Art & Culture

Louis Walsh has some controversial views on what it takes it be a star and it has nothing to do with musical talent.

People who are good at sales, or some other business wholly involving people, all have two things in common.  They are the ability to talk and the ability to remember names.  A man noted for his people skills is David Frost and he frightened people more than once by calling them by their first name after meeting them once years before.  I can’t cite a case like that about Louis Walsh, but it wouldn’t surprise me if I did hear a story like that about him.  He is easy with names, facts and ongoing relationships.  He always gives instant answers.  He gives lengthy answers very quickly.  He never stutters but, like any fast talker, he tends to clutter.

I met him in the bar in the Four Seasons hotel.  I sat with a colleague with our backs to the wall beside the main entrance.  Louis walked in and continued towards the entrance to the restaurant.  I went after him and called his name.  He turned, grasped my hand firmly and uttered my first name.  We went into the restaurant.  He always gives interviews there.  “It’s a good place to do an interview because there’s never much noise and there’s always parking outside.   That’s why I usually have them here…Everybody knows me here, so it’s nice,” he says.  He looks like what he is, like someone in show business.  He was wearing a blazer with a spotted silk scarf.  Underneath he was wearing a mock neck sweater with a zip in front of the neck.  It was unzipped revealing a designer shirt with a blue Bengal stripe.

We sat in the restaurant.  “I always have fish and chips here,” he says and we all order fish and chips.  He had just been working in Sony.  His real job he calls it.  “I’ve got three or four records coming out with them,” he says.  “Westlife and all that.”  He only used to be interviewed by celebrity magazines, but now he’s doing the serious stuff.  “The Independent was a serious one and The Sunday Times… [I] did The Sunday Telegraph.  I normally don’t do the serious newspapers…the show [The X Factor] is so big in the UK it’s crossed into everything.”  The X Factor certainly is huge.   17 million people in the UK watched Jedward eliminated from the contest and one million watched it in Ireland.  That’s a record in both countries.

The X Factor is the show that made him famous.   In spite of his prominence in the music business, he was not someone who would be recognised on the streets before he did RTÉ’s Popstars in 2002.  I asked him if he missed his anonymity.  “Not really.  It’s a joke,” he says.  “I think I’m well known.  I don’t think I’m famous… I think I’m very lucky to be doing what I’m doing, because I never wanted this.  I didn’t want to be on TV.  I never thought I would be.  But they offered me a lot of money to do the very first show which was Popstars the Rivals and I didn’t even think about the TV until they offered me the job.  It was the money that enticed me and I did it.  And then Simon [Simon Cowell] offered me this.  I’m doing something I love and I’m getting paid for it.  I love it.  It’s a bit of a drug now.”

He admits his relationship with Dannii Minogue, who was a judge on the show, was stormy. He says: “This year I’m getting on with her much, much better.  But the first year Sharon [Sharon Osbourne] was there, and I’m a really good friend of Sharon.  Really, really good pals.  I’m meeting her on Sunday in London.  I bond in with Sharon, and Sharon and Dannii just didn’t get on.  It’s two women, typical of women and they just didn’t get on well. And I was very much in Sharon’s camp, so Sharon kind of demands loyalty.” So the absence of Sharon explains the improvement in their relationship, but he adds: “She’s looking better.  She’s got a nice boyfriend.  I think she’s happier.  I think she’s in a happier space than she was.  I actually admire her more than I ever did this year to be quite honest with you.”  This is in spite of the fact she voted Jedward off the show.  “She probably did the right thing.  For her it was a singing show.  If she had kept them in she would have been a hypocrite.  So I knew it was coming.  It was fine.  I think she’s a very professional judge.”

The last mention of Jedward prompted me to ask if The X Factor is a singing contest and Dannii Minogue repeatedly asked this question before casting the vote to get rid of Jedward.  The answer was forthright: “It’s not.  Because the best singers in the world are not stars.  They’re usually backing singers.  If you see George Michael on stage and he’s got these ten backing singers they are the best singers in the world behind him.  But they’re not stars.  Kylie, her sister, [Dannii’s sister] is a classic example. She’s not the best singer in the world, but she’s a proper pop star same as Madonna.  She’s not a great singer.  Put her in here, get her to sing a cappella and it will just be a very average voice.  Same with Robbie Williams.  And yet they are all pop stars, because people buy into the personality and the appeal of the sex and all the rest.”  So the image is where the star quality is.  He concedes that Dannii probably had a point, but he had a good reason to put the boys through: “… they were the best of a bad lot.  I got the worst category this year [which is] the groups.  It’s the hardest thing.  I put two girl bands through.  They were voted out [in] the first two weeks.  So luckily I took a chance with Jedward.  I put them through and they’re a household name already.  Everyone’s talking about them.”

