Palazzo Reale, Milan, Italy: BAU Exhibition

Michael has been selected as a participant in the new portfolio collection of art prints from Italy: BAU - a "container of contemporary culture."  This most recent edition will be on display at the Palazzo Reale for this brief exhibition.

The non-profit organization BAU, from Viareggio, Italy, publishes a collection of limited edition artworks that is distributed to various museums, galleries, libraries, and academic institutions around the world. Curators select participating artists who then each contribute a series of 120 artworks (signed and numbered) to be distributed and included in the 120 total boxes/portfolios.

 

The current edition (Number 18 of the series) is put together in a boxed portfolio and includes a book about the project. There are a total of 67 participating artists from around the world in this current edition.

 

Some of the institutions that receive and collect BAU portfolios in their permanent collections include:

 

• Tate Modern Library, London, UK
• MART, Rovereto, Italy
• Museo del Novecento, Milan, Italy
• Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense, Milan, Italy
• Bibliotheque Kandinsky of the Center Pompidou, Paris, France.
• Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library of Yale University, New Haven, CT

 

For his contribution, Michael created a series of monoprints that were based on one of his drawings. This pencil and grease pencil drawing was scanned and Indigo printed onto Mohawk Superfine paper and then Michael used watercolors to paint on top of each one, thus making each print a unique work of art. Shown here are three of the ten artist's proofs.

 

SIgned and numbered edition of 120

Artist's Proofs: 10

Printer's Proof: 1

 

Inspired from his travels to the Caribbean and Central America, De Feo's new print series are suggestive of the flora and underwater fauna found in these sunny, high-temperature environments.

 

Continuing his exploration of juxtaposing paint atop a printed substrate, a recurring technique in De Feo's oeuvre, the underlying image in this series is sourced from a drawing Michael executed in graphite and grease pencil. The drawing was digitized and meticulously reproduced as Indigo prints on sheets of Mohawk Superfine Paper. Using watercolor paint, De Feo painted on top of the prints, thus making each one a completely unique work.

 

A form of intervention and collage, the marriage of the two image-making techniques on one surface creates a tension that continues the conversation between paint and the printed image.