Category: Reviews

The Carbone Gallery is a new gallery venture by Milena Carbone that opened at the start of May 2020, offering a venue in which she can display her own work and that of invited guests.

Milena is a relative newcomer to Second Life, having joined in mid-2019; as an artist, she is not afraid to use her work to stimulate the grey matter and challenge perceptions. In doing so, she draws inspiration from a number of sources: science, psychology, philosophy and religion chief among them. I became enamoured with her work after visiting Agape in Pace, a fascinating exploration of art, love, hate, religion, politics all offered with reflections on quantum field theory (see Art and quantum states in Second Life). As such, her art is not intended to be seen so much as experienced.

For me, art is not just about aesthetics or fashion, but must open reflection to the questions of our chaotic time. Art can help for a better world. An artwork addresses an important question with more questions. Otherwise, it is decoration.

– Milena Carbone

For the opening of her gallery, she offers two installations: Twins and Locked.

Twins, as the teleport board to the first of these installation notes, have long been the subject of many myths, with artists using them as symbolic representations. Describing itself as an expression of “four mythical aspects of twinship”, Twins is a layered piece that, while couched in in studies of twins, though the use of eight images, is equally an exploration of self. The four story elements of the installation  – Identity (also routed in the onset of puberty via the use of the “character” of “ephebe”), The Opposite, Replication and Fusion – all being as much about people as individuals as it is about the notion of twins sharing their lives.

Within this structure are also commentaries of conformity in the modern age, together with questions on whether the desire  / need / pressure to conform really offers happiness; philosophical musings on the the deals of love and partnership; and observations about outlook, human nature and the need to understand ourselves if we are to achieve balance.

Locked is a four-part story focused on the trials and tribulations the world-wide lock down that has resulted from the rise of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

As with Twins, it is reached via a TP board from the foyer of the gallery space, and takes for form of a four rooms opening off of a central hallway. Within these rooms are the four parts to a story. These can be visited in any order, although I’d personally recommend following them in the order Breakdown, Sideration, Glimmer and Amnesia; doing so allows the narrative threads and themes within the story to naturally grow in complexity as you progress.

Each room contains three images by Milena, a sculpture by Mistero Hifeng, and a “chapter” of the story; a seat in the middle of each room offers visitors the chance to sit and read the story and reflect on it through the presence of the images and sculpture. Again, while the core of the piece offers  reflection on isolation as a result of the pandemic, so too does it fold in many others aspects and thoughts – up to, and including a question on the nature of God him / herself.

This layering is nuanced and subtle. in the central hall, for example, is a wall of photographs carefully selected by Milena over a period of days that both reflects our natural inclination to be close to others. However, interwoven with these images are others with a dark edge – reflections of both the darker sides to life and the anger and frustrations that can grow out of enforced isolation.

Also to be found within these rooms are question and musing about the current politic climate – notably the jingoism espoused in the petty nationalism / totalitarianism exhibited by the extreme right, the kind of future we are leaving to our descendants, and the choices we face for our own immediate future. All of which makes for a compelling, provocative piece.

As a first guest exhibition, the Carbone gallery also presents The Privilege of Ageing, a meditation on the subject by Harbor Galaxy, and which itself is a captivating study of eight images.

SLurl Details

• The Carbone Gallery (Woiler, rated Moderate)

Now open in the White Hall of Itakos Gallery, curated by Akim Alonzo, is Phenomenal Women, a joint exhibition by Cecilia Nansen and Maloe Vansant. The focus of the exhibition is to “interpret a poem about women” using Maya Angelou’s Phenomenal Woman.

Born Marguerite Annie Johnson in 1928, Maya (a nickname bestowed on her in childhood by her older brother, Bailey  Jr., being derived from “Mya sister”) Angelou is best known for her series of seven autobiographies, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences – which were far from easy. Born into a stormy relationship between her parents which ended when she was three, Maya and her brother were dispatched by her father to live with her paternal grandparents for four years before he abruptly sent the children back to their mother. Whilst there, Maya was raped by her mother’s boyfriend; he served just one day in prison for the assault, but after being released, was brutally murdered. This left Maya mute for five years, believing that by speaking out against him, she had caused his death, possibly at the hands of family members.

