New Architecture: Brazil's Casa Cubo by Isay Weinfeld

Brazilian architect Isay Weinfeld's dramatic curving stair that floats above the floor of the mezzanine library. 

A spectacular spiral staircase of Brazilian ironwood is the design centerpiece of architect Isay Weinfeld’s new house and gallery in São Paulo, reports Jeanne-Marie Cilento. Photographs by Fernando Guerra

LOCATED in the fashionable Jardins district, the building is one of four others the architect has designed or renovated in the same street, including the Yucatan House. A modernist and minimalist at heart, Weinfeld uses rich local materials to offset his lean and austere spaces which evoke the stark beauty of Mies van der Rohe's 1929 German Pavilion in glass, onyx and green marble.

Called Casa Cubo, Weinfeld’s new building has white gallery-like interiors to house the owners art collection including the Antony Gormley sculptures suspended from the ceiling. The five life-size nude male figures are cast from lead and fiberglass and hang from the neck ~ the heads seemingly disappearing into the next floor. Created in 1992, Gormley’s work is on show in the specially-designed double-height living room for the first time since the owner’s purchased it.

Passionate collectors of contemporary art, the owners live in one of Weinfeld’s houses further down the street but plan to use this new building for art and design exhibitions and to hold parties and host artists during events like the São Paolo Biennial. 

Isay Weinfeld is a native of São Paulo and has been working as an architect for 40 years. Today, he has a large practice of 30 architects and has worked on some of the city’s key commercial and residential projects and won several awards. It can take up to three years for a project to be completed for clients and Weinfeld likes to form a close working relationship with them. The owners of Casa Cubo commissioned him to design the building for them after he had already designed the renovation of their current house and created a house for one of the couple's parents many years earlier.  

This house has not one but two staircases that appear to float above the floor. The dramatic curving wooden spiral leads up from the mezzanine library to a sitting room and three bedrooms on the top floor. The deep, rich hues of the ironwood are carefully matched and aligned to bring out the grain of the timber. The other angular steel stair is set against one wall of the living room and seems be suspended without any structural support

The extensive use of glass allows the 715 square metre building to feel intimately connected to the lush garden that surrounds the house. The rich, tropical green of the plants and lily pond outside are a foil to the bright, cool whites of the interior. The tall, light-filled living room is the main display space for paintings, sculptures and mid-century design classics including chairs by Alvar Aalto, Pierre Jeanneret and Gio Ponti. The polished concrete floor is covered by a free-form yellow rug designed by Isay Weinfeld.

On the ground level of the house are a kitchen and a dining room and an entrance hall that leads into the main living and exhibition space. The mezzanine library level has a shelving unit that runs along the back wall above a long, low strip of glass next to the floor bringing in views of the garden.

The linear, cubic form of the exterior of the building is divided into three levels vertically and has a graphic look created with glass, concrete panel cladding and bands of wood on the top floor. Buried within burgeoning tropical foliage, the Casa Cubo's restrained exterior gives little away about it's striking Modernist interior or the contemporary art collection it houses. 

To see more of Isay Weinfeld's work visit the studio's website: 

www.isayweinfeld.com

Click on photographs for full-screen slideshow

Antony Gormley's composition of life-size figures male figures hang from the ceiling as an art installation above the living room.

The curving ironwood stairs float suspended above the polished concrete floor of the mezzanine level library.

The top floor gallery with a wall displaying art works leads to a sitting room and three bedrooms to house visiting artists. 

The mezzanine library has long, slender bookshelves above a window that looks over the garden's trees.

A sleek wooden desk offers a space for work, reading and drawing in the library.

The double-height living space with it's mix of mid-century classics by Pierre Jeanneret, Alvar Aalto, Gio Ponti. 

A large sculpture by Tony Cragg sits below the steel suspended staircase and its texture contrasts with the wall of Brazilian ironwood cupboards.

The large living room provides the central gallery space in the house to exhibit art works and host parties for artists visiting the Brazilian capital.

The graphic exterior of the house is created from linear lines and a mix of materials: glass, concrete plaque cladding and wood.

Lush tropical vegetation surrounds the building and gives no indication of the contemporary art and design within the house.

