenna; mosaic is therefore his favourite medium and he has mastered the techniques to become a virtuoso. Yet as a contemporary artist, he has a message to share. He denounces, he disturbs. He scrutinizes our society with its flaws. He has chosen to do this with his mosaics which have become his true language. He accepts totally the Ravenna heritage.

 30 INVITATION TO THE CHAPELLE SAINT-EMAN

 Ilya Iliev

 Translation Victoria Turpin-Invernon

In the Chapelle Saint-Eman in Chartres (France), Ilya Iliev, bulgarian artist of the Licata generation, regaled us from the 19^th of June to the 26^th of September 2010 with a collection balanced between the poetry of the banks of the Black Sea, where he spent his childhood, and the geometric strictness learned during his architectural studies in Sofia.

This work is the successful conclusion of an exploration where the artist, Ilya Iliev, separates mosaic from architecture, to exist on its own, in compositions of tesserae and mortar enhanced with glass and gold collected over the years of travel of Mr. Iliev.

A balance between sensitivity and rationality

“When I turn toward the past, I realize that the most important influence on my artistic destiny is the sea, the Black Sea, near which I was born and grew up.”  The sea, ever renewing, as Paul Valéry would say.  “Each wave differs from the one preceding it, in the sand among the rocks, the seaweed, the jelly fish, the clams and shell fish.”  And all these elements are symbolized or present in Ilya Iliev’s mosaics.

Ilya Iliev studied as an architect at the “Ecole des Beaux Arts” in Sofia for ten years.  If, at first, he felt this discipline was disconnected from visual art, he soon became conscious of the value of it in his work as an artist: rational thought, precision, the priority of construction, the love of geometry and its laws, on which his compositions find their foundations.

Ilya Iliev’s work is the result of the struggle between two tendencies, reason and sentiment.  Struggle in which one form or the other alternatively dominates, one or the other denies itself, or complements the other.  This “mutual interpenetration” is always present in his work.

In this way, he concentrated on the placing of the tesserae so as to find a movement that is purely geometric, the concentric movement.  He then surpassed this geometric limit in his “Méduses” series (picture 4) and moved onto purely biological impulsions by breaking the geometric movement with colors and forms.

In “The Aggression of the Circles”, the circular constructions touch each other as primitive and living forms.  In “Moule des moules” and “Escargot des escargots”, pieces done in bronze, the geometric lines and the biological structures are superimposed.  The geometric figures of these mosaics delineate the spaces filled with a chaos that has nothing geometric about it.

The process of making a work of art includes construction of the structure

For over seven years, Ilya Ilev worked in the Wall Painting section of the “Académie des Beaux Arts”.  He creates compositions related to architecture, purely decorative, geometric or abstract, that are distant from the socialist realism of the period.  He uses numerous techniques such as wall painting, tapestry, sgrafito, stained glass and mosaic.

After this training period, he becomes in his turn, a professor and begins to evolve progressively towards mosaic.  An idea remains anchored in his sub-conscious, however: to create a painting, is to create a wall.  “A work of art is a process of construction, a structure, a construction.”

And the nature of the raw materials, so important for him in the style of the piece, encourages him in this idea: the raw materials found at a construction site are those of a mosaic artist.

The mortar is as important as the tesserae

The mortar “exists visually in the space between the tesserae”; it therefore plays more than just an adhesive role, it plays a very important role in the composition.  It can be a constant dimension, it can grow, it can diminish and it can even free itself of the tesserae.  It can change color and thus influence the composition.

The tesserae can be very diverse : rock, stone, smalti, glass, ceramic, metal, small sanded pieces, or things found here and there (picture 6).  These tesserae express themselves with the mortar in all types of opuses possible.  The opus tesselatum or vermiculatum both have a strong potential for figurative expression, but other opuses have a more decorative or abstract expression.

In his palette, Ilya Iliev uses a great variety of tesserae and mortar.  In more recent years, however, his interest for stained glass has considerably increased, especially after his sojourns in the United States and Finland.  His travels to Ravenna, Thessalonica and Istanbul have sharpened his interest for the “golden mosaics”; gold which has introduced a refined oriental touch to his work (picture 7).