“Because the best singers in the world are not stars.  They’re usually backing singers.  If you see George Michael on stage and he’s got these ten backing singers they are the best singers in the world behind him.  But they’re not stars.”

I asked what was going to happen to the Grimes twins.  “I don’t know.  I think they want to be pop stars.  I think they want to make a pop record… a lot of people are interested in them.  Everywhere they go young girls go fucking crazy, absolutely crazy like I’ve never seen before.”

He thinks that they are a really good act even if they can’t sing.  “They showed up and they looked like two dolls and they gave this really silly interview.  And they were so silly we remembered them and they had that high hair.  We didn’t give them the image.  They came in with the whole image themselves.  They’re only 17.  They live in this world of Britney.  All they had was Britney and Backstreet Boys and ‘N Sync and Jonas Brothers, that’s all they talk about.  They don’t want to talk about real life.  They had the time of their lives.  I’m glad I took the chance.  Because it was the biggest story of the show, biggest ratings we ever had.  So everybody’s happy, it’s a good result.”

Now that we were talking about contestants I introduced a darker side of contestants in these so-called reality shows.  I mentioned the name of Paula Goodspeed.  “Who committed suicide,” he instantly added.  “Who committed suicide,” I echoed.  It’s been three years since she was on American Idol and he remembered the name even though he had no direct involvement with that show.  It’s the name thing.  He just seems to remember names and all kinds of details.  The lady in question was a Paula Abdul impressionist and she auditioned in front of Simon Cowell and Paula Abdul.  Cowell insulted her about the braces on her teeth, asking how she got past the metal detectors and how she could sing with all the metal in her mouth.  Then Cowell, Abdul and a third judge rejected Goodspeed.  She committed suicide by gassing herself in her car near Abdul’s home.

His justification is simple.  It’s their free choice to audition: “… I mean a lot of the people that come to do auditions for us [he pauses a moment here and then drops his voice] they’re not right.  They’re not right at all.  But we don’t force them to queue up.”  I then say: “There must be mentally ill people who…?”  He cuts across me:  “There’s a few.  Probably a few in this hotel somewhere.  But I mean we don’t force them to come and do the audition for us.  We don’t know what’s going on in their minds.  We really don’t know but all we can do is try and be honest with them.  I try to be honest with them and try and let them down easy, you know.”  There was a stress on easy.  He admits that some people shouldn’t be on the show and there is the comedic appeal of watching someone making a fool of themselves on TV.  “We don’t force these people to queue.  They queue outside all day.  They want to be on TV.  It’s their thing.  Nobody forces them except themselves.”

The only time I didn’t get an instant response was when I asked if he had a partner. “Huh?” he said.  “Do you have a partner?” I repeated.  “I’ve a few,” he replied and everybody laughed.  Then he repeated the sentence.  I asked him if he ever considered getting married and if he ever had any offers.  “No, I wouldn’t want to get married.  I don’t think the hours would suit me… I’m married to my job. I’m always away.  I like to be free.  I like to be so free.  I do my own thing.”

Tom Lyons is a writer and journalist.

Most people enjoy a good detective story, and often a favorite detective as well, such as  Sherlock Holmes. Readers enjoy a tantalizing mystery  which teases the brain, and happily follow clue after clue leading to the solution  to  the mystery. Yet when it comes to real life situations, we inexplicabley  forsake our sense of adventure and cling to old beliefs and habits with a zealotry that is often quite out of character with how we otherwise approach life. Take the case of Shakespeare. For most people it is settled that he, William Shakespeare of Stratford-Upon-Avon, wrote the great poetry and plays many of us have enjoyed since high school. We take it for granted that he did, and look askance at those who seem somehow dubious that an unlettered man could write such erudite, deep, meaningful plays. After all, talent is talent, genius is genius. And believing that talent and genius can reside even in an unlettered man, we applaud his achievement and simply ascribe it to Fate. “He was destined to be great,” and that is that.

There is a modern-day Sherlock Holmes of the british literary world, named Brenda James. She, like Holmes, possesses an indomitable belief in her abilities in solving mysteries—more specifically, the greatest literary mystery of all time: Who really  wrote the drama and poetry we attribute to William Shakespeare of Stratford-Upon-Avon? This was a mystery she seemed destined to solve from childhood. And did Shakespeare, in her researches, really write what we all believe he wrote? Not a word of it.