Italian Artist Agostino Iacurci's New Exhibition Opens in Rome

As a preview to his show, Agostino Iacurci created the public piece Zero Infinito on the facade of the building of IISS Di Vittorio-Lattanzio, in via Aquilonia, near Wunderkammern Gallery. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

Italian artist Agostino Iacurci’s new exhibition Small Wheel, Big Wheel is at Wunderkammern Gallery in Rome. Andreas Romagnoli and Jeanne-Marie Cilento talk to the artist about his latest works and what inspires him

AGOSTINO Iacurci emerged first as one of the new, young Italian artists in the world of Street Art. His giant murals on the sides of buildings depict bulbous figures that seem to step out of a fairytale world. Yet while the jovial, larger-than-life characters suggest both the innocence and naive charm of a storybook they resonate with a sense of encroaching menace with their sightless, immobile faces.

Today, Iacurci’s paintings, drawings and installations are also exhibited in galleries around the world. His new show explores the notion of play as a moment in quotidian life where there is space for imagination and freedom. The exhibited works depict simple actions like riding a bike or sitting on a swing but suggest other darker worlds of more profound, complex experience. The artist focuses on the playground as a place symbolising play in a public space.

Iacurci's work in Rome can be seen in the international context of his projects that now stretch from Moscow to Paris. His work, including paintings, drawings and etchings have been presented at exhibitions and festivals in Europe, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and the United States. The artist has painted murals in public spaces for Roma Tre University, Fubon Art Foundation in Taipei, the Fine Art Academy of Rome, the University Campus of Besançon in France, the Saba School in Algeria and ~ together with the inmates ~ two massive works on the walls of the maximum security zone of Rebibbia prison.

The new show includes drawings, paintings, objects and installations. Small Wheel, Big Wheel is part of the larger project Public & Confidential which involves five of the most influential street artists on the international scene.

1. What are you working on now?

Right now I'm leaving for Brazil, where I will make a mural on the walls of a hospital in Belo Horizonte and a number of other art works in other cities.

2. What inspires you for your current work?

My main source of inspiration in recent years are travel, books and exhibitions. Each place, catalogue or museum helps to explore a layering of images, memories and ideas that emerge randomly in time, perhaps through different associations and become part of my work.

3. Why did you choose painting and sculpture as your artistic métier?

I started painting instinctively and innocently very early at around 11 years old and I have never abandoned this practice. Although over the years my subject, approach and awareness have changed radically. There was no exact moment when I chose painting as a profession even though I've invested a lot of energy so that it could become the main occupation and effort of my days.

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

The experience that has had the greatest impact on my development as a muralist was the discovery of the first works of Blue and Erica and The Dog. In those years, I was little more than a teenager, I was passionate about underground culture, comics, graffiti and self-produced creations. These types of works were enlightening because it showed everything I loved in a new and unique way.

Looking at painting, however, things are a little different. My paintings show my training as an illustrator but the experience that most influenced me in both good and bad ways was attending painting classes at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome. Despite the limitations and frustration you feel in those classrooms, it was the first place where I breathed in the atmosphere of something like an atelier, a place dedicated only to creation.

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

I would say that the most challenging part for me is brainstorming, even before the work materialises and encounters technical problems. Also as a street artist, the climatic conditions combined with very tight production time when working outdoors can also be very stressful.

6. Where do you like to draw or make the first sketch of your works?

At home, alone and surrounded by my books and listening to the right music.

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

I always try to give myself a calendar and to have a precise agenda but in the end I often lose a lot of time creating useless road maps. So I’ve opted for a more fluid process in which visual memory, combined with adrenaline and a curiosity to see the work finished inspires me to get it done.

8. Do you find your creative process more rational or instinctive? 

If you want to try to outline the process, the first phase of inspiration or intuition - that is usually the most instinctive. Later, I tend to rationalise and to incorporate that inspiration into a grid of thought and a cultural context. In fact, like all complex processes I don’t think it's possible to separate the different components: all of them, to varying degrees, participate in the creative process at the same time.

9. Is there a city or place in the world that inspires you the most? 

Well I must say that having lived a lot of time in Rome, it has had a great influence on my growth and consequently on my personality and my work. Among the cities that I have visited several times I would say that Moscow, with its contradictions and its great people, has a special place. Every time I seem to find myself in the pages of The Master and Margarita, one of my favourite novels .