In the course of his itinerary between techniques and raw material, Ilya Iliev has not forgotten the banks of the Black Sea of his childhood.  He leaves us with work that is refined, iridescent, vibrant; that creates the reflections of water, but above and beyond that, invites us to appreciate the beauty of Nature.  But does not the geometric structure which shows through this work bring us to perhaps wonder about the existence of an architect of this Nature?

33 EXHIBITIONS                  
Takako Hirai

Translation Robin Goarin

Takako Hirai was born in Kuamoto, Japan in 1975. In 1999, she won the painting prize of Yokohama University. In 1997, during a student journey in Italy she discovered mosaic in Ravenna. She was part of the team that represented “The battle of Issos ” in Pompéi as well as Marco Bravura’s team that realised “Ardea purpurea”. She currently works for “l’Atelier Koko Mosaico”.

Takako Hirai exposed some of her mosaics at the Piazza delli Ariani in Ravenna in October 2010 with CaCO3 group. “Creations in silence like world without words that are built by tassels where the natural element takes its dimension and communicates with the spirit of one who looks.”

Takako works with materials that have a subtle harmony of greens and browns.

Her mosaics, like her paintings represent trees in which feminine characters take form. Look. “What is behind the world ? Static or movement ? The doubt of an apparition or a secret illusion ? It’s a secret written beneath branches of a tree…”

34 EXHIBITIONS

Pascale Beauchamps or the redefinition of pebbles

Translation Samantha Rolland

This plastician uses pebbles the same way the first mosaicists did some thousands of years ago around the Mediterranean. Every new exhibit is the making of a different world.

Pascale Beauchamps has made the pebble become an object of  artistic expression in itself.   This stone which travels from river bed to river bed, from beach to beach or even in a child’s pocket,  truly inspires her.  She pays a tribute to it throughout her work. With this lithic element she has elaborated a standard language of simple volumes and of abundant and yet subtle graphics.  She plays with the variations in the pebble’s colour range,  going from brilliant white to a very intense grey.

Pascale Beauchamps picks the stones, which are the core of her work, whilst walking alongside a river or even a gravel pit.  She does not cut them nor does she colour them : she uses them just as they are.  In fact she has put aside , for the essential of her work, the tools which shatter, which rough the material and make it undergo the blows of knives and hackles.

Once the pebbles have been sorted out by colour, nuance and form, Pascale Beauchamps  mixes them to cement, thus reconciling nature and artefact.  She then goes on to realising mineral variations that put the more frequent mosaic work to test.  The perpetual reinterpretation of geological and mineral landscapes seeps through her work.  The latter are portrayed through the juxtaposition of stones, games with cracks, slits and light making theses mosaics atypical and sublime.

The stones that cross her way, only leave their initial path to end up delivering a message of harmony. Inspired by nature, the work of Pascale Beauchamps forms a real unity from which radiates a feeling of peacefulness.

“Courant d’air, courant de pierre”

The exhibition presented by “Les Ateliers d’Art de France” at the “Galerie Collection” in Paris from the 4^th december 2009 to the 30^th january 2010, brought together  the works of two artists which were really meant for eachother. On the one hand the aerial sculptures of Annalise Nguyen ,  like a breeze and on the other hand the mineral world of Pascale Beauchamps’s atypical mosaics.  From ground to ceiling their work made from the most basic shapes and colours show the different tendencies present in nature. The fine and light steel work of Annelise Nguyen dialogues with the rock, imbedded in the ground of Pascale Beauchamps. The stone sculptures contrast with the aerial hangings- weight and lightness are face to face nourishing one another.  One’s eye is made to move upwards to follow the fluid, light mouvements. It is then drawn back down to rest on Pascale Beauchamps’s “Macles, Orgues, Géodes et Nodules”.  Pascale Beauchamps’s favourite base to work from are the pebbles, rolled over by waves, dragged by the water currents.  They are a witness to the earth’s mouvements.  They are halted in their eternal voyage only to be reborn again in a mosaic.  They become the silent print of a bubbling world. 

