As a cultural partner of the project Aperture designed by Riot Studio and Tecnosistem with the aim of inviting contemporary artists to reinterpret the city’s bond with historical and culturally significant locations, SuperOtium hosted Gianluca Panareo as an in-residence guest. Panareo is the author of the performative installation “Memini” curated by Marco Izzolino, and his residency coincided with SuperOtium’s inauguration. By working closely with the artist, the curator, and Riot, we were able to experiment our residency format and explore how we could create a dialogue between it and Naples. “Memini” is structured as a path, a Dantesque ascent through the characteristic aspects of the city, from the darkest and most infernal to the most sublime and enlightened. An investigation centered on the city, on its intrinsic characteristics that make this city unique, alive, volcanic, resistant to gentrification and depersonalization.

Part of SuperOtium’s art residencies program, in collaboration with Ciocca Arte Contemporanea and in conjunction with the new call for art residencies, Kensuke Koike will be our guest from May 2 to 14, 2018. Kensuke is a Japanese artist who uses the analogical and visually illusive re-elaboration of images taken from postcards, photos, magazines to induce the observer to question his sense of reality. Kensuke uses paper to create sculptures which disregard the sense of the third dimension undermining the stability of the observer’s visual imagination. By means of a meticulous and highly accurate process, he transforms real images by cutting them into pieces and repositioning them in a plausible design within the same image to imbue it with new meanings.
The choice of inviting Kensuke in residency is based on the strong coherence between his work and the theme underlying the residency calls to be launched in mid-May, which will be focused on the exploration of the point of view. The idea is to lead artists and guests to reflect upon the possible new perspectives from and through which Naples can be observed.

After several months of research and exchanges in the week between the 5th and 11th November 2018, Yasser Almaamoun’s residence closed with an exhibition / event. Architect and Syrian activist who lives and works in Berlin, his residence has been part of the Freiraum project, of the Goethe Institut, which involves 38 artists living in Europe to investigate the meaning of the idea of freedom. Curated by the Goethe-Institut of Naples, his research, inspired by the artistic video created for the alleys of the center of Naples by Bianco-Valente and Andrea Valentino, studies how the bodies move within the urban space, in the areas already investigated by Bianco-Valente and Fabio Landolfo, to propose solutions for urban-architectural change and trigger a debate on how we organize our living space.

From the 6th to the 23rd of October 2018, as part of the ShowDesk artistic residency program, we have hosted the french artist Blase. He is presented as the “hacker-painter”. He works with old canvases, modifies them, distort them and transform them. His anachronistic game confuses the viewer by creating a visual short circuit. Blase’s goal is above all to denounce the corrupt aspects of a consummated society with sarcasm. During his residency he has worked on the creation of an out-of-the-ordinary exhibition. A complex exhibition project that aims to promote the territory through the dissemination of works in the urban and institutional context. Blase completely subverts the residency project by bending the realization and the final result, as it happens in his works.

On September 2018 SuperOtium hosted, as part of the residency program of EDIT Napoli, Khaled El Mays, designer from Lebanon which design practice pays close attention to the material and celebrate the importance of the process. EDIT Napoli is an innovative design fair in Napoli created to support, promote and celebrate a new generation of designers who is ate forefront of a movement that is challenging the traditional chain of production and distribution.

Part of SuperOtium’s art residencies program from 17 to 25 March 2019, in the company of Rossana Ciocca (ArtCity Lab), our next guest artist will be Massimo Uberti. During his residency the artist will work on “Doors” a public art project conceived by Massimo Uberti in collaboration with ArtCityLab. The project envisages the establishment of an abstract entrance door, permanently painted on the wall of a building near the port. The port is the place that can accommodate, as in the past, the “habitation” of different ideas and cultures. The “door” will be made like a mural, but using an exceptional material such as gold leaf.