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Diamonds, Oil, Saints … GO2025!
It all started from a twin label of extra virgin OIL from Gemini (Apulia) 2004. Memento of Athena and Poseidon dispute over Attica. Athena won, because the olive tree would grow out of the wound inflicted into the earth. I really like Poseidon, which I once saw on a British coin. Our Neptune travels in the salty, no useful for agriculture but otherwise sacred, waters of the sea. My Gemini wave on them went to ex Magazzini del Cotone in Genua. Among the sparkling memories, three DIAMONDs of art/life/psychiatry – A. Kowal, Letizia Comba and F. Basaglia – deserved to be painted in a little tile headed to Poland. My friends being called to SAN REMO (Festival), from San Fili (Cosenza) stand out in memories waves. Then, on February 8th in Gorizia, I re-discovered the joyful right to be a nano-thousandth, yet significant – part in GO2025. In tune, borderless.
Poesia a Venezia
On October 2nd, 2021, exactly thirty two years after the signing of the manifesto for the First International Day of Poetry, a group of (mail)artists gathered in the same place of Venezia Mestre, at Itinerary 80, around Giancarlo Da Lio.
Laura Cristin Sheren brought the Tarotensign VPopeS&StarXVII just completed and hanged it facing the Canadian maple, better known as the Tree of Poetry. The two Arcana depicted on the double face blue textile came three dimentional in two subsequent art actions. The first performance – for the PopeS – took place at the Garage-Ambasciata of via Cavallotti: an intimate memory intended for those present, devoted to the missed friend and mentor Dawn Redwood (London, 1936-2020), immersed in Jerusalem by W. Blake, set to the music of the Time. Soon after came the Star‘s turn in the nearby Parco del Piraghetto where the performance was shared with the local community and the Nature and the Autumn by Vivaldi. Sheren wore a Venetian tricorn and ended up holding the nine pointed Star of the fortress of Palmanova that Dawn had loved so much.
Link video at https://youtu.be/meA0B-rW1KM
“Sheren at Summer Solstice 2021”
Just around my B.day art-life started to burst again and few but significant exhibition opportunities come up such as
-“L’Amazzonia deve vivere” (curator Ruggero Maggi) featuring a kiwi leaf from my former gARTen, at Museo Diotti of Casalmaggiore (CR) from 4 June to 1 August and from 21 August to 26 September
-“per Filo e per Segno” (curator Marisa Cortese), at the Fiber art exhibition in Pray Biellese, from 6 June to 10 October
-“Padiglione Birmania” (curator R. Maggi) at Palazzo Zanardi Landi of Guardamiglio-Lodi from 26 June to 31 July and from 3 to 19 September.
Last but not least, some mail art about the MV X-press PEARL revisiting the nurdles as Sheren’s tears and so on.
“inFINITO aMARE” trilogy
My best wishes for a Merry ‘Xmas and Happy New Year 2021! I hope to soon be able to embrace life again at one hundred percent, in the meantime I did it by completing the book “inFINITO aMARE” that I wrote over the latest eighteen months, from 13 June 2019 to 11 November 2020. Almost six hundred thousand characters, collected in thirty-three waves of art-life, to compose a trilogy (1-11, 12-22, 23-33). So far, three artist copies have been made which, starting from a December day when it snowed around here, have now started their journey. Still ongoing.
Index of the chapters of “inFINITO aMARE” (the book-diary is written in Italian, except # 27 We’ll Go No More a Roving that is in English): 01 Compleanni B.days, 02 Ricordo grato di Letizia Comba, 03 La nascita di Sheren, 04 Che Guevara, 05 Coney Island, 06 City Lit, 07 Allunaggi, 08 Bicicletta, 09 Serendipità a Berlino e Sofia, 10 La Grande Guerra, 11 Sulle tracce di Mozart; 12 Mondiali di calcio 1982 e 2006, 13 Arcobaleni e Messico, 14 Principesse e Castelli, 15 Le Carte, 16 Le Conchiglie, 17 dolpHEn in Irlanda, La plastica e i gonfiabili, 19 Da ShirEn a SHEren (a Madrid), 20 Instant book e onde noir, 21 L’isola che non c’è, 22 La Fotografia; 23 Dio c’è?, 24 Garibaldi, 25 Trebnje e Beograd, 26 Calzini scompagnati, 27 We’ll Go No More a Roving, 28 Farfalle, 29 Trip-tych, 30 Parigi-Venezia-Firenze, 31 Nei luoghi di Beethoven, 32 Cronologia dei Tarocchi, 33 Dalle Termopili a Gandhi.