For the exhibition only,  Pascale Beauchamps and Annalise Nguyen have accomplished two common works.  Made from steel threads bound together and from pebbles and cement,  their two worlds fused.

“What if there were ART STOPS like BUS STOPS in town?”

During the Vern Volume at Vern-sur-Sêche, nearby Rennes in Ille et Vilaine,  one could actually “take art” between the 11^th of september and the 21^st of october 2010.  Pascale  goes on to make her point: “ A path to stroll along is open for all.  It could be a child’s game or an adult’s distraction or just a breath of urban air.  There are three little huts which can be either passed through or you could even stop inside them.  In each hut there is a three part printing of a text written by Martine Lebas.  These shanties used in building sites, are temporary elements of urban architecture – they are art sites.  The inside of the hut offers a minute,  short-lived gallery.   It is both an exhibit and an intimate space. In every hut there is a stela.  For these art stops a series of three stelae were specially created. I added molten glass to them.  There’s a double play of light ; through the nooks and cranies and in the transparence of the glass.  It brings a sacred aspect to stelae.  It is a meander through interior light and the silence of stones….” 

38 EXHIBITIONS

“Jérôme Clochard, the younger generation of mosaic.”

Translation Sophie de Laage

Jérôme Clochard lives and works on Fouras’s peninsula, near the city of La Rochelle, in Charente maritime region. Both art artisan and contemporary artist, he performs either decoration, restoration or creation masterpieces with his studio Absolut Mosaic.

His creation work turns toward a mosaic peculiar search for harmony; he plays with matter, light, and rhythm through different raw materials used: marbles, granite, smalti, glass paste, mother-of-pearl…

His work, mostly abstract, is deeply influenced by abstract expressionism, and though leaves a large scope for material, texture and “the artist’s hand”. He also manages to set off mosaic, in association with painting or sculpture. His mot recent work is named “Quassam” or “Reflects”, abstract works of creation based on marble, glass paste and pigmented and painted mortar. It can be seen in “PromenArts” gallery, in Saint Martin en Ré (on Ré Island), and the royal gallery in Rochefort.

Jérôme Clochard explains his own artistic approach:

“There is no name today, to describe or classify styles or movements in contemporary mosaic, but my work could be called, in it’s spirit, as very close to modern art or abstract expressionism: a translation of emotions, thoughts and feelings in abstract shapes, varied and vivid colours, expressed also through texture, materials, the “hand” performance in tesserae fitting, altogether giving way to express an artist personality.

This latest project found inspiration in reading different books on Roman empire frescos located in Pompeii or Rome, especially in “Rosso pompeiano” (Electa editions).

This time-used painting, has aged, acquired a patina with time, and literally has turned into a new masterpiece, different but as magnificent as before. Damaged parts, due to smooth colours, all gradual shadings pigments of yellow ochre, paint coats showing and changing, create a delicate contrast between fresco’s remains and nature slowly taking its rights back. In some parts, erosion becomes casket, delicate veil enhancing still intact parts, and driving the spectator to an imagination travel. As a garment would only suggest the delicacy and sensuality of a figure by only revealing some parts, the painting metamorphosis into mosaic gives sense and poetry to the final work.

I try to give birth to this artistic work of time, and translate it into a contemporary creation. This work is a way of expressing mosaic capacity to abstract performance, through composition, materials, rhythm and light, escaping a closed frame. Pigmented and painted mortar put all around like a nest, gives breath to mosaic. This combination is the aim of the masterpiece, enhancing its existence, and driving the eye to imagine more.”

“Quassam”, size 50 x 75 cm Glass smalti, marbles, mortar and paint.

45 SLATE

by Dugald MacInnes

Slate Mosaics

My involvement with slate came through an association with George Garson, my lecturer at Glasgow School of Art (GSA). A few years before taking up the post of Senior Lecturer in the department of Murals and Stained Glass, he had gone on holiday to the west coast of Scotland to the little island of Easdale, south of Oban. Apart from a few igneous intrusions, the whole mass of the island is composed of slate as do other nearby islands such as Seil and Luing. Gaping holes and mounds of waste material lie in testimony to a past history of quarrying, sadly now defunct since the 19^th century. Here, Garson began to ‘play about’ with the 500 million year old black rock from the waste tips and he saw tremendous possibilities in using slate as a mosaic medium.

