Download PDFGenesis of the partnership
Back in 2018 and in recognition of Colart Brands’ constant dialogue with artists and attention to contemporaneity, art and culture magazine InsideArt invited Flavie Dirninger (Colart Italia) and Stephanie Nebbia (Global Fine Art Collective), to meet Giorgio De Finis, artistic director for the Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma (Macro).
From this meeting, a long partnership has grown which included residencies, talks, an exhibition, and numerous articles and apparitions in the InsideArt magazine & digital channels.
Project objectives
The collaboration with InsideArt and Macro consisted in a well-structured communication project, a storytelling which enchants and engages the audience on a journey through the fascinating relationship between art and matter, aiming at:
- reinforcing the reputation of Colart brands within the creative community
- engaging with contemporary art institutions and artists
- promoting NPDs (such as Acrylic Gouache, Soft Body, Flashe) and driving traffic to brands
- Attracting new audiences such as leisure hobbyists who would not normally make art.
Timeline of the project
- Oct. 2018: Publication of a focus story in the InsideArt paper magazine about the theme of Matter in contemporary art. The article, entitled “Trip to the origins of color. Discovering Colart, the home of creativity”, consisted in a fascinating interview of Mark Cann about production processes, enriched with images and relevant experiences of artists whose work revolves around matter.
- Nov. 2018: ‘Art & Matter Talk’ promoted by Lefranc Bourgeois in the auditorium of Macro museum. The Talk involved lecturers from the art community, including White Noise Gallery, Arcadia Art Auction House, Rome Fine Art Academy, artists and TFAC artist Guido D’Angelo. There was a special focus on Flashe colours and sampling to artists.
- From April to Sept 2019: Artists Residencies programme in the Atelier of Macro. 7 artists were selected by TFAC Italy, Spain and UK teams for a 7-day residency to investigate about colours and contemporary art, using materials from Lefranc Bourgeois, Liquitex and Winsor & Newton.
- Nov. 2019: See below! Collective exhibition at the Fondamenta Gallery in Rome, inviting all audiences amateurs and professional to see artists at work
On top of these, there was a constant production of in-depth, culturally stimulating content in all InsideArt media, both print and digital, to reach a wider audience. These communications included:
- Focus articles on the Residencies (read them here and here) as well as full page ads (Soft Body, Flashe, Basics)
- Digital communications (articles, photo and video galleries for InsideArt websites, Facebook, Instagram, newsletters, ad web banners)
- Publication by Macro Asilo museum featuring all the artists and their activity
“Apertures”: closing exhibition of the Art Residencies project
On 14th November “Apertures” was inaugurated at Fondamenta Gallery in Rom. Curated by Stephanie Nebbia, the collective exhibition was around the theme of colour and pictorial material with its multiple expressive potential.
The works exhibited were realized during the one-week residencies in Macro Atelier by Jo Volley (UK), Flavia Albu (Italia), Santiago Picatoste (Spain, Angelo Bellobono (Italy), Mattia Cleri Polidori (Italy), Juan Bolivar (UK) and Gary Colclough (UK).
The artists, from Italy, Spain and UK, who are either both up-and-coming or already accomplished, where all involved in a focus research of how matter is employed. They proved to be a perfect example of variety, since their works couldn’t be any different from one another. This result is particularly outstanding, especially since the materials were also a common feature: Lefranc Bourgeois, Winsor&Newton and Liquitex colours and mediums.
Here’s what curator Stephanie Nebbia said about the exhibition
“This exhibition is a culmination of work based on the extraordinary vision by Georgio De Finis at the Macro Asilo. This incredible residency programme at Macro, provided the viewer with an insight into what it means for an artist to have a dialogue with their work. An opportunity to understand the totality of making a piece of art; the materiality and the development of ideas in a context, a context created by the Macro museum.
From these ways of seeing, this exhibition has been curated from a selection of artists who participated in this programme. Materiality is central to their practice and the examination of this aspect, in conjunction with the formal and conceptual notions in their work, have been carefully documented by Inside art magazine.
This then allows us to interrogate our understanding of what it means to curate? The Macro museum became a series of artist’s studios, in order to provide a better understanding of the artists and their work; then a selection from this, taken to form this exhibition at Fondamenta. It brings to the viewer’s attention a dialogue that needs to occur also in curation. This is a fundamental role curation needs to play in order to make art more accessible.
Georgio De Finis’s vision has prompted us not only to raise these questions, but widens participation initiating a more inclusive approach to understanding art and artists and they context they inhabit today.”
What are the benefits of this partnership?
This partnership is a fantastic demonstration of how TFAC’s engagement developped into a partnership by raising brand awareness and driving traffic to brands. The cross-media communication with a well-established art magazine such as InsideArt allowed us to reach a widespread public, composed of professional and non-professional artists, and to position our brands among the most prestigious of the sector.
Finally, this project, which was developed thanks to the collaboration with TFAC Global, offered many enriching contacts, fabulous artistic experiences as well as amazing feedback and content for our brands.
