ALAN RANKLE AND CLAUDIA DE GRANDI INTERVIEWED BY CHIARA ZANETTI
FOR TRAMANDO MILANO

CZ Thank you for accepting to be interviewed. It's a great pleasure for me
having the opportunity of confronting myself with the curators of such a
beautiful exhibition held in Milan. Could you tell us something about the
genesis and purposes of the project Axis: London, Milan? Would you please
introduce us to the main works exhibited?

AR Thank you Chiara it’s great to be invited to discuss our work and the
exhibition with you. The concept of Axis: London Milano came from talks I
had with Andrea Vento the creator of the new project space at Fabbrica del
Vapore and we wanted to make a launch exhibition featuring some of the
best artists working around London. Andrea is the former Director of
Culture at the Commune di Milano and he also organized my retrospective
at Fonazione Stelline in 2010 which introduced my work to Italy. I invited
Claudia De Grandi to co-curate the exhibition and together we considered
many artists before choosing the participants.

CDG When Alan mentioned to me about Fabricca de Vapore I was very
excited with the idea of bringing British artists to Milan. Especially because
of the link these two countries artistically and historically share. So we
started to select the artists that would best depict the contemporary scene
without compromising the location concept. In other words, we wanted to
create a space that accommodated contemporary ideas together with the
location.

AR When we came to install the exhibition we wanted the themes to evolve
through three rooms starting with a beautiful painting by Matthew Radford
Rose, which calls to mind the paintings of Chinese and Japanese cherry and
plum blossom trees like metaphors for contemplation and a sense of
alignment with the natural world. All the pieces were chosen by us from the works of

each artist. The young duo Walter & Zoniel, gave us some intensely beautiful

photographs from their Toki series based on their seminal installation

The Physical Possibility of Inspiring Imagination in the Mind of Someone Living.

They show luminous jellyfish immersed a huge water tank which they had for

real in shop windows at Liverpool, Miami and Venice at the Biennale. There’s a

vibrant painting by another young artist Rebecca Youssefi, Meteor Shower
above the Human Race which continues this theme of a life affirming sense of awe at
the scale of the cosmos. Two characteristic photographic light drawings by

Kirsten Reynolds make a wonderful gesture, and relate closely to the same theme.

The first room is completed by Claudia’s colour field paintings from her

Horizon series and my own contribution which appears to be a straightforward

painting of a wild, quite romantic landscape yet contains hidden an image

of a startled, frightened stag, running scared from an unknown terror and

falling into a polluted water.

It’s great seeing Claudia’s paintings opposite mine they have an amazing energy and
aliveness and create a whole vision of a matrix of Earth, Sea and Sky out of minimalist
colours. Following on from this we’re planning to make some collaborative works as diptychs
and triptychs and will be exhibiting these soon in Milano. As the exhibition rounds the

corner into Room 2 the quite harmonious vision lingering from these works just vanishes!

There are more pieces by Matthew Radford, studies of hurrying, preoccupied city workers

darting across the floors of a late night illuminated office building. The sense of anxiety

these paintings show gets worse in Stephen Newton’s Large Painting of a Bed and a Window

 which is about the loneliness of modern existence. Drawings and prints by Oska Lappin

are about the craziness of suburban American life today particularly the deep unease

created by the Trump administration. Another female artist whos work is getting a lot of

attention in London is Cat Roissetter. She has made a series of delicate and yet obscure

drawings and collages which are equally disturbing and appear to be about a strange

sense of loss in human fortune.

So the second room is about the existential crisis of modern times, and the paintings
of Charlotte Snook conjure up the mad world of a Baroque artist’s studio from around
the actual beginning of modern times in Europe when the hierarchy of The Church
and the power of the aristocracy was on the wane.
These paintings lead on to Birth of Ideas by Jake and Dinos Chapman which I think
spits out the notion of an artist’s reflective commentary on society like a madcap
punk version of Edward Lear poem..

We then hung three more works by Kirsten Reynolds which are uncannily like the
Chapman brothers piece and full of furious yet dangerous energy.
After the visual hysteria of these pieces you could take a look at Medium Trees a
video by Overlap which is less a post-industrial confrontation between Society and
Nature, and more a lyrical, affirming, landscape narrative which is optimistic and
about redeeming attitudes to Nature in the electronic age. This work goes well with a
simple painting of trees by the photorealist artist Tim Craven which is kind of about
the world of rural England threatened by the environmental crisis.
A suite of photographs by the French artist Catherine Balet complete the show,
neoclassical figure compositions lit by the weird unearthly aura of cell phones and
laptops.