I was brought up inland from the coast but, as a boy, I visited Easdale and Seil to play about in the old industrial sites, not realizing at that time how important to me the rock would become. The geological phenomena that produced the variety of colours, shapes and physical properties of the slate I had always found fascinating, especially the 50 million year old intrusions of molten rock called dykes that seemed to the eye to have punched their way through the country rock and in places turned the slate pink through the effects of heat. It was the observation, and personal emotional responses (though I probably was not too aware of the latter at the time) to such powerful geological forces that led me many years later to study for and gain a degree in Earth Science at the Open University.

In 1971 Garson arrived at the GSA at the same time I enrolled in his department in my second year of study. Accounts of how he introduced me to his small slate and sandstone panels and how that introduction literally changed my life have been previously recorded but suffice to say, it was an emotional event of great importance to me.

Sadly, Garson died in February 2010. When I am working in the studio he is beside me always, looking over my shoulder, keeping me on a straight path and making sure that I remain faithful to the stone.

Slate, then has and remains the medium of preference to my art. Scottish slate, whether from Easdale, Balachulish or Aberfoyle, has undergone successive geological events that have folded, faulted, heated it and have metamorphosed it from its origins as marine mud to the black rock that we are familiar with today. This tortured history has produced rock that is on the whole easily split but at certain localitie

Colour also is noticeable in its range and variety. Apart from the effects of the dykes mentioned above, decomposing iron pyrites crystals produce haloes of reds and yellows from their iron and sulphur constituents. Aberfoyle slate is found in hues of blues and purples, Balachulish stone contains streaks of vibrant orange and that from Luss on Loch Lomond has pockets of a white slate, ‘bleached’ by some geological process.

Working with the material has its setbacks in terms of time and effort. Apart from traveling to obtain it, sometimes by backpack along the Argyll coast, at home the slate is then split to a suitable thickness in order that I can cut it further using water-sluiced diamond saws. It can take many weeks of cutting before enough pieces are ready for a large work of, say, a metre square. Once cut the stone is then washed and finally sorted by colour.

Only a few artworks are produced in a single year because of this intensive and time-consuming preparation. I also tend to dwell a great deal on each one, especially the big pieces. I think this is because having expending so much time and energy producing them I have a fear of creating something that I am unhappy with.

It is however, the unpredictability of slate that can lead to pleasant surprises (also utter frustration) and can give rise to new approaches to mosaic. The Scottish stone almost never breaks according to plan. When cut into small ‘fingers’ these, when split using nippers, sometimes fragment and when applied to the mosaic create lively unplanned rhythms. Such is the reward of working in an expressive manner.

I also use slate from France. From the waste tips around Trélazé in the Loire Valley I have found that the stone here is much easier to work it having not undergone the same dramatic geological alterations as that from my home country. The Trélazé slate can be split into the finest of sheets, contrasting beautifully with the Scottish when placed in juxtaposition.

In the past few months I have obtained slate from Cornwall in southwest England. It has a gentle green hue on the surface but I have yet to use it.

There are two approaches to my mosaic. In one I work on large panels, usually no larger than about 120cms square. In the other, small pieces of an archaeological nature are created. Archaeology is another passion of mine and it, along with geology, has provided a strong context within which to work.

The large mosaics have tended to be shown in exhibitions organized by the British association for Modern Mosaic (BAMM) or in the international biennale of mosaic art held in Chartres under to auspices of the Association les 3R. Small pieces I exhibit mainly in Scottish galleries, the first of these in the 1990’s in the Gallery Forteviot near Perth.

Elaine M Goodwin was the driving force behind the founding of BAMM. Together we have formed a loose exhibiting group entitled TE²¹ (Tesselated Expression for the 21^st Century). This group will evolve as time goes by and exhibitions will occur as and when the artists decide.

