British Artist Thomas Houseago's New Exhibition Opens in Rome

Thomas Houseago sketching at his studio in Los Angeles surrounded by art works in progress. The building houses drawing and sculpture studios plus offices where the artist employs 20 staff. Photograph by Spencer Lowell

Taking the art world by storm, LA-based British artist Thomas Houseago creates hulking sculptures in plaster, hemp, iron and bronze. Inspired by African art and Modern masters from Rodin to Picasso, the figurative sculptures are full of brute emotive power. Houseago's new exhibition Roman Figures opens in Rome at the Gagosian Gallery, reports Jeanne-Marie Cilento

A few minutes before the end of the opening of the new Thomas Houseago exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery, the red-haired artist bounds up the stairs to be immediately surrounded by a scrum of waiting journalists and Roman VIPs (pronounced like “zips” in Italian). It takes Houseago ten minutes to glad-hand the crowd in the gallery’s vestibule before he begins to look flustered by the people pressing around him and murmurs, “Where can I get a drink in this place?”

Walking up the hill of Via Francesco Crispi you can see the gallery's imposing neo-classical facade rising splendidly above the street. Despite its massive fluted columns, the rich Art Deco iconography of the building owes more to New York than to the classical ruins of the Eternal City. A suitable base for the first of Larry Gagosian’s galleries to open in Europe after his successful New York and London ventures. Built in 1921, the Rome gallery was originally a bank and was redesigned by architect Firouz Galdo with Caruso St John in 2007, transforming the classical space into a state-of-the-art contemporary gallery.

At the Roman Figures opening, Thomas Houseago is eventually swept into the great oval space of the main gallery on a river of people dressed in the kind of artistically odd clothes the conservative Romans habitually avoid. The artist is confronted by his massive reclining sculpture that dominates the space. The dynamic curve of the enormous ovoid room embraces the sculptural plaster heads hung along the walls looking like mammoth sculls, forming a macabre classical chorus to the sculpture at the centre of the room.

The giant reclining form recalls both the Dying Gaul in the Capitoline Museums and the rough musculature of Michelangelo's  rippling sculptures. Cast in plaster and hemp from a clay form, inside the figure’s iron supports are visible. While the sculpture looks smooth and finished from one side, walking around to the other you see clearly the crude armature. Called Reclining Figure (For Rome) the headless body rests prone on a plywood plinth, its surfaces visibly ruffled and smoothed by the artist’s hands and feet. “I am fascinated by the act of making art," says Houseago. "And in a broad sense, by how an artist responds to the world. I want to get rid of the readymade and figure out how I react to the world."

Apart from the large-scale sculpture Reclining Figure, the Roman Figures exhibition includes seven sculpted masks plus Walking Boy on Plinth, all done in 2013. The Roman Masks build upon the Western modernist interest in spiritually charged tribal objects from Africa and the South Pacific. Crafted from clay, cast into plaster and hemp, and reinforced with iron armatures, the skull-like reliefs have an abstract, expressive power.

As an artist, Houseago wrests new vitality from the classical figure and engages in a dialogue with the past, retracing the history of figurative sculpture through his own contemporary experience. He draws upon classical mythology, tribal art, Hanna-Barbera cartoons, Italian Mannerism as well as science fiction figures like Darth Vader. The churning surfaces of his sculptures are from jagged cuts and from the artist using his hands and feet to create his works. Houseago sometimes includes paper drawings as part of the sculpture. Powerful and emotive, the figures feel both ancient and modern and embody the existential trauma of everyday life.

Houseago explained to Design & Art Magazine that the Rome sculptures grew out of a difficult time in his life.  He certainly had a very challenging start as a young boy and student in Yorkshire but has had an extraordinarily fast-track career to success in the last ten years. Brought up in a working-class family in Leeds, Houseago left for London at 19 years old to attend Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design. Later he studied at De Ateliers in Amsterdam where he met artist Matthew Monahan and his future wife, painter Amy Bessone.

