Everyday Gallery, Antwerp - two exhibitions

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Artist Mamali Shafahi drew my attention last year to the Everyday Gallery in Antwerp, and at the same time in particular to the work of one of the gallery's artists, Jacopo Pagin. Owing to COVID-19 restrictions, I haven't yet been able to visit Everyday in person, but I like very much what I've seen online - artists and curating.

At the moment, Everyday have two exhibitions running concurrently, joined together through a curtained archway (above). One, 'Crystal Whisper' is a solo show devoted to Jacopo Pagin, with an installation by Richard Venlet; the other, called ‘History of Fantasy’, is a group show including one work by Pagin again, and one by Mamali Shafahi, about whose nerd_funk project, with Ali Eslami, I posted here a couple of weeks back.

Only this morning, in an email to another artist in England, I wrote: 'What charms me in Jacopo Pagin's work is that it's so distinctly Italian, in a way I haven't yet found words to explain. There are some things about Italy that I really like that haven't yet been wiped out by global "yoof" culture. There's a particular lightness of both line and colouring in his paintings that's reminiscent of Italian art of the 50s, or even of those English neo-romantic fantasists of the same period doing wispy Italianate paintings with titles like "The Gondolas of Delos"...' 

Of course, on the gallery site there's plenty more about the two exhibitions, Jacopo Pagin and the others - the group exhibition brings together Laure Prouvost, Jean-Marie Appriou, Ariana Papademetropoulos, Raphaela Vogel, Daan Gielis, Jean-Baptiste Janisset, Jenna Kaës, Andrew Humke, Mamali Shafahi, Jacopo Pagin, and Bella Hunt & DDC.

Here's a link to the gallery's website.

The following is a selection of installation views from the website.








The above photo includes one of Mamali Shafahi's reliefs from his 'Heirloom Velvet' series. I will probably post more about that when the series features in a solo exhibition.




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