54 PRIVATE COLLECTION
The Cour Chagall

by Daniel Marchesseau

Translation Patsy Mutso

Notes from a private collection catalogue

The following extracts are from an article by Daniel Marchesseau and are taken from the original catalogue of the Gianadda Foundation’s inauguration.

The Cour Chagall was commissioned in 1964 by Ira Kostelitz, a friend of Chagall’s, for her Parisian home.  Georges Kostelitz, her husband, expressed his wish that the Cour should permanently adorn the Pierre Gianadda Foundation’s Sculpture Park, in memory of his wife, Ira, who had died on 10^th September 2001 in Paris.  In effect, he was donating this historic work to Leonard and Annette Gianadda for the institution they created, which today is internationally renowned.  The work itself was inaugurated on the 19^th November 2003, to celebrate the Foundation’s 25^th anniversary.

According to the donor’s wishes, this monumental work was reconstructed exactly as it had been originally.  It is, without doubt, considered Marc Chagall’s most accomplished piece of decorative work.  The mosaic  titled ‘The Winter Garden’ which is 2.67m x 1.17m, adorns three sides of the interior courtyard closed in by a picture window on the fourth side.  Also by Chagall, are two snow white marble fountains, entitled ‘Bird and Fish’; these are placed on the edge of a thin ‘mirror’ of water and punctuate the centre of the space paved by blue-grey marble panels also designed by the artist.

It is worth underlining the determining influence that travel had on Chagall’s work, particularly his many trips to Palestine in 1951, Greece in 1952 and Italy in ’52 and ’54. Through these travels, he penetrated the most triumphant inventions of mosaic art; that secular art which is presided over by the muses (opus musivum). Indeed, as a loyal friend, he agreed with the affirmation  of André Malraux in ‘The Voices of Silence’ as soon as 1951 : “in Rome, Frescos are like the poor man’s mosaics.  But, mosaic, the mother of stained glass, is not the privileged medium of Christian art because of its richness. It earns this title because of its aptitude to suggest the sacred.”

Mosaic (from the Italian mosaico) is a kind of marquetry, made up of fragments of stone or glass paste, broken and reshaped by hand. It is a singularly complex technique. Tamed, it can allow a strong interpretation to emerge from a free preliminary study by giving it, at the spatial level, a sparkling unity of coloured vibrations which give the work its intrinsic ‘breath’, its distinctive personality.  The irregular forms, the colours, whether matt or iridescent, the individual brilliance of each tessera (from the Greek tessaragônos meaning rectangular) chosen by the artist, contribute well to the mystery. It is more than just the technical know-how of the craftsman. It is from the artist’s talent for visualising the work in its entirety from the outset using rudimentary fragments put together randomly, that will, from his hands, give birth to the work’s general luminosity and from whence will spring its moving creative flame.  Differentiating  between Florentine mosaic (embedding  the tesserae) and Roman mosaic (laying them on top of the surface), Chagall knew how to bend to constraints and so attached himself to a thousand year old technique that he was soon to ennoble as he recreated it for 20^th century art .

After many conversations and studies, a Winter Garden was created as a huge watercolour with the exact proportions of the site; these would then be reproduced by grid to allow its enlargement. On a background of white sky edged with pink, a royal phoenix and a majestic peacock emerge from delicate boughs of rich indigo blue and bright madder red tones. They appear to be rustling like fireworks in the surrounding tendrils of a coloured flight of imaginary birds, who are being observed from the firmament by a strange solar effigy.

Chagall entrusted the interpretation of the work to Lino Melano. His choice was obvious after having met Melano during his stay in Ravenna in 1958 ; the Gruppo Mosaisti, of which he was a member, had executed a first ‘Blue Cockerel’.  The preparatory cartoon for ‘The Winter Garden’ was completed in 1965.

The ‘Cour Chagall’ offers us a very personal vision. Chagall wanted to offer his hostess a piece of lyrical bravura, that was also a pleasure to the eye, smiling and light. There is an intimate, unifying character to the master’s work that shows clearly the privileged relationship between the artist and his ‘sleeping partner’. The pastoral inspiration allows for both a profane poetic escape and a melodious musical resonance. For this Parisian haven, Chagall favoured a surface palette of ivory tones alternating here with the Mediterranean light in which he usually swathed his majestic and contrasting compositions done in the South of France. Chagall structured the layout and the fitting of the designs while retaining memories of his previous experiences for his most memorable settings for the theatre, opera and ballet.