A decade ago he was a struggling British artist living in Brussels with bankruptcy looming. But Houseago decided to change direction pack up his life, destroy his old work and leave Europe to make a new start in Los Angeles. "Now everyone thinks I was being canny and strategic by moving to LA," the artist has said. "But in fact it was an act of desperation." 

He had $300 when he arrived in Los Angeles in 2003 and now his work commands tens of thousands of dollars. Today, at his large studio building in East Los Angeles, Houseago employs a staff of 20 and has five foundries in the US casting his sculptures in plaster or clay and into bronze. His work has been exhibited at the Whitney Biennial and at the Museum of Contemporary in LA, the Stedelijk in Amsterdam as well as at Venice's Palazzo Grassi and prestigious private galleries in London, Zurich, Brussels and New York. 

Back in Rome, Houseago moves quickly through the Gagosian's main gallery at the opening of his show and disappears through a large, swivelling door to celebrate the sale of several of his large works that night. The Roman crowd begins to disperse and wander out into the cool grey twilight. Outside the soaring columned entrance of the Gagosian, suited drivers lounge against their black Mercedes smoking, waiting for their charges to exit. 

Roman Figures is at the Gagosian Gallery from Tuesday June 4th until July 26th 2013 at Via Francesco Crispi 16, 00187 Rome Italy. The gallery is open: Monday–Friday 10.30am-7:00pm and by appointment. Telephone: +39 06 420 86498. Thomas Houseago's Striding Figure/Standing Figure is also concurrently running in Rome at the Galleria Borhese until July 7th 2013. 

Click on photographs for full-screen slideshow 

Artist Thomas Houseago working on a sculpture at his studio in Los Angeles. He said to the Financial Times: "I sometimes sit down with my daughter and she asks what I have been doing. I'll say 'I've been rolling around in mud for the whole day and it didn't work out.' You come to the end of the day and think: Jesus....this is a very odd way to make your living."

The opening of Thomas Houseago's new show Roman Figures at the Gagosian Gallery. Photograph by Ambrosio De Lauro

Thomas Houseago's show in Rome with the Reclining Figure (For Rome) at the centre of the great ovoid room. The unfinished side of the sculpture shows the rough plaster and iron armature inside. Photograph by Ambrosio De Lauro

Untitled (Walking Boy on a Plinth) 2013 Plaster, hemp, iron and redwood 208x76.2x81.3cm. Photograph by Ambrosio De Lauro

Roman Masks II 2013 Plaster, hemp and iron 75.5x58x29.7cm. Photograph by Ambrosio De Lauro 

Yet to be Titled (Hollow nose mask) 2013 Plaster, hemp and iron 67.6x53.8x21.7cm. Photograph by Ambrosio De Lauro 

The splendid fluted columns at the entrance to the Gagosian Gallery in Rome. Originally built in 1921 as a bank, the gallery was created in 2007 by architects Firouz Galdo and Caruso St John. Photograph by Ambrosio De Lauro

First Light 2006 Tuf-cal, hemp, iron, clay and graphite 154.8x111.7x147.3cm

Untitled (Red Man) 2008 Bronze 362.2x152.4x121.9cm

Striding Figure II (Ghost) 2012 Bronze and steel 472.4x200.7x304.8cm

Lying Figure (Mother Father) Bronze 2011 Ile de Vassiviere Centre International D'art Du Paysage

Hauser & Wirth exhibition I'll be your Sister exhibition of Houseago's works in Savile Row, London 2012 

 Untitled (Sprawling Octapus Man) 2009 Bronze 256x213x152cm

Standing Figure (Rome I) 2013 Plaster, hemp and iron 358.1x170.2x236.2cm. Photograph by Giorgio Benni. Copyright Thomas Houseago

Standing Figure (Roman Figure I) 2013 Plaster, hemp and iron 358.1x160x132.1cm. Photograph Giorgio Benni. Copyright Thomas Houseago 

