Laura Cristin




LFS at Poetry Expo 2023

Category : uncategorized Jan 31st, 2023
clockwise from left: performance “Locus Solus” at Père Lachaise, Paris 2014; “Healing in London” at Kingsley Hall, 2017; card for London Biennale 2006; Artist Book “Liberty in New York”, 2012

Taking part in Poetry Expo 2023 by Versopolis, Beletrina Academic Press of Lubiana is fantastic. Online opening on January 31st at 18:00 (https://fb.me/e/2uX9hLlcE).

My project Le Fableaux Sheren is at https://www.versopolis.com/initiative/poetry-expo-23/content/1257/le-fableaux-sheren from 1st of February and will be visible until the end of the festival.

Here’s the gist of my contribution but have a look at it all!

What about poetry as a LIT-by-LOVE issue, not necessarily dependent on words? Whatever the language – even a glance or a silence – can be equally or more eloquent than a piece of written LITerature. Le Fableaux Sheren is a sampling of performances where personal feelings connect with wider contexts, where everyone – in their own way – can immerse themselves in a common Time, thinking and perhaps creating a better world!

Cribs and Stars 2022

Category : uncategorized Dec 5th, 2022
From left, clockwise: “Magic mOZart” at “Altra Musica” in Forte Marghera 25 April; “Sheren’s 68” at “Ribelli solitari” in Rignano sull’Arno 10 September; installation “Sirens 1996_2022” at NONsoloBLU in Monfalcone 4 December; at Brunori Sas concert in Fusine 31 July; with Giancarlo Da Lio and the book “Laura Cristin NETWORK” in Jesolo 26 May

Cribs assisted by propitious stars – linked to mOZart, good music and people, occurred in 2022 bringing opportunities for rebirths with art and friendship, in Forte Marghera, Jesolo (Venice), Fusine lakes (Tarvisio), Rignano sull’Arno, Monfalcone and wherever love has been shared. Link to “magic mOZart” performance at https://youtu.be/apaY9ardTPs

Art-life at Xmas 2021

Category : exhibitions, mailart Dec 20th, 2021
Clockwise around the Holy Crib with figurines from the 50ies: glass vase, “Natale” plate (blue and yellow), Xmas clay garland made/painted in the 80ies-90ies; mailart “The Red Bench…” exhibited in Bologna for November 25th, “Sheren in Venice” painted in Laives (Bozen) in October 2021.

An installation of thoughts, words and images, goes straight in my heART. It started from a recent mailart card where I depicted a Red Bench to be built and to be constantly mantained in order to SURFvive in the hurricanes (for an exhibition in Bologna against the violence on women) and a pictorial experienze in Laives at the Kunst Kolonie of Artimmersion13.

Then, holding up the figurines of the Nativity Crib from my infancy and with the gaunt bed for the Holy Child in my hands, I realized the similarity of the cot with the Red Bench above. ‘Things’ from the past emerged: a glass vase, a celebrative plate for “Natale”, a clay garland and so on.

Emblems of a still alive art-life.

Poesia a Venezia

Category : exhibitions, performance, mailart Oct 15th, 2021
Laura Cristin Sheren in a photo by Giancarlo Da Lio, from the performance at Parco del Piraghetto in Venezia Mestre on October 2nd, 2021. At the side: two faces of Tarotensign “VPopeS&StarXVII”, cm 170 x 52 painted on blue textile, 2021.

On October 2nd, 2021, exactly thirty two years after the signing of the manifesto for the First International Day of Poetry, a group of (mail)artists gathered in the same place of Venezia Mestre, at Itinerary 80, around Giancarlo Da Lio.

Laura Cristin Sheren brought the Tarotensign VPopeS&StarXVII just completed and hanged it facing the Canadian maple, better known as the Tree of Poetry. The two Arcana depicted on the double face blue textile came three dimentional in two subsequent art actions. The first performance – for the PopeS – took place at the Garage-Ambasciata of via Cavallotti: an intimate memory intended for those present, devoted to the missed friend and mentor Dawn Redwood (London, 1936-2020), immersed in Jerusalem by W. Blake, set to the music of the Time. Soon after came the Star‘s turn in the nearby Parco del Piraghetto where the performance was shared with the local community and the Nature and the Autumn by Vivaldi. Sheren wore a Venetian tricorn and ended up holding the nine pointed Star of the fortress of Palmanova that Dawn had loved so much.

