Sometimes art fairs are too short, so much beauty, so much artist known or worth exploring, so much energy concentrated in relatively so little space. There are art festivals that look like the launch pad for a spaceship. They last three, four days, almost as short as the countdown before an ignition, they rise into the sky and into the following year.
The Contemporary Art Now (CAN), or Can Art Fair of Eivissa, has left its mark, it took place from July 12 to 16, but luckily some of the galleries, exhibition spaces, old mansions and even mills have taken over in a kind of OFF programming and will extend their shows throughout the summer. It will be an experience on dry land and on the water because it will take place at the pace of a ferry across the strait, between Eivissa and Formentera. Two destinations that, just by pronouncing them, provoke envy and very good memories.
In the Ibizan Nave Salinas, a building built in 1941 to store salt, the prestigious Colombian collector Lio Malca opens his space to the work of the Australian artist Jonny Niesche (Sidney, 1972) who in recent years has specialized in work reminiscent of 20th-century monochromes (from Klein to Soulages, from Rothko to Anish Kapoor), but also in the hypnotic canvases that dominated one or two artistic tributaries. in the seventies of the last century.
“My work is hypnotic minimalism, even some critics talk about pop minimalism,” defines the Australian artist who is grateful for unusual sincerity when his own work seems easy: “My work has a nice sensibility, it’s not difficult, it’s meant to be beautiful, but not superficial. I’m interested in playing with beauty and a touch of bad taste that gives it a bit of a break,” he says.
And now comes the best, the Australian artist, unlike so many other creators, does not base his color palette on hardware store sample books, whose fan-shaped patterns help to think about compositions. In his case it was different.
“It wasn’t hardware stores or drug stores, as a child my mother dragged me to department stores and there, I secretly fell in love with the colors I found, the mirrors, the reflective surfaces… They were incredible. It was the age of glamour.”
Some of the works from the parallel program of the CAN art fair arrived even before the festival, such as the monumental work Valkyrie Crown, by the prestigious textile artist Joana Vasconcelos, which is on display at the Museu d’Art Contemporani d’Eivissa (MACE) until October 31.
This is one of the iconic series by the Portuguese creator that has been exhibited in museums such as the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Palace of Versailles, the Palazzo Bocconi in Milan or the always daring Kunsthal in Rotterdam.
The ‘Valkyries’ are large-format and very colorful pieces inspired by the Nordic deities and who brought dead warriors back to life to take them to paradise, Valhalla. The pieces carry the DNA with a wide variety of fabrics, embroidered fabrics, trimmings… artisan techniques rooted in the luxury of the survival of trades that refuse to disappear.
Still in Ibiza, in Sant Llorenç de Balàfia, the Ksar Living design gallery, the chameleonic Miranda Makaroff, actress, artist, model, designer and whatever comes her way, has created pieces halfway between tapestries, rugs or compositions of colors that are difficult to classify but that enter through the eyes, they are landscapes in themselves that can be placed in a thousand ways.
La Carpintería-Ses12Naus is one of the essential places on the Ibizan art scene due to its intention to feed creation by intertwining intergenerational conversation, for bringing crafts closer to the arts and for its residencies and research programs with a recent emphasis on ceramics with artists such as Anneliese Witt, Elena Noguera Wilson or Natalie Rich Fernández. One of the current residences is occupied by Andrés Izquierdo and the sculptors Nina Beier and Simon Dybbroe Møller exhibit in one of the rooms.
And the time has come to take the sailboat, the ferry or the imagination and it’s time to enjoy another Formentera, that of the prestigious Belgian painter Michel Mouffe (Brussels, 1957) who has a studio on the island and who likes to paint monochromes. The last ones that have attracted the most attention are those that float under the title Nebel (fog) and that are a sensory experience.
In parallel, several Payà chain hotels on the island present three creators who understand art as a game that leaves a mark. Thus, Julià Panadés, who already participated in Arco this year in a space belonging to the Institut d’Estudis Baleàrics (IEB), exhibits at the Far de Ses Coves Blanques some sculptures that are a mixture of offerings and souvenirs from the island made with all kinds of materials.
Not far from there, at the Hotel Blanco Formentera, one of the artists of the moment, the Mallorcan Ela Fidalgo, exhibits her canvases with multicolored faces with a technique that has made her popular and in which she uses embroidery, acrylic, oil and wax and has won her prizes and major exhibitions. To end this walkway, the artistic games of Jesús de Miguel (Palencia, 1975) with very original compositions that call for summer, enjoyment and life.