Baby is Houseago's  three-metre tall sculpture that was exhibited at the Whiteny Biennial in 2010. Plaster, hemp, iron, charcoal and board

Design Interview: Ferruccio Laviani talks about the Tuareg Lamp

Launched this year at Milan's international furniture fair, the new Tuareg lamp was designed by Ferruccio Laviani for Italian lighting company Foscarini, reports Jeanne-Marie Cilento

Contemporary art is one of the sources of inspiration for the prolific Laviani and the new lamp is designed to look like an installation that could be in a gallery. The Italian designer also created the dazzling Good Vibrations cabinet for Fratelli Boffi, another of his designs exhibited at the Salone del Mobile in April. 

When Michele De Lucchi was a key member of the influential Memphis group in the 1980s, Laviani went to work at his studio as a young designer. The Bourgie lamp Laviani later designed for Kartell became one of the iconic pieces in the neo-baroque movement. However, the new Tuareg lamp has a more anarchic form like a group of sticks flung together. The minimalist, sculptural look is created by seemingly random intersecting tubes. At more than two metres high, the Tuareg can be used as a reading, wall or floor lamp and has three lights that can be turned on and off individually.

The structure of the design is in three parts with branches each housing an LED light that can be adjusted 320 degrees. Colour also plays an important role in the design and defines the silhouette. The lamp is in two different hues, orange which is meant to suggest the anti-rust paints used to coat industrial piping and a contrasting matt black. 

Click play to see the interview with designer Ferruccio Laviani.

Photo Essay: Colours of the Island of Burano in Venice Italy

The vividly hued houses that form colourful rows along all of the glinting canals of Burano 

Andreas Romagnoli travelled to the Venetian island of Burano to shoot the remarkable jewel-like small houses lining narrow canals and tranquil piazzas. The island is otherworldly and silent but for the washing flapping in the wind and the staccato calls of one neighbour to another, write Andreas Romagnoli and Jeanne-Marie Cilento.

THERE can be few other places in the world where primary colours are used with such abandon to decorate houses. The buildings of Burano may be less sophisticated than the better-known main island of Venice seven kilometres away across the lagoon, but the sense of joy created by its little houses overlooking boats passing slowly by along the canals make an enchanting atmosphere.

Each house in Burano is unique, painted in vibrant reds, pinks, blues, greens and violets. The small, rectilinear buildings encapsulate centuries and layers of history and traditions. The rows of houses symbolise the hopes and fears of a small seaside village that consciously chose to have an optimistic vision of its urban spaces.

First settled by the Romans, for centuries the men of Burano have earned their living from the sea. The women still make lace in the doorways of their shaded front rooms. The island's famous lace has its origins in the 16th century when needles arrived on the island from the then Venetian colony of Cyprus. Leonardo da Vinci visited in 1481 and purchased a cloth for the main altar of the Milan cathedral. The lace was exported across all of Europe but by the 18th century was in decline. The industry revived in 1872 when a school of lace making was opened and today is still made carefully by hand.

Wandering through Burano's narrow alleyways and along the town's canals gives you a sense of the island’s history. Fishermen prepare their craft, children play in the backstreets while lines of washing float in the breeze overhead and old men gather to pass the time of day. Community life here seems timeless. The men sitting in the piazzas or by the canals seem to wait for you to ask why their houses are painted the colour of ripe strawberries or plums, why they still live in a small village pummelled by strong winds and full of wintry isolation in the long, cold months. But speaking to the islanders, they give you a strong sense of their pride and endurance.

The towns simple architectural shapes and forms stir the heart and imagination, some gleam in the sun and others are half in shadow. Burano has a heady mix of local tradition and globalisation, calm waters and green grass, crowds and solitude. As you leave the entrancing little island behind on the jugging vaporetto, you look back at the disappearing houses glowing like precious stones in the last rays of the sun and wonder if it was all a dream.