Link video at https://youtu.be/meA0B-rW1KM

“Sheren at Summer Solstice 2021”

Category : performance, mailart Jun 29th, 2021
Central: B.day cake 13 June 2021. Clockwise from Nemo fish: card for “Artist’s Studio (for Museum of Instant Images of Chaam, The Netherlands) showing “Score of MySELF as SHEren in the Threads and Signs of Time” on the table (for “per Filo e per Segno” at la Fabbrica della Ruota of Pray Biellese), new foldable tent on my gARTen along the top of the card, detail of “Let’s play a proper G chord for MY(an)MAR and DAW SUU” (for “Padiglione Birmania, Guardamiglio-Lodi), detail of my feet painted on the Sherensign XVII (work in progress), mail art “Sheren’s tears” revisiting the MV X-press PEARL disaster.

Just around my B.day art-life started to burst again and few but significant exhibition opportunities come up such as

-“L’Amazzonia deve vivere” (curator Ruggero Maggi) featuring a kiwi leaf from my former gARTen, at Museo Diotti of Casalmaggiore (CR) from 4 June to 1 August and from 21 August to 26 September

-“per Filo e per Segno” (curator Marisa Cortese), at the Fiber art exhibition in Pray Biellese, from 6 June to 10 October

-“Padiglione Birmania” (curator R. Maggi) at Palazzo Zanardi Landi of Guardamiglio-Lodi from 26 June to 31 July and from 3 to 19 September.

Last but not least, some mail art about the MV X-press PEARL revisiting the nurdles as Sheren’s tears and so on.

“inFINITO aMARE” trilogy

Category : performance, mailart, around the world Dec 6th, 2020
The book-diary “inFINITO aMARE” was written from June 2019 till November 2020, to collect and transfigurate episodes of art-life as in “real” fairy tales. Three Artist Books consisting in 170 pages each were handmade to start the journay. Original copy at Archivio Diaristico Nazionale https://catalogo.archiviodiari.it/diari/8690

My best wishes for a Merry ‘Xmas and Happy New Year 2021! I hope to soon be able to embrace life again at one hundred percent, in the meantime I did it by completing the book “inFINITO aMARE” that I wrote over the latest eighteen months, from 13 June 2019 to 11 November 2020. Almost six hundred thousand characters, collected in thirty-three waves of art-life, to compose a trilogy (1-11, 12-22, 23-33). So far, three artist copies have been made which, starting from a December day when it snowed around here, have now started their journey. Still ongoing.

Index of the chapters of “inFINITO aMARE” (the book-diary is written in Italian, except # 27 We’ll Go No More a Roving that is in English): 01 Compleanni B.days, 02 Ricordo grato di Letizia Comba, 03 La nascita di Sheren, 04 Che Guevara, 05 Coney Island, 06 City Lit, 07 Allunaggi, 08 Bicicletta, 09 Serendipità a Berlino e Sofia, 10 La Grande Guerra, 11 Sulle tracce di Mozart; 12 Mondiali di calcio 1982 e 2006, 13 Arcobaleni e Messico, 14 Principesse e Castelli, 15 Le Carte, 16 Le Conchiglie, 17 dolpHEn in Irlanda, La plastica e i gonfiabili, 19 Da ShirEn a SHEren (a Madrid), 20 Instant book e onde noir, 21 L’isola che non c’è, 22 La Fotografia; 23 Dio c’è?, 24 Garibaldi, 25 Trebnje e Beograd, 26 Calzini scompagnati, 27 We’ll Go No More a Roving, 28 Farfalle, 29 Trip-tych, 30 Parigi-Venezia-Firenze, 31 Nei luoghi di Beethoven, 32 Cronologia dei Tarocchi, 33 Dalle Termopili a Gandhi.

“Giustisia e Fortesa” from Palmanova to Venice

Category : uncategorized Sep 23rd, 2020

Clockwise from left: Laura Cristin and Giancarlo Da Lio in piazza Grande of Palmanova 13 SEP2020; detail of Tarotensign VIII e XI “Giustisia e Fortesa” with the winged lion; impromptu along piazza San Marco (Venezia) with Dario Della Rossa JAN 2008; holding new ensign before taking to Forte Marghera in front of Duomo of Palmanova.

On Saturday, September 26th, 2020, at Forte Marghera (Venezia), Palmanova building, from 7 pm, at the opening of the international collective event “Stendardi”, organized by Officine, Rosso Veneziano, with the contribution of Itinerari 80. Exhibition lasts till October 11th.

