August 2019 | Newsletter

AUGUST NEWSLETTER

NEW WORKS FOR
MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ
Presented by Wilde Gallery at Art Basel

Marina Abramović and Factum Arte's director Adam Lowe in the workshops
Image © Otto Lowe for Factum Arte

Marina Abramović's Corian self-portraits
Images © Oak Taylor Smith for Factum Arte

Following the opening of Marina's exhibition at Wilde Gallery in Basel, she returned to Madrid to continue developing a new body of works. After the production of Marina's five alabaster portraits that formed Five Stages of Maya Dance (exhibited at Masterpiece Presents last year), the artist continues her exploration of the image-making possibilities of relief carving, that merges the ephemeral and the permanent, performance and light.

Marina's work has always been concerned with performance and pushing boundaries. The new works continue this but with a sense of time that looks forwards and backwards.

A FACSIMILE FOR THE RISCO CAÍDO
A new addition to UNESCO's World Heritage List

Images © Oak Taylor Smith and Otto Lowe for Factum Arte

Risco Caído and the Sacred Mountains of Gran Canaria Cultural Landscape, a complex of troglodyte settlements in the mountains of central Gran Canaria, was added to UNESCO's World Heritage List on July 7th 2019.

Factum Arte has been working for most of this year with the Cabildo de Gran Canaria on the creation of a facsimile which will make the prehistoric sanctuary accessible to the public and permit a wider knowledge of this important prehispanic site, containing an early example of a solar calendar.

The aim of this project is to complete a detailed photographic documentation of the internal surfaces in colour and 3D, including the incised solar calendar. The result will be an exact facsimile at a scale of 1:1 that will be accessible to visitors and will assist in the long term preservation of the original cave.

ON SHOW
A new video about Mariana Cook's Factum Fetishes edition

And a selection of new works by El Anatsui, Adam Fuss, Rachid Koraïchi and Daniel Blaufuks

A new film by Óscar Parasiego made with Mariana Cook while she was working in Factum's workshops earlier this year.

This is one of an ongoing series of films with artists as they engage with Factum's team in different ways.

Images from top to bottom © Adam Fuss Studio, Oak Taylor Smith,
Daniel Blaufuks and Casa Árabe - Chencho

A pair of new works have emerged from the ongoing collaborative project between El Anatsui, the October Gallery and the print studio at Factum Arte. One Gold on Black takuhon was exhibited in El Anatsui: Material Wonder (28th February - 6th April 2019) at the October Gallery. A second Black on Gold impression is currently on display at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition where El Anatsui is an Academician.

The imprint is taken by a method called 'takuhon', which was developed in ancient Japan to take impressions from the stone carvings in shrines and requires only a simple tool made from silk and cotton. With this ‘tampo’, the dampened paper is pounded into the topography of a surface.

Adam Fuss' new works were on display at the Baldwin Gallery in Aspen in July. Prints made after Albrecht Dürer are on exhibition in Bassano del Grappa. Rachid Koraïchi's incised alabaster works are on display at Casa Árabe in Cordoba and a facsimile of a mass-produced ceramic bowl from China forms part of Daniel Blaufuks' exhibition Cópia Original at Galeria Vera Cortês in Lisbon.

MASTERPIECE ART FAIR 2019
Artworks from the workshops

Left: Adam Fuss' pigment print on aluminium
Right: Paula Crown's electroplated stereolithographic 3D printed sculpture

Prints from Mariana Cook's portfolio Factum Fetishes and the 3D LiDAR recording of the research vessel Heraclitus
The 1:10 scale bronze cast of Antonio Canova's equestrian statue

Rachid Koraïchi's alabaster tablets series The Prophet
and Jan Hendrix's tapestry from the Mythological Landscape of Yagul series
Images © Gabriel Scarpa and Elizabeth Mitchell for Factum Arte

From 27 June to 3 July 2019, Factum Arte participated in Masterpiece London, one of the world's leading cross-collecting fairs. Factum's stand, designed by Charlotte Skene Catling, recreated the feeling of creative excitement that exists in Factum's workshops. Works by artists including El Anatsui, Marina Abramović, Mariana Cook, Paula Crown, Adam Fuss, Boris Savelev, and Rachid Koraïchi were shown alongside a digital restoration of an equestrian statue by Canova and interpretative re-creations of artworks by Dürer and Monet.

A NEW GROWTH CHAISE LONGUE FOR MATHIAS BENGTSSON
Pushing the boundaries of design and furniture

Images © Oak Taylor Smith for Factum Arte

Factum Arte continues the collaboration with Danish designer Mathias Bengtsson to produce a unique Chaise Longue. Since 2013, Bengtsson has been working with Factum to push the boundaries of traditional furniture through expressive forms and advanced techniques.

The chair began as a 3D model sent by Bengtsson which was 3D printed in TetraShell by Materialise. The result is a complete merging between 3D printing technologies and traditional casting techniques - another successful collaboration with the Madrid-based foundry, Fademesa.

A mirror-polished finish was applied before the Chaise Longue was nickel-plated using an electroless bath. This is the first time Factum has employed a chemical bath for finishing a work of art. Using this method, a smooth, satin protective finish was achieved.