CZ The project Axis put Nature at the focus of our attention. From the smallest
microorganisms to the largest animals, all life on Earth has a common ancestor.
Everything is connected to everything. According to you, what are the
consequences that our species has come to dominate the landscape in a short

period of time? As we have removed ourselves further and further from nature,
we have developed a willing ignorance of our role and relationship within it. Do
you agree with this statement?

AR Well one consequence is easy to see if you look at photographs of the Arctic
tundra from a hundred years ago compared to what it’s becoming now..
Also we’re told how many thousands of animal and plant species are currently
under threat of extinction due to pollution and the destruction of natural habitats.
As you say Chiara, everything is connected, and in the increasingly fast disruption
to so many eco systems within nature it’s a folly beyond compare to imagine that
human existence isn’t jepordised by our willing ignorance, as you put it, of the
worldwide situation.

 

CZ What are the aspects of contemporary art you have come to consider in
bringing together several artists from different places? Which are the historical
connections - from an artistic point of view - between London and Milan?

CDG First, I thought that all the artists have a common ground in the way they demonstrate
their craftsmanship. They all have a unique way of depicting their ideas and their use of
colours, shapes, etc. Basically, we were thinking of language, skills and then, of course,
contemporary display of images. I think, in a way craftsmanship and language covers the
artistic and historical link between these two countries!

 

CZ The combination of an urban and gentrified area with historical buildings such
as Tracce di Vapore and the nearby Mausoleum brings a special cultural context
for the current show. Would you like to deepen this aspect?

AR For me to be following in the footsteps of the great English landscape artists who came to
work in Italy, Turner and Bonnington for example, is exciting yet quite daunting.

CDG The gallery is in such a great neighbourhood, The juxtaposition of historical buildings
such as Tracce di Vappore and the nearby Mausoleum with the fast growing and gentrified
community gives a rich traditional context for the visitor viewing our artists. To see the two
together is wonderful.

 

CZ What have you achieved so far with the current exhibition? And what are your
expectations for the coming future?

 

AR We had an astonishing number of people at the launch and great enthusiastic
speeches by the Deputy Mayor of Milan and Andrea Vento explaining about the
whole Fabbrica del Vapore project. So far there have been a lot of visitors and
sales of art works and quite a few good reviews in the press including a piece in Il
Giornale and a review in International Times in London!

 

CDG We would like to continue to expand the Axis project maybe annually with
different artists including music, video and performance in future shows. Bringing
artists in collaborations and other forms of media.

 

CZ What impact has contemplative art on the viewer?

CDG It is difficult to say how each one receives or perceives the concept of
contemplative art. For me, I am interested in the space which you confront when
viewing it. It takes a bit of time also to enter into that space. So, you need to
contemplate it, like a meditation. You allow yourself to enter into a different space
that is not cluttered because you’re supposed to be in a quiet space. Wherever it
takes you it is a place of your own. It is totally intimate with you and you become
in touch with your own perceptions. It is a kind of time to reset yourself, it a
moment of itself that only you can see it and be part of it at that specific time.

CZ In Room 2 the lingering afterimage of vision and engagement evaporates
sharply. In this case, the works of art convey a sense of panic, ennui, mild anxiety
and claustrophobia, depicting the existential crisis of modern times. Do you think
these feelings can be overcome?

CDG The artists in room 2 are depicting an important aspect of modern life. The
side of brain that does not rest because of the feeling of being imprisioned by the
overwhelming world. Maybe by confronting the reality of these images is not as
restful but it points out to a reality that most of us are trying to avoid seeing or
taking responsibility for.

AR Perhaps by recognizing the reality of the kind of collective anxiety which
exists in the subconscious in modern urban life, through time pressures, societal
and status worries and the rapid fire pseudo urgency of 24 hour TV reporting.
Once these things are acknowledged it’s maybe a smaller step to be able to change
and be free of conditioning.

CZ Alan, you said that a coolly methodical painting of the countryside of an
England about to be lost by Tim Craven signifies both epilogue and prologue of
the exhibition. Could you explain this further?

AR I thought Tim’s painting of a single tree with it’s contemporary technique and
yet simplistic traditional subject matter leads you to realize the way the idyllic
nature of our countryside is greatly in danger of being lost forever. It’s threatened
by a combination of environmental pollution and increasingly drastic changes in
the way vulnerable ecosystems of the world are ignored by the surge of
profiteering global business.