‘Maremma - Tuscan Italy Private Residence - Guest Artists’
Words by Thilo Westermann (artist, Summer 2017)
“Especially with Virgil, it was not the everyday struggle of the real herdsmen’s survival but a privileged existence of philosophers in a rural setting which has been praised as an ideal place and genuine muse of creativity. Opposite to the stressful necessities of city life the pleasant country outing —back then as well as today— is supposed to bring a troubled mind to rest.
Exactly such an idyllic refuge has been created by Venetia Kapernekas when she opened that Maremma artist-in-residence program and I was one of the luck ones to enjoy and create within the time I stayed there in August 2017. This baby Residency offers artists, writers and thinkers a place where they are free to fully concentrate on their projects, develop new ideas, or simple can enjoy a lovely evening with the generous host. To get a bit of distraction, discovering the scenic old towns of Capalbio, Manciano, Pitigliano or Orbetello can be as relaxing as walking the nearby beach collecting driftwood and shells.
A lazy afternoon in one of the hot springs, a specialty of the Maremma region, might refresh your energies as well as the more club-like atmosphere at the Terme di Saturnia, which welcomes its guests with spa-treatments based on the healing power of the thermal water rich of sulfides. Staying at Venetia’s Maremma residence is like living an arcadian dream—a real idyll just as evoked in the lines by Theocritus or Virgil.”
Between Rome and Florence, the hills and wide fields of the Maremma region unfold bordering the Tyrrhenian Sea.
It is here in this idyllic region where Venetia Kapernekas has founded a creative hub for contemporary art and design in 2016.
Far away from her urban project rooms in Athens, New York and Munich, this scenic spot is maybe the place most likely to get a creative mind inspired. On a 20 hectare estate full of olives trees, lavender shrubs, and pomegranates a manor and its guest house has been rebuilt from ruins by Anabelle Seldorff in late 80s (one of her first architectural projects ). An additional studio building and an eco-friendly pool has been added just few years ago by Nina Otto and her husband Ferdinand Kramer, who also shaped the garden perfectly in harmony with the calm silhouettes of the surrounding landscape.
When you drive around Mareemma, nothing reminds of the old days when the region still was marshland (hence the Italian name “maremma”).
Having been successfully drained in the 19th and 20th century the area started to attract city dwellers from Florence and Rome, who started to build small villas to spend the weekends in solitude. Enjoying the scenic beauty and the wide views you might even spot some flocks grazing in far distance. A setting as if taken directly from the lines of ancient poets such as Theocritus or Virgil. In their Εἰδύλλια and Eclogae they praised the peaceful life in the countryside where, in the shadow of lush trees, shepherds come together to meditate on life.” (Thilo Westermann)
The residency of artists, writers is by invitation only from the Board.
Thilo Westermann, Venetia Initatives, Maremma private residence
Toscana, Italy, July 2017
Artist: Thilo Westermann
Photography: Thilo Westermann
Words: Martin Thierer
“Thilo Westermann is a conceptual artist known for his black and white reverse glass paintings. He creates his images by first blackening the reverse side of a sheet of glass and then scratching his motifs, dot by dot, from the blackened layer with a needle. After finishing a painting, Westermann scans and prints it six times larger than scale in a single “unique copy print”. As though under a magnifying glass, the dots making up the image become noticeable revealing his handicraft.
In his large-scale photomontages, Westermann documents interiors using a multitude of close-up pictures, from which he digitally reconstructs the atmosphere in the way he experienced it in situ. Through this process, the actual settings meld with personal associations and scientific research. Even the minutest detail is significant in these photomontages and it is evident that the artist sometimes presents his own works within a framework of relations, in the context of which he wants them to be understood und discussed. For example in the stage-like setting of his photomontage ““Bougainvillea” and “Vanda Coerulea” at a collector’s house, Maremma 2016”, Westermann presents both of his works mentioned in the neutral title as if they were leaning in front of two larger framed works, only parts of which are visible. These are two prints by Cy Twombly, who’s prominent signature is visible in the left-hand frame. From above a delicate sprig of lavender – probably placed in a vase further to the left – protrudes into the picture. It marvelously corresponds with the subtle lines of Twombly’s print, its shadow seemingly becoming a part of it. In front of the art works, on the grained wooden support, a few small leaves are scatters, which appear to have fallen right out of Westermann’s drawing. In the highly sophisticated aesthetical manner typical for his entire body of work, the artist almost casually puts his own work into context with both, the oeuvre of a contemporary master who, like no other, was committed to the European intellectual and spiritual traditions, and with elements of nature, organized and tamed by man.” (Martin Thierer).
‘HYPERISM’, Venetia Initatives, Maremma private residence
Toscana, Italy, September 2019
Artist: Constanza Camila Kramer Grafias,Textile Designer
HYPERISM, 2019
approx. 210 x 145 cm
Photography & words: Constanza Camila
”HYPERISM deals with the background of a flag brought to Chile in 1859 by a French nobleman named Orelie Antoine de Tounons. Tounon´s aimed to unite the Mapuche people in South America and to unite them into a kingdom. In his luggage, he had all the necessary utensils to realize his dream of his proper kingdom of "Araucania and Patagonia": a specially written constitution for a constitutional monarchy and a self-designed flag that would represent his future kingdom.
This was the starting point for the HYPERISM project. The project represents a textile examination of the aesthetic language of Tounon's flag, which has remained unchanged since more than 150 years.
The result is a series of jacquard fabrics that use digital manipulation to deconstruct the original flag and question the original object, its aesthetics, and its function. The series of textiles where realized in a collaboration with weaving mill Tessitura Serrica Taborelli in Como/Italy and the historic Textile Museum "Textiles Zentrum" in Haslach/Upper Austria.“
Constanza Camila Kramer Grafias