10. In the digital age what is the value of painting as an art form?

I believe that the digital world can add value to painting and contemporary art in general. In one sense, it reaffirms the value and necessity of hand-made art as opposed to the process of dematerialisation created by the digital age. On the other hand, it allows creators and artists to share information and create a huge network of relationships, friendships and the ability to exchange and promote our work. 

Agostino Iacurci's exhibition Small Wheel, BigWheel is on until March 22nd at Wunderkammern Gallery at Via Serbelloni 24, Rome Italy. The gallery is open from Wednesday until Saturday from 5-8pm: www.wunderkammern.net

Click on photographs for full-screen slideshow

Young Italian artist Agostino Iacurci at the opening of his new show in Rome at Wunderkammern Gallery. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

Iaucurci talking to the crowd of some 600 people that turned up to the opening of his new exhibition in Rome. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

Small Wheel, Big Wheel is part of Wunderkammern Gallery's Public & Confidential series of exhibitions showing the world's top street artists. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

A Dismisura D'Uomo 2014 Acrylic on canvas 220 x 220cm. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli 

 Nice to Meet You 2014 Acrylic on canvas 200 x 150cm. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli 

See You 2014 Acrylic on canvas 200 x 150cm. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

View of Iacurci's exhibition at Wunderkammern Gallery in Rome. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

The Escape 2014 Acrylic on canvas 150 x 200cm with Wooden Horse I 2014 Painted wood 90 x 70 x 40cm. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

Detail of A Man Painted Wood 2014 62 x 127 x 62cm. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

Detail of A Man Painted Wood 2014 62 x 127 x 62cm. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

Detail of A Dismisura D'Uomo 2014 Acrylic on canvas 220 x 220cm. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

Detail of A Man Painted Wood 2014 62 x 127 x 62cm. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

Detail of Wooden Horse I 2014 Painted wood 90 x 70 x 40cm. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

View from a doorway into Wunderkammern Gallery's exhibition. Photograph Andreas Romagnoli

A view of A Dismisura D'Uomo 2014 Acrylic on canvas 220 x 220cm. Photograph by Giorgio Coen Cagli courtesy Wunderkammern. 

View from the gallery of See You 2014 Acrylic on canvas 200 x 150cm. Photograph by Giorgio Coen Cagli courtesy Wunderkammern.

Inferences I & II 2014 Acrylic on canvas 70 x 100cm. Photograph by Giorgio Coen Cagli courtesy Wunderkammern.

A series of works on paper 2014 Acrylic  53 x 73cm. Photograph by Giorgio Coen Cagli courtesy Wunderkammern. 

In Case of Emergency III & IV 2014 Fretwork low-relief, acrylic on woo, framed 52.5 x 52.5 x 5.5cm. Photograph by Giorgio Coen Cagli courtesy Wunderkammern.

A Man Painted Wood 2014 62 x 127 x 62cm. Photograph Andreas Romagnoli

A series of works on paper 2014 Acrylic  53 x 73cm. Photograph by Andreas Romagnoli

Il Finto Tondo 2011 Pencil on two colour, hand-made paper, frame 28.5 x 28 x 3.5cm.Photograph by Giorgio Coen Cagli courtesy Wunderkammern. 

Bondage 2014 Acrylic on paper, Framed 53 x 73cm. Photograph by Andreas Romagnolicaption

Altalena 2014 Painted wood 372 x 260 x 87.5cm. Photograph by Giorgio Coen Cagli courtesy Wunderkammern.

10 Question Column: American Painter Davyd Whaley

Davyd Whaley working on his painting Sacred Heart at Art Egg Studios New Orleans, Louisiana. The medium is oil, enamel, blood, mixed media on Arches paper. Photograph by Norman Buckley 2013

American artist Davyd Whaley’s new solo exhibition Subconscious Tendencies has opened at Galerie Michael in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles. He talks to Jeanne-Marie Cilento about the show and his method of working in our 10 Question Column

DAVYD Whaley’s paintings exude energy, colour and life. Although they explore both the light and dark sides of human experience, the paintings’ brilliant tonal palette and raw composition express a passionate joy in living. The new works voyage through the complex workings of our mind and spirit and the mystery of our subconscious and dreams.