The airy drawing and its generous and noble rhythm vibrate on the skin of that immense ornament, made of carefully selected stone fragments.

Although they may have feared the work might be too cold, Chagall and Melano created one of their most majestic designs, in a warm register, both familiar and, dare one say, tender?  Throughout the creation process, Chagall virtually lived with Melano. He observed silently before adjusting, accentuating a slight feature here, circling a slight tone there. He, himself, added specific stones brought back from Israël and some of the glass paste found in Italy that would be included in the massive symphony of tesserae all precisely carved and shaped by the craftsman.  Right up to the final placing of the 22 large panels that were joined together to make the complete work, he would intervene just as any demanding project manager would.  Here the painter yields to the interior designer. The irregularities in the mineral composition of the tesserae, patiently and delicately put together, the ‘flower’ of this new skin seems to tremble in the courtyard, the games endlessly renewed in the oblique light are the marks of a chromatic and plastic design perfectly accomplished; certainly measured against the yardstick of the lyric, almost singing creation hoped for by the artist and executed by his interpreters.

Our most grateful thanks to Leonardo Gianadda, President of the Gianadda Foundation, who has kindly allowed us to print extracts from the text of their catalogue ‘Cour Chagall’ published by Editions Gianadda.

Removal and renovation

The transposition of Chagall’s work, that is its removal from Paris, the restoration of the mosaic  and its remounting at Martigny, was entrusted to Sandrine and Benoit Coignard. They work as creative artists in two fields, both sculpture and ceramics, and they also work as restorers  of monumental sculptures and ceramics. The restoration of missing pieces/tesserae, in which they collaborated very closely, was entrusted to Heidi Melano, the wife of Lino, the original couple of craftsmen to whom Chagall had entrusted his work.

The mosaic ‘The Winter Garden’ occupied three sides of a courtyard 3.9m on each side and 2.67m high. Its removal was particularly complex because of the cramped nature of the small courtyard where the mosaic took up all the available surface of the walls. Also there were no photographs showing the techniques employed at its installation.  First, the work had to be covered in a fine, cotton muslin stuck to the surface in order to retain all the tesserae in place during its removal and the destabilising effect of the transport. 

Photo 1

The work was completed in the workshop – mostly by Heidi – on concrete panels 1m x 1.20m then stuck to the walls by a mason using mortar.  Finally the joints were faced in situ by Lino.  It is these panels, whose exposed edges revealed the differences in craftsmanship between the two mosaists, needed to be dismantled. The horizontal joints were cut with a diamond drill slicing through the tesserae and sacrificing a few millimetres of mosaic; however this is what allowed the elegant fissuring of the vertical joints, the tesserae separated in a zigzag pattern thus avoiding loss of design material.  Finally the destabilised tesserae around the perimeters had to be consolidated or re-glued on each slab.

The reassembly of the panels each one weighing approximately 100 kg, was done using a hoist fixed to a rolling double crane, the use of this equipment meant the panels could be installed freely and to within a tenth of a millimetre tolerance. To allow for the permanent preservation of the work in the mountainous climate of Martigny, the restorers conceived a building beneath a glass pyramid with a system of reversible and ventilated glass.

Photos 2 and 3

The delicate part of the operation comprised the restoration of some lacunae along the joints cut between the panels and also of reconstructing the 25 cm wide vertical bands at the edges. It is here that Madame Melano took action, retracing the same artistic steps she had made thirty years earlier, both her own and her husband’s.

The floor of the courtyard in Savoie marble and the small ornamental pond designed by Chagall were exactly reproduced; the two sculptures ‘Bird and Fish’ found their place again.

A more detailed article describing the restoration of the ‘Cour Chagall’ can be found at: www.sculpt.fr  Sandrine and Benoit Coignard’s website.