Link video “Giustisia&Fortesa https://youtu.be/3zAPyCn62LA

“Giustisia and Fortesa” – in the Bisiac dialect which is my native language related to the Venetian – are cardinal virtues as well as two figures of the Major Arcana to be practiced as a way towards the never ending human enlightment. The standard personifies both Justice (VIII) and Strenght (XI), in Sheren’s art identity. They are connected respectively to the balance of Libra and to the constellation of Leo that holds the double star of Regulus in the chest, among the four regal ones of the firmament. The painting on canvas is as tall as me and seven times – but in proportion – larger than the Visconti-Sforza cards preserved between New York (Morgan Library) and Bergamo (Colleoni collection). It enters fully into the personal research of Tarotensigns undertaken in 2005 and which now counts almost the complete set of twenty-two, each of which is connected with precise moments of art-life. For the occasion the first “off-site” ensign made in 2005 for Giancarlo Da Lio and the Embassy of Venice, is brought back to the theme of the Tarot as the”Magician” who starts the whole journay.

In “Giustisia e Fortesa” as a performance, the personal visual research is intertwined and retraces from 1 to 11 the musical fragments composed by Dario Della Rossa in the broader parallel and consonant path undertaken together. In succession, the tracks: 01 Magician 00:58 – 02 Popess 01:04 – 03 Empress 00:22 – 04 Emperor 00:18 – 05 Pope 01:39 – 06 Lover 02:38 – 07 Cart 00:19 – 08Justice 00:58 – 09 Hermit 02:36 – 10 Wheel 01:15 – Strenght 00:58).

It happens from Palmanova – the star shaped city near which I live – to the building of the same name in Forte Marghera, on September 26, 2020, to sanction and reaffirm an unprecedented twinning of freedom and strength.

“1st of May 2020”

Category : uncategorized May 1st, 2020
Selfie in MILAN in 2020; with Dawn Redwood in LONDON in July 2016; portrait by Raffaella Losapio at the opening of Casa degli Artisti, 1st February 2020.

On the first of May 2020, my thoughts are for the beauty of life and for the necessity of the art in the past, present and future!

“Suite for Dawn”

Category : uncategorized Apr 1st, 2020
“Two women” painting and tailor’s dummy revisited, 2002; a-not-so-personal-altar with “Paradiso” by Dawn Redwood, acrylic and oil, 2009 and memorabilia of our friendship along the predella.

The Ouverture of the “Suite for Dawn” is meant as a suggestion to prepare all of us for a new beginning after Coronavirus’ quarantine. I composed it with words (and images) according with the Baroque and Renaissance dance. Let’s start with Allemanda in a binary rhythm that refers to my installation of Lucia and Gertrude, as narrated by Manzoni at the time of the plague in Milan. Corrente, a triple metre dance follows, where I remind all my travelling with Dawn – an artist from London – as well as the friendship with Dario, the musician (featured in Sarabanda). The last movement – Giga – reaches the apex of the heavens because Dawn ‘passed away’ on March 2nd but when I look at the painting “Paradiso” left here, I know (s)he is still with me.

Full texts and images in the contribution for Compendio del Tempo Sospeso at https://www.microbo.net/2020/03/laura-cristin-2/

“L’uomo e il mare” performance by Laura Cristin Sheren

Category : performance, mailart, around the world Jan 21st, 2020

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Video by Gabriella Gallo and Maurizio Follin

“The Old Man and The Sea”, written in 1951, published in 1952, Hemingway received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954. When Giancarlo Da Lio invited me to join his birthday/aka Day of Art on January 17, 2020, a few days before the one of my husband Enzo (19 January 1952) I felt involved in the Time. Tiziana Baracchi too, his wife, who passed away in 2018, was born in 1952. So I asked Maurizio Follin a soundtrack for a performance that would remind Giancarlo’s strength and his inner being of “sea man” – winged lion of the Embassy of Venice – to discover that Maurizio and his wife Gabriella were also born in those years. In four and four, they provided me with the Rumble n ° 20 01 12 (10:38) which I immediately found perfect for an impromptu action at La Fossetta di Musile del Piave. It is a historic tavern where Hemingway used to spend his time while in Venice area and which – since 11 May 2018 – hosts the Garden of Poetry with the various contributions for the Red Lion of the Embassy of Venice, cured by Giancarlo and Tiziana. As for me, Laura Cristin, Sheren in art-life or life-art that does the same, I was born in 1954, the year of the Nobel Prize and the story has renewed and brought back so many thoughts and brought forth the desire to revive and involve in the participatory performance “The Man and the Sea” the strength of all those who, like Santiago, travel the stages of their heroic and daily existence in “la mar”, confronting each other respectfully with the marlins and sharks that meet along the way, being able to count on friendship, like the old fisherman with the young Manolo.
P.S. The fishbone remaining from the big marlin at the end of the performance became a sword that entitled me – among others like Teresa Cazzaro and Virgilia Milici – to be Ambassador of Art.