Whaley grew up in the American South in the Appalachian mountains of eastern Tennessee where life was hard and the arts did not play a great part in quotidian existence. His own path took many twists and turns before he returned full-time to his life-long love of drawing and painting. Although he began to draw at 12 years old and continued throughout high school, Whaley’s life changed when he joined the Navy as a way to pay for his university education. He excelled at electrical engineering and after a four-year stint on submarines went to North Carolina State University to earn his electrical engineering degree, all the while continuing to draw and paint.

Today, Whaley says the training helped him as an artist, especially in drawing with perspective, line and scale. After his degree, a successful career working in the corporate world followed with executive and managerial positions in large companies. However, Whaley's 20-year career dramatically came to an end when he had a series of unexplained seizures which made it impossible to work as an engineer.

“I felt that I had an epiphany of some sort,” Whaley says now. “Creating art was no longer something I did as an outlet for stress, but became something that consumed me. And my work became bolder and originated from a deeper place. I moved away from figurative painting and more into the world of the abstract.”

Whaley continued his studies a the Art Students League in New York with Larry Poons and Ronnie Landfield and at UCLA with Max Malansky and Nick Brown from the Chicago Art Institute. He participated in group shows and began selling his work which was featured in art magazines and galleries. Whaley had also began to teach art in his spare time to seniors and underprivileged children in Los Angeles. In 2012, Whaley won the prestigious Los Angeles Volunteer of the Year Public Arts Education award.

Hollywood played a part in Whaley’s growing artistic career when his work was seen by Galerie Michael, a top Beverly Hills art gallery, at the summer art show hosted by Oscar-winning producer HarveyWeinstein. Last year, Galerie Michael held a major solo show of Whaley's works which was very successful. Today, the artist continues to paint full-time in his large, light studio in downtown Los Angeles at the Santa Fe Artist's Colony.

1. What are the themes you are exploring in your new exhibition?  
The title of the show Subconscious Tendencies explores work on a subconscious level of survival, abandonment, beauty, love, rage, deception, violence, death, denial, and acceptance. My paintings, on a personal and collective level, are about what it means to be a survivor. Most of my paintings suggest inner conflict subliminally, metaphorically or on an unconscious level.

2. How does this show differ from the last one you did a year ago at Galerie Michael?
This show shines a light on some of the principal methods concerning how and why I create work; specifically, my work with my Jungian analyst and how it has impacted my work. Last year, the gallery shared a video introducing me which allowed viewers to see my studio and hear about my work from a narrator. This year I hope to be able to share in my own words. Last year, I  didn’t understand many of the terms well enough to articulate what was happening to me on a psychological level. 

3. What part of painting gives you the most happiness?  
The most notable times, yet the most ironic for me, are those times in which I lose all consciousness of the work: I have no memory of the deed or painting the pictures. I forget basic things, like eating, drinking, and I paint in a trance-like state. It sometimes feels like I have just taken ecstasy. When I look at the image on the canvas afterwards it often looks very alien to me. If I could use a word to describe this, I would use mystical because the experience is a spiritual one.  

I have no sense of when it will return. There are paintings which were painted by me without any memories. The only way I know the paintings are mine is the fact that there are sometimes photographs or videos of me painting on the canvases. The titles of these works are selected after these works are completed. Happiness for me is achieved in the sharing of the work. I hope there is something in my paintings that connects to the viewer on an instinctive, environmental, emotional or psychological level.

4. Do you find your creative process is more rational or instinctive?
Painting for me has always been instinctive. It is not an intellectual process. I often build paintings from my subconscious, from dream-based images which I later work out in psychoanalysis, discovering their connections to myths and folklore and then discovering their metaphorical or allegorical meanings.

5. Do you like to have a set schedule of working creatively everyday in your studio in Los Angeles or is the process more fluid?
I find that the process is more fluid.  It would probably be better for me if the schedule were a set schedule and certainly I do have to paint or draw everyday. I actually have psychogenic movements, which start in my right arm and become very aggravated and cause pain if I don’t follow their dictates. I do enjoy my creative process, with a great love, but it also causes a great pain like the Red Shoes: once you have them on you have to dance.