Click on photographs for full-screen slideshow

The local government controls the range of colours inhabitants can choose for their houses

This vibrant magenta is one of the town's signature hues combined with the traditional green shutters

Washing hangs across piazzas and canals across Burano flapping in the sea winds

The brilliant colour gives life to the roofscapes

Fishing boats are parked in front of their owner's doors ready to head out into the lagoon

The rows of jewel-coloured houses form some of the most enchanting urban piazzas in Italy

The painted walls also give a sense of Oscar Niemeyer's use of brilliant colour but on a miniature scale

The brightly-coloured Venetian chimneys of Burano's houses add to the sense of light-hearted design

The houses have a simple, rectilinear design and appear almost two dimensional

Sharp shadows and angles of light heighten Burano's palette of colours

Geometric details stand out like art installations against the blue sky of May

 Wrought-iron decorates the facades of the houses providing small balconies and shelter from the rain

The contrasting colours and shapes create a heady mix of different hues within the narrow streets 

Even cleaning implements take on the look of an art installation in Burano

Pale violet and celestial blue make a charming combination topped by a roof of terracotta tiles

 Not all of Burano is postcard perfect ~ the damp from the sea is always rising and here the stucco separates from the ancient brickwork

A dilapidated house creates one of the only pale corners in the town

Small building details become like works of modern art against the backdrop of Burano

Wooden shutters close up the  houses against the hot afternoon sun

Clothes float in the breeze while two women talk in one of Burano's quiet piazzas

Boats and bicycles are the main modes of transport in Burano

A calm-eyed image of Christ gazes out from one of the terracotta-coloured walls of the town

10 Questions Column: Australian Conceptual Artist Kristin McIver

Australian visual artist Kristin McIver at her new exhibition in front of Sitting Piece just acquired by the National Gallery of Victoria. Photograph by Benny Jewell 

From graphic designer to award-winning visual artist in just five years, Kristin McIver is quietly conquering the hearts and minds of conceptual art lovers around the world, writes Ruth Borgobello

PROVING herself an artist to watch, McIver's latest work The Sitting Piece has just been acquired by the National Gallery of Victoria and she also has parallel exhibitions currently showing in Melbourne and Palm Springs.

Exploring themes of desire and aspiration prevalent in our hyper-consumer culture, McIver’s work draws on seductive advertising tools - emotive language, light, and hyper-gloss materials to provoke viewers into reflection. Her latest show ‘Status Quo’ at the James Makin Gallery in Melbourne, explores the surreptitious agenda of the digital world, transforming personal thoughts and data into economic currency.

After completing a Masters of Visual Art at Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne in 2009, McIver’s work has been selected as finalist in a number of awards and residencies, including the Melbourne Sculpture Prize, Montalto Sculpture Prize, Substation Contemporary Art Prize, and Ward’s Summer Open Call in New York. In April this year, she launched her first international exhibition at Royale Projects Gallery in California.

1. What are you currently working on?

I am working on a new series of work which explores the commoditisation of identity in the globalised, digital age. It draws upon my own personal data, that is automatically collated and on-sold by programs such as Facebook, as its subject matter. I plan to use this data, in particular my facial recognition data, as the basis for a series of self portraits using different media. This may include painting, assemblage, musical composition, and a living garden. In the example of painting, each character of the data would be assigned a corresponding colour, which when applied in sequence would form the painting. In a musical composition, the colours would be replaced by musical notes. Each self portrait becomes a merging of the analogue and the digital, and highlights the increasing loss of control over identity as we post our self-image online.

2. What are the themes and inspirations for your new show?

The new series extends upon the themes in my current exhibition Status Quo, currently on show at James Makin Gallery in Melbourne, Australia. Status Quo continues my investigation into hyper-consumer culture and the commoditisation of our lives. Thought Piece, a major installation in the exhibition consists of neon, steel and concrete, transposing my digital thoughts into material subject matter. Another work Sitting Piece, includes the viewer in the listed medium, whereby the work is not complete until the viewer engages with it. As with social media, and the wider consumer culture, the user/consumer is an essential part of the system.