At Lo Stracquo in Ponza, September 2019
“Mare Nostrum che sei nei cieli” it is a pray from Laura Cristin for the many who tried to cross the Mediterranean but did not survive, Ponza, 3 September 2019
There’s a map of Mediterranean, in “Sherena Velella” book made after lo Stracquo 2014, where I drew crosses for the many who found the eternal rest there. This year, having completed a similar journay to Ponza – resulting in the bust of sea and sky of “Sherena Lunata” – I ended with “Flaschenpost from Venedig to Ponza” (video at https://youtu.be/0NLnO_iXPCw ) so I could pray: “Mare Nostrum che sei nei cieli…”
A Wave 4 SFMOMAilart Congress snap+share
On August 3rd 2019, the mail art congress snap+share hosted by The Sticker Dude, John Held and others, will take place at San Francisco MOMA from 1:00 to 5:00 pm local time. On the same day, photos were taken first thing in the morning in the star shaped city of Palmanova (Italy) as a wave of good wish from Laura Cristin Sheren. The original portrait of Joel Cohen, made in 2016 as a memory of a jointed performance in Coney Island in 2012, was installed in the central niche of the square, just below a pennon flagging the Italian flag and on a water well that reminds the Ocean. Since the nine hours of time difference (Europe is farther ahead than California in this field!) the action is meant as a preview. Other correspondances will follow in coincidence with the Congress.
City Lit centenary
City Lit in London celebrates its centenary this year and I am honoured to have my story – related to Midsummer term 1976-77– hosted in the blog at https://www.citylit.ac.uk/blog/city-lit-stories-laura-cristin?fbclid=IwAR0tnnjBSGaYzb8AWcr3YTB0t8WQKEnLlFI6Gt87dmKla7jHO_775tQwwqU
My story was added around the solstice of June, while I was in Berlin for the performance at the Brandenburger Tor, that was a success for the inter-action with people, history and the site. Here are some photos, full report was made in the fb album A MARE in Berlin for the 30 years from the Fall of the Wall. Shortly I will post a specific project in this website.
A MARE in Berlin, participatory performance of Laura Cristin at Brandenburger Tor, 22 June 2019
A MARE in Berlin
Laura Cristin at the opening of Biennale di Venezia #58, May 11th 2019, upper left : detail of “Muro di Berlino” oil and collage behind glass, cm 62 x 88, 1990.
Sweet Overseas Shipwreck
On the 3rd and /or 5th May, Sheren will be in Milan, for a impromptu in Piazza Duomo and/or in a shared garden of Isola, for a wave of good luck at the marriage of Kika and Antonello.
Saturday, May 11th , in Venice, on the occasion of the Biennale # 58 opening, at 1:00 pm Sheren will be with Peter Kuestermann along the Adria-side in front of Giardini, to re-create an a-mare to which to entrust our hopes and fears, and those of the refugees who have eventfully crossed the Mediterranean. From 16:00, the action will move to the 7th sestiere of Mestre, in via Cavallotti 83/B for “Checkpoint”, a parallel event of the Venice Biennale curated by Giancarlo and Giulia Da Lio.
The performances of Laura Cristin Sheren are also part of London Biennale 2019.
Life and love are multi-faceted diamonds where good and evil and a thousand other shades form a single pearl. The world of the Sirens, with its aquatic and earthly contradictions, bears witness to this. Sheren, who from a long time practiced that imaginary, with the arms and baggage of the art/life, in 2019 is particularly inspired, 200 years after its writing, by “e il naufragar m’è dolce in questo mare”, which concludes, with admirable and fluctuating opening, “L’Infinito” by Giacomo Leopardi.
That verse seems all right to be re-lived with engaging waves embracing memories, dreams and fears, personal and collective.
Full text/proposal. The first performance on the theme will be in MILAN, on the 3rd and/or 5th May (piazza Duomo and/or shared garden of Isola) for the marriage of Kika and Antonello, with the unfolding of an auspicious free wave that will flag and wrap without forcing.
The following Saturday, which is May 11th and coincides with the Biennale #58 opening, Sheren will decline Leopardi’s verse in VENICE: at 13:00, along the Adria-side in front of Giardini. Then the action will move to “Checkpoint”, parallel event of 7° sestiere, care of Giancarlo and Giulia Da Lio, in Mestre, via Cavallotti 83/B, from 16:00. Together with Peter Kuestermann and the (mail) artists or passers by wishing to participate, a bridge will be created , with the hopes and fears of those who eventfully have crossed the Mediterranean. It will give the chance to recite a ‘de profundis’ of the value of the Western civilization (?) buried in the sea-cemetery together with the castaways who did not make it, but also a small attempt to restore a bit of humanity in consciences.
Peter Kuestermann will bring the messages-in-the-bottles entrusted to him by refugees in Germany who have managed to save (at least physically) their lives and now wishing to leave their thoughts to the big sea of love that has not swallowed them.
In the re-created waves, everyone can immerse themselves, reflect and deliver to the sea, even only a yearning for hope. For those who prefer the ancient art of writing, Sheren will provide ‘blank messages’ to be completed and put into bottles collected around the world, which will be returned in the five continents.
P.S. The performance of Laura Cristin Sheren are also part of London Biennale 2019.