Photo 1

The first stage of the restoration consisted of remounting the tesserae one by one on a fine cotton muslin that covered the entire work.

58 TRAVEL IN MEDITERRANEA

CYPRIOT TREASURES: PAPHOS’ MOSAICS

By Florence Antoine

Translation Alexia Noirot

On the isle of Cyprus, the city of Paphos is exceptional for two reasons: the first is its heavenly location above the Mediterranean Sea, and the second its collection of various and numerous mosaics.

For ancient history, art, and mythology lovers, Cyprus is a place to discover. Like all the isles and territories surrounding the Mediterranean Sea, it has experienced colonization and Hellenistic influences that have endowed it with prestigious vestiges.

Located in the southwest land’s end, the antique city of Paphos was founded in the 10^th century BC by the Phoenicians, and then colonized by the Greeks. For centuries, it was most well known for the worship made to the goddess Aphrodite, identified as Ashtart for the Phoenicians. Today, it is renowned for its exceptional archeological site, presenting a collection of mosaics amongst the most beautiful and well preserved of the Mediterranean basin.

The late and unexpected discovery of the site, that started in the 60’s, might explain its incredible state of keeping: most of the pieces have been utterly preserved, and offer to visitors’ curiosity, delicate drawings, a variety of patterns, and a richness of colours that is rare to come across in other archeological sites.

Dominating a cape that plunges into the sea, the ruins of the ancient Roman capital, spread on a ground that is now full of scrub and dried stones, guide the aesthete’s steps toward the vestiges of three villas. Each of them hold their name from the mythological figures represented in mosaics that hardly present the marks of time: Aion, Theseus, and Dionysos.

Aion’s villa offers mosaics uncovered in 1983, and carried out between 325 and 350, depicting Greek mythology scenes amongst the most famous: The bath of Dionysos, Leda and the swan where Zeus has turned into a swan in order to seduce Leda taking a bath, Apollo and Marsyas, the Triumphant procession of Dionysos, and the Beauty contest between Cassiopeia and the Nereids (see picture n°4) where Cassiopeia is crowned as a beauty queen before five of the fifty disappointed nereids.

Theseus’ villa (see picture n°1), the vastest of the three, probably belonged to the Roman proconsul of Cyprus. It owes its name to the remarkable mosaic presenting the Greek hero being at grips with the Minautor, assisting to the scene Ariane seems worried (see pictures n°3 and n°4).  The combat scene is surrounded by a labyrinth of geometric figures surprisingly Art Deco.

Theseus’ villa also offers other mosaics referring to mythology, alike the noteworthy birth of Achilles. With its 1400 m², its ornamental tilling, the size and what is left of its luxury ornaments, make the inner courtyard look like an antique billionaire’s agora.

Finally, one should not miss the 550 m² of mosaics adorning the 22 rooms of Dionysos’ villa. In addition to the panels representing mythology scenes as Narcissus on his rock, Pyramus and Thisbe, Icarus and Dionysos, the monster Scylla surrounded by dolphins (see picture n°5), or Apollo and Daphne, one can also find an allegory of the four seasons (see pictures n°9 and n°10) and other haunting scenes (see picture n°8). Nonetheless Dionysos triumphant procession remains the villa’s masterpiece, it depicts the divinity in parade, surrounded by panthers and satyrs, followed by billy goats and Pan, which are characters traditionally associated with bacchanal scenes. These celebrations are symbolized with wine, represented by bunch of grapes, and music (see picture n°7).  This sumptuous composition had pride of place on the feasts that took place at the time. Last but not least: some floors are recovered with small black and white pebbles that form mineral carpets with quaint geometrical features or floral ornaments, or representing Scylla with dolphins that date back to an older Hellenistic building of the 4^th century BC (see picture n°6). 

No need to be an expert in Graeco-Roman mythology to appreciate these pieces of art. Their beauty and force, based on the profusion of details, body movements, and geometrical compositions, seduce visitor’s aesthete eye and grip him with emotion. Antique artists might have found through the execution of these works, the best way to get future generations into stories that have nourished not only their imagination but also our occidental civilization.