3. How did you choose art installations as your creative metier?

I am primarily a conceptual artist, so I try to choose the medium and method of installation that best conveys the themes I am trying to communicate. My work generally comments on consumer culture, so often I employ mediums and language from the realm of consumer society to reference the works back to these familiar signs. I am particularly interested in the way a viewer engages with an installation occupying space, as opposed to viewing a flat picture plane.

4. Can you describe the experience, person or training that has had the greatest impact on your artistic career?

Completing my Masters degree at Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne in 2009 helped me to consolidate my ideas. The process of theory based practice punctuated by group and private critique sessions encouraged me to go beyond my comfort zone in my thinking and also the ambition of my works. My wonderful supervisors Bernhard Sachs and Stephen Haley among others greatly assisted in that process.

5. What do you find the most challenging aspect of your work technically?

Installation art can be challenging as I am often dealing with new materials and processes. As a result there is a learning curve with each project.

6. Where do you like to draw or create your initial installations?

Ideally I like to sit outside with my notepad and scribble concepts and visualisations down on paper, without the usual distractions of screens and noise. However ideas can't be forced, and inspiration often occurs at the strangest times, when I am not even engaged in the creative process - in the shower or while watching a music gig. When I decide something has potential I usually trial installations in my studio which is where the details are refined.

7. Do you have a set schedule of working creatively everyday or is the process more fluid?

My creative schedule is more of a fluid process as I'm usually working on a few projects at once. On any day I might be conceptualising a new work, reading theoretical texts, installing an exhibition, building a new work, painting a canvas, working on technical drawings, or collaborating with fabricators to realise a larger work.

8. What part of your artwork gives you the most happiness and do you find your creative process is more rational or instinctive?

I love seeing viewers interact with the works, often seduced by the bright candy colours or neon lights, then having that "ah" moment when they suddenly grasp the deeper concepts that underpin the work. With my artworks the initial process is instinctive - concept development and visualisation - then rational in their execution.

9. Is there a town or place in the world you consider inspiring?

New York City is definitely my favourite city of inspiration. There is such a breadth of contemporary artwork and a rich and diverse cultural history. The energy of the city is very inspiring.

10. In our digital age what does art give us and how do you define contemporary art?

The digital age is having a profound effect on the way we create and view art. The initial wave of digital art was "digital" in its subject, execution and presentation. However now that the initial excitement is over we are beginning to see the effects of digital on traditional artistic mediums, in a similar manner to how photography revolutionised painting in the late 19th century. I believe we are witnessing the emergence of a new contemporary art movement which is a hybrid of analogue and digital.

For more information about Kristin McIver's work contact the James Makin Gallery at 67 Cambridge Street, Collingwood Melbourne Australia: www.jamesmakingallery.com

Click on photographs for full-screen slideshow

Exhibited at Kristen McIver's new show at James Makin Gallery in Melbourne Thought Piece 2013 Neon, concrete, motion sensors, vinyl, electrical impulses  210x350cm. Photograph by Tim Gresham 

Lifeless III 2009 neon and synthetic polymer paint 45x170cm. Photograph by Tim Gresham

All For One, One For All 2011 Neon

The Good Life II 2011 Neon steel plastic and chain. Photograph by Tim Gresham

View Piece 2012 neon steel and acrylic

Is  This Love?  2010 Neon and steel 52x52cm 

Lifeless IV 2010 Montalto Sculpture Prize installation

The Dream neon and steel 2008

All that is Solid Melts into Air 2010 neon

Dream Home Visualiser #13 2008 Photograph by Tim Gresham  

Divine Intervention II 2010 neon steel artificial plants 250x120cm. Photograph by Christian Capurro