Posts from — September 2009
Fame Festival
Just back from my first visit to Italy and what a great trip it was.
After a chilled week staying in the the lovely Puglia countryside and visiting some lovely old towns, we headed south to the town of Grottaglie to catch up with our friends and attend the launch of the Fame Festival 2009.
Lucy was back again this year and we’re so glad we took up her suggestion of going out to go to the show.
Beat13 / Lucy McLauchlan – Fame Festival 2009. from Beat13 on Vimeo.
The brainchild of the supercool Angelo from Studio Cromie, Fame brings together artists from Europe and the USA to engage with the town and make work for the exhibition.
Throughout the town, walls are found for large scale outdoor paintings -
these pics give you a sense of the scale and quality.
In a nearby derelict monastery artists have set about painting rooms and corridors. Awesome.
I loved Lucy’s room looking through the doorway into the head
and this room by my friend and super talented artist Will Barras painted last year
- and they’re just the rooms by Brummies!! If this keeps rolling year on year, this place has the potential to become an alt museum of ’street art’… brilliant, really…
At the opening of the ‘formal’ show this new animation was previewed. A collaboration between Blu and David Ellis, it really is quite amazing and gives you a sense of what the monastery is like.
COMBO a collaborative animation by Blu and David Ellis (2 times loop) from blu on Vimeo.
It also featured loads of great work including these paintings by Word to Mother
and these amazing photos by Slinkachu
oh and how can I forget… some crazy ‘life like’ figures from Mark Jenkins
The people we met were brilliant, the food was stunning and it seems that in that part of the world, hospitality is the default setting.
The only things that kept us on our toes were the apocalyptic rainstorms (we were in 2! – first 2 since the summer apparently), some crazy driving (I’m not used to being on that side of the road!) and the siesta time (midday to 5pm – makes sense but we learnt the hard – hungry and thirsty and nowhere is open – way!) – oh and the mozzies who seemed very partial to a bit of tourist… zzz zzzzz
To all the artists, the people of Puglia and of course Angelo and the Studio Cromie team – Thanks and Salut! Maybe we’ll see you next year – :)
September 25, 2009 No Comments