FANTOM 08 OUT NOW

Portfolios by Ettore Favini, Viviane Sassen, Seong Youn Koo and Liu Gang. Simon Castets in conversation with Adrià Julià, and Arthur Ou meets James Welling. Newseum by Benjamin Godsill. Paolo Pellion Venice Biennial 1976 told by Gianluigi Ricuperati. Essays on João Maria Gusmão and Pedro Paiva by Paola Nicolin, and on Robert Heinecken by Tom McDonough. Francesco Zanot visits the collection of Rosella and Phil Rolla. The cover - as usual - is a preview of Fantom’s forthcoming issue and features Carmela and Bill with David, Galleria Borghese, Rome 2009 by Matthew Monteith.

For info about Fantom distribution please click hereFor subscriptions please click hereFor further information: info@fantomeditions.com

Join FANTOM and DAP at an Event in Miami!

Please join FANTOM editors & ARTBOOK | DAP for the launch of our latest issue on December 1st 

at The Webster Miami. We look forward to seeing you! 

Find FANTOM at

Art Basel Miami Beach 2011Magazines collective booth, area A.

December 1-4, at Miami Beach Convention Center

The modern world has screwed itself and art led the way

So far I never copied and pasted others point of view on my personal blog and neverthless I thought it was a good idea to lift an entire article. Jonathan Jones blog on the guardian is somehow special and reminds me of those london afternoons I spent reading sunday papers and magazines of all kind. this piece is quite interesting for all of you contemporary art lovers. sometimes I also think one day I will sort out the dilemma. is art a swindle ? are they taking the piss? are we?


How art killed our culture


No sphere of high culture is implicated in the fall of the affluent society in the same way art is. Yesterday I commented on the resistance to melancholy, the flight from reality, that enabled art in our time to promote the fantasy of an unlimited market. Some have called the system that has now fallen "offshore capitalism"; perhaps another description is "post-modern capitalism". In post-modern capitalism, secondary markets created a counter-reality that was unfettered by production. The economy was run like a theme park. It's obvious how deeply involved in that daydream was the art of the last 20 years, which so gleefully rejected anything that might tie it to the slow, patient, tedious stuff of real creativity.

All the shallowness of modern mass culture began in avant-garde art 40 years ago

by Jonathan Jones 

Drama, the novel, even cinema have all kept a safer distance from the booming monster of modern capitalism than artists did. What I want to ask now is – why? What happened? How did art become the mirror of fraud? It is not a story that starts with Damien Hirst's diamond skull but one that goes back to the very origins of the consumer society.

After the second world war artists were steeped in history and introspection. Art has never been more serious in its view of life than it was in the era of Mark Rothko and Francis Bacon. But even as modern painting reached such heights and depths, western society was going through an epochal transformation. The power of the capitalist economies in the postwar era was unprecedented in world history. An entirely new lifestyle, that of "consumerism", was born.

Consumerism instantly inspired artists. Pop art in America and Britain took the surfaces of objects, the instant appearances of the new bright world, as its subject matter. Everywhere, emotional depth in art was censored. Abstract Expressionism had to die. Art could teach people to look at the world in a new way: to embrace the cool. Pop art taught everyone to enjoy money and the mass media and 1980s post-modernism taught the same lesson again.

These emotional styles have long since been so popularised that even intelligent people accept that reality television is a form of culture and celebrities fit receptacles for our ephemeral floods of feeling. All the shallowness of modern mass culture began in avant-garde art 40 years ago. We're Warhol's ugly brood. Art has even fed the unsustainable appetites that are destroying the planet by constantly telling everyone cities are better than the countryside, culture more real than nature. It has become the enemy of truth, the murderer of decency.

The modern world has screwed itself and art led the way.

THE REAL DEAL AT PLASTIC.TEA'S SHOW AT THE GIRLS GIG (WITH A CROWD OF ZOMBIES)

The only good part of the girls gig at plastic was luca's poetry reading and tea's performance.

The rest was SHIT..like watching a crowd of walking dead. actually the band was ok but the crowd they can all go and fuck themselves...or go and pray at the local church..or else..

THE UNDERDOGS part 2

there is nothing better than being a supreme genius and live your life and art as you and only few might feel and understand. in the history of music there have been some huge mistakes by critics and fans alike. here is a selection of some the most amazing bands that never went mainstream. thanks LORD (maybe!?)


SLINT
some bands are classified to be seminal but this is a special seminal chapter. post rock? where does it come from? Spiderland is surely one of the places to refer to and how do you feel after listening to this great band? was it the death of rock? or just the new beginning? amazing..

MAZZY STAR

What if pop music had started in the 90's from a los angeles chicana? what if Hope Sandoval would had faded into nothingness? she is still rocking..for sure but the second album " so tonight that I might see" was truly a sensational act of love and despair. 

THE UNDERDOGS part 1

there is nothing better than being a supreme genius and live your life and art as you and only few might feel and understand. in the history of music there have been some huge mistakes by critics and fans alike. here is a selection of some the most amazing bands that never went mainstream. thank LORD (maybe!?)

THE SOUND
In My opinion the best band of the 80's. not as big as Joy Division but just as fucking good. and by the way the entire album "jeopardy" is spectacular. get it if you manage...

YOUNG MARBLE GIANTS

For those who felt emotional when they heard XX for the first time , for those who thought Stereolab were experimental and for all the ones that never thought that one album is sufficient to change the world. Young Marble Giants indeed managed to record one only beautiful album: colossal youth.

Still dreaming?

Here's looking at you, kid

pop minimalism reaches a new high with alicia merz new album and her band birds of passage (& leonardo rosado for this album). quite amazing considering this artist from new zeland had just published her first album only one year ago. her voice and poetry is really something. out of the box. 

The Immortals

it was really lovely to witness the display of gilbert & george at Pinacoteca Agnelli in Turin. I remember meeting them every so often at the same turkish restaraunt in east london in the 90's. those two gentlemen are still the most iconic artist couple of this universe and their kind words of my damned city -naples- made me understand that class isn't water(indeed) and art can be performed through ordinary rather the extraordinary behaviour.
here are some pics of their book signing session (in itself an amazing performance). we've got our signed copy of The Post Card Art Book like any ordinary fans, of course. long live to the common people like you! long live gilbert & george!

Polska Retromania

The 21st century It's all about retromania, the recent simon reynolds book that sums it up for those who look back for pop icons and inspirations. The book is solid, I am slowly reading it but I must say it's mainly focused on UK/US cultural dilemmas while the rest of the world seem not to exist. Guess what? the rest of us DO exist and DO have an afternoon nostalghia for our own pop memorabilia. At Artissima in Turin I loved the Polish house of the past..have a look yourself!

HALLELUJAH

bRuttO PossE

I can't wait for thursdays in Milan so that I receive the save the date from Brutto Posse...
                                                 resfreshing ..IGNORANZA! love it!

Artissima 2011 part 3