6. Can you describe the experience, person or training that has had the greatest impact on your artistic career?
Larry Poons has had the biggest impact. When I studied with him at the Art Students League of New York, he told me to get my own studio and not to worry about what other people paint. I feel very fortunate to have studied with such a master painter. In this upcoming show I have a piece Colour Is Your Only Weapon which I completed in his studio in New York.  The title comes from his quote. As an artist you only have two things that separate you from anyone else, colour and light. You can paint anything you want, but it must have colour and light. All of of Larry’s advice has been true.  He was an excellent teacher.

7. We've recently interviewed two other Los Angeles-based artists Thomas Houseago and America Martin ~ who both find the city a good place to paint. How do you find Los Angeles as a place to work as an artist?  
Los Angeles is a good place to live and work as an artist.  There was a show called Pacific Standard Time:  L.A/L.A 2011 at the J.Paul Getty Museum that raised the awareness of the Los Angeles art scene.  Prior to 2011/2012 I don't think there was as much attention on LA globally. People thought of artists here as hobbyists. That is changing. After the PST show it's exciting to see Los Angeles artists have works in major museum collections such as John Baldessari at the Guggenheim, Lynn Foulkes at MoMA, Catherine Opie at the Guggenheim, Chris Burden at the New Museum etc.

8. Is there any other particular town or place in the world you find inspiring?
For this current show I was very inspired by the city of New Orleans. The colour in New Orleans was carnival-like, the shapes more primitive and unfinished than you might see in a other cities.  Pink buildings, with green porches, red bricks against a bright cerulean blue sky. Or one day I would see someone dressed as an indian chief dancing in bright pink feathers in front of the Virgin Mary while the sun set on the Mississippi River.  

9. In our digital age what does painting give us as an art form?
In some instances the digital age may give us the same result as painting. For the collector there seems to be some advantage, because there is consistency in how the artwork is produced by the artist, for example the works of Damien Hirst,Takashi Murakami. But I prefer painting because it is tactile and it uses the right side of the brain, as opposed to the left side, which I think I think is more involved in digital work.

10. Recently in the United States, there have been huge prices achieved in modern art sales such as Francis Bacon's 1969 Three Studies of Lucian Freud, for $142.4 million USD at Christie's in New York. Plus Jeff Koons Balloon Dog (Orange) for $58,405,000 USD ~ the highest price paid for a living artist. What do these prices say about today's contemporary art market?

Honestly, it’s hard to put my head around such an abstract question. Looking at the scenario of the contemporary art market it would indicate that extremely rare works of art will inflate with collector demand. The number of collectors are exceeding the available valuable works of art. Francis Bacon's Three Studies of Lucien Freud, valued at $142.4 million USD,  purchased by Ms Elaine Wynn, net worth $1.9 billion USD. She has loaned the painting to the Portland Art Museum. She is a board member of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which doesn’t have any works of art as valuable.  In my opinion, this purchase offers a great benefit to the community. 

David Whaley's exhibition Subconcious Tendencies is at Galerie Michael, 224 N. Rodeo Drive, Beverly Hills USA: www.galeriemichael.com

Click on images for full-screen slideshow

Boy in Uniform 2013 Oil on linen 24 x 36 inches

City Baby 2013 Oil on wood 12 x 12 inches 

Your Mental Illness is an Illusion 2012 Oil on canvas 81 x 46 inches

Goofer Dust 2013 Acrylic on Arches paper  24 x 36 inches

Your Mental Illness is an Illusion I 2013 Oil, mixed media on canvas, 6 x 12  feet 

Sacred Heart 2013 Oil, enamel, blood, mixed media on Arches paper 72 x 110 inches 

Magnetic Fields 2013 Oil, mixed media on canvas 22 x 17 inches

Armour 2013 Oil on masonite 29 x 29 inches

Rubedo 2013 Oil on wood 38 x 46 inches

Green Snake Lady 2013 Oil on wood panel 12 x 12 inches 

Bedevil 2013 Acrylic, mixed media on canvas 3 x 4 feet

Insistent Rhythm  2013 Acrylic on Arches paper 24 x 18 inches 

Un Deux Trois 2013 Pencil and crayon on a paper menu 17 x 11 inches