From these harsh beginnings, Maya Angelou grew through multiple careers, including cast member of the opera Porgy and Bess, coordinator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and journalist in Egypt and Ghana during the decolonisation of Africa, to become a celebrated actress, writer, director and leading member of the American civil rights movement, working with Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

As a poet and writer, Maya often wrote on the themes of love, painful loss, music, discrimination and racism, and struggle. With Phenomenal Woman, written in 1978 when she was 50, she offers a piece describing the allure she has as a woman of middle-age, and what makes her irresistible to the opposite sex despite the fact that she does not fit into society’s definition of what makes a woman beautiful. It’s a subtle, engaging poem taking an unconventional subject and presenting it in an unconventional rhyming scheme and structure that both add to the poem’s allure just as there is much that is unconventional about her captivating appeal as a woman.

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.

I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size.

– Phenomenal Women opening

With their images in Phenomenal Women, Cecilia and Maloe offer a selection of views of women that are fascinating on  a number of levels. Firstly, they have very different styles. Maloe’s work tends to embrace darker colours and tones and a tendency away from an overt use of artificial lighting; Cecilia, meanwhile, tends towards brighter colours and tones and a broader use of highlights.

At the same time, both compliment one another through their use of camera angle, framing and cropping. In this, both artists demonstrate enormous skill in framing a story or message through a single frame.  Whilst visible in all of the pieces presented in this exhibition, this “complimentary contrast” is perhaps most clearly visible in the pieces Phenomenal Two – 2 (Maloe) and Phenominal-in-leather  (Cecilia), located on the upper mezzanine floor of the gallery hall.

As studies of femininity and feminine appeal, the 19 images are rich in the motifs that tend to make women attractive in the eyes of men and other women: body shape, application of make-up, cast of expression, curve of breast, use of clothing. Again, this makes for a powerful series, some of which almost ooze sensuality, whilst other use more directed aspect of nudity to convey the message.

How well one might feel they offer an interpretation of Phenomenal Woman is perhaps more open to question. While it might be more a commentary on the limiting means of how the female form is oft represented in SL more than any “failing” on the part of the artists, these are images that do present bodies and faces that sit almost in opposition to the opening lines of the poem, whilst it might be argued that the inclusion of a fair amount of semi-nudity in several of the pieces is in opposition to the more mysterious elements of appeal voiced by the poem, which stay away from the more obvious elements of female sensuality:

It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.

– Phenomenal Woman

(that said, nudity is not necessarily misplaced in the broader content of Maya Angelou’s life: one of her careers in her younger says was that of a sex worker.)

Thus, Phenomenal Woman is a complex exhibit, one almost of two individual parts: images and poem; yet both are connected through the complex intertwining of ideas, message and viewpoint.

SLurl Details

• The Itakos Project (WhiteGallery – ATL, rated Moderate)

Opening on May 9th are two new exhibitions at Club LA and Gallery, curated by Wintergeist, which between them offer unique studies and unusual views of Second Life.

With Black and White, located in the main gallery, The Friendly Otter offers an intriguing portfolio of some 15 black and white images that stand as a mix of avatar studies and landscapes. What is particularly captivating about them is not that they are monochrome – but the manner in which they are presented.

Each piece takes a specific subject  – avatar, landscape element, birds, etc., – and presents it in an almost ink wash style sans intruding surroundings or wider surroundings, on a pure white backdrop. The result is a series of pieces that are wonderfully minimalistic but with an incredible depth and richness of story.

These are genuinely graceful pieces that have every look of having been painted by hand, rather than originating with in-world photographs. Sadly, none are offered for sale, as all of them are highly collectable.

In introducing Travelling Heels in Second Life, WuWai Chun uses a variation of a famous quote about Ginger Rogers, the original version of which (from a 1982 Frank and Ernest cartoon) read:

Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in high heels.

It’s a more than apt quote for this exhibition – reached via teleport from the main gallery – which offers highly unique views of Second Life around, under and over high-heeled shoes.

On reading this, it might be tempting to simply say, “Oh, you mean this is an exhibition of photographs of shoes!” But that really is not the case; while a pair of shoes is featured in each, they are not in an of themselves “just” focused on the heels. A number present scenes captured from around Second Life in which the background demands the eye’s attention – a villa and pool, a dusty hill from (I would guess) Serene Footman’s Kolmannskuppe, the tide breaking over rocks – as much as the heels.

Mixed with there are artful pieces that capture the spirit of popular art from (roughly) the 1960s and 1970s, adding to the depth of this exhibition whilst offering some highly individual pieces that would be welcome in any home.

I mention this latter point because all of WuWai’s pieces in this exhibition are for sale – and she is giving 100% of all sales to Feed A Smile – so in making a purchase, you’re not only gaining a great piece of art, but also helping a very worthy cause.

Two extraordinary exhibitions that should not be missed.

SLurl Details

• Club LA and Gallery (Amano, rated Moderate)