Paul Sietsema

Since October 18, Nouveau Musée National de Monaco—Villa Paloma’s Project Room hosts an exhibition of Paul Sietsema, on the occasion of which the artist produced seven new works.

Since July 9 and running until January 17, 2016, Nouveau Musée National de Monaco-Villa Paloma presents Fausto Melotti, an exhibition gathering about 20 metallic sculptures and more than 70 ceramic pieces of the Italian artist, organized in collaboration with Fondazione Fausto Melotti. Concurrently with this exhibition, Eva Fabbris and Cristiano Raimondi, co-curators of the show, have chosen to shed light on the work of two other artists in Villa Paloma’s project room, starting with Alessandro Pessoli (July 7–September 27, 2015) and now Paul Sietsema.

Paul Sietsema (born in 1968, lives and works in Los Angeles) takes from secondary sources in his two-dimensional works and films, revisiting the mechanisms involved in the transmission of knowledge. The objects he chooses to reproduce make it possible for him to explore the ambiguous relationship between the material and the imagery that permeate our way of understanding history and culture—and indeed, they come from the most diverse areas of knowledge. The moment of actual creation is key. Sietsema’s works are the outcome of specific processes that he formulates and puts into practice in his studio.

This is a place of constant inspiration and concentration, allowing him to reflect on what it means to make art and on the instruments, both metaphorical and concrete, needed to achieve it. Through a constant flow of media and materials, Sietsema brings into question the idea of reproduction. His enamel paintings, for example, which portray tools in a hyperrealistic manner, are made by pouring enamel onto the objects and then taking digital photos of them. The digital image of each object is then impression-transferred onto a new support (often canvas) and then painted. Here, Sietsema uses enamel again in order to emphasise the resonance and dissonance between object and image. The subjects he chooses often directly or indirectly convey the idea that the work of art today is naturally included in, and perceived as part of, an economic system. This means that a precise monetary value can be attributed to the very act of painting (we see a recurrent use of coins). This theme also underpins his newspaper drawings, which start out from saved newspapers. He replicates pages related to the socio-economic sphere. Newspaper is also seen as a context where private situations are made publicly visible through two-dimensional and linguistic representation.

In parallel with the Project Room, the Video Room hosts At the hour of tea (2013). This work presents a sequence of arranged objects of the type commonly seen on a desktop. With this film, Sietsema brings the tools of the study or office together with objects of contemplation often found there, overlaying time periods within the perceptual matrix of a workstation.

The catalogue of the Fausto Melotti exhibition will be co-published in mid-December by the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco and Mousse Publishing. The book will be in three languages (English, French and Italian) and illustrated by a large selection of archival documents, some of which never seen before. It will include an essay by Valérie Da Costa focusing on Fausto Melotti’s ceramics; a text by Eva Fabbris dedicated to the presence of articles about and by Fausto Melotti in Domus as of 1948; a text by Cristiano Raimondi about the collaboration between Gio Ponti and Fausto Melotti for Villa Planchart in Caracas; a conversation between Simone Menegoi and Melina Mulas; a conversation between Barbara Casavecchia, Alessandro Pessoli and Paul Sietsema; and a conversation between Francesco Garutti, Valters Scelsi and Vittorio Pizzigoni, member of the architecture studio baukuh.