She was first attracted to the well-known mystery of the Dedication to The Sonnets. This mystery has long puzzled scholars and afficianados alike. Who is WH? Who is the “Begetter” of the poems, who the “Everliving Poet”, who the “Well Wishing Adventurer”? And why the phrasing, why the added periods, why the strange language?

She became a cultural historian and an expert on Shakespeare and his culture, and tirelessly worked on what she came to believe was a coded message in the dedication itself. Years later her efforts bore fruit. There was indeed an encrypted message in the dedication. And with deductive genius worthy of the great Sherlock himself, she unlocked the door that led to her breathtaking solution to this age-old mystery of Shakespeare’s authorship. Her finding?  Shakespeare was really the great Sir Henry Neville and not William of Stratford-Upon-Avon.

She has now written two books in which she lays out some of the evidence (so much evidence is there!), and it is not just convincing beyond a reasonable  doubt, it is convincing (in my opinion) beyond all doubt. I had chanced to mention this to a friend who had a Ph.D in English and she poo-pooed it without even hearing one single piece of evidence (let alone two books full)!  Such, alas, is the way of the world: Copernicus, Galileo, Einstein—such (and they are in every field of endeavour) had to fight to have their views taken seriously. For some people evidence is not enough: one must somehow break down the door of prejudice (pre-judging) and allow facts as they are to speak for themselves without the tint of preconception let alone ardent conviction.

I won’t even try to summarize the evidence—it would take a complete re-telling of  James’ own work to do so—other than to say that ALL the pieces of the puzzle fit together hand-in-glove. We now have explanations of how the venues of the plays originated, who many of the plays’ characters are modeled after, why Neville suddenly switched from histories to tragedies, and literally hundreds of other puzzle-pieces which scholars have been perplexed by for centuries. Let me say again: The game is up; the mystery is solved: Our Everlasting Poet is Sir Henry Neville, perhaps the greatest man of his age even without this literary attribution.  And he is indeed exactly the kind of man we would reasonably expect from someone who wrote so profoundly, so passionately, and so poignantly about life and death and the meaning of life.

Now, enjoy your—Neville! For he is indeed the man.

Len Sive is a freelance writer.

Zhang Ziyi has vehemently denied accusations that she committed fraud in the name of charity, but admitted to inexperience when organizing a donation drive for the relief of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake victims.

In an exclusive interview with China Daily, the internationally-celebrated Chinese actress – for the first time – answered some 100 questions, most of which involve details about the money she gave to charity or collected for her own foundation.

Ever since an advertisement featuring her was defaced with paint in December, Zhang has been embroiled in a series of allegations.

The most serious of the accusations – mostly from netizens – are about discrepancies in the sums that surfaced in various reports. Shortly after the earthquake struck Sichuan on May 12, 2008, killing some 80,000 and dislocating millions, she decided to donate 1 million yuan ($147,000) to the China Red Cross.

As she was in the United States at the time, she asked her representative in China to transfer the money. But due to what she claimed to be a “communication glitch”, only 840,000 yuan was sent. She said she took “primary responsibility” for it and had already made up for the shortfall.

The other contentious figure was $1 million, which she said she had “hoped” to raise, but had never claimed to have “already” raised. The actual amount pledged for the Zhang Ziyi Foundation is slightly less than $500,000, most of which has not been paid.

The event in the eye of the storm was a fund-raising drive on May 21, 2008, at the Cannes Film Festival. During the one-hour “hastily arranged” initiative, only $1,392 in cash was collected, far less than the previously reported $50,000. The rest were informal pledges.

The total adds up to about $500,000, which is the amount she said she had always referred to when answering the media.

Since then, she said she had been making efforts to pressure the donors to honor their pledges, but her efforts have not been very successful. So far, only $15,050 has been collected.

Zhang said she would personally make up for the shortfall but would not reveal the people’s names against their will.

A five centuries old version of the Room of Heliodorus painted by Raphael in the Vatican between 1511 and 1514 has resurfaced by chance while redecorating a bedroom in an old apartment in Civitavecchia, the former fortress town of the Papal State, 50 miles north of Rome. It is one of the four Stanze (Rooms) executed by Raphael and his workshop as ‘frescoes’ (i.e. painted on freshly  plastered walls) for Pope Julius II.

“This is an extraordinary discovery, since no other copies of the Vatican’s Stanze are known to exist,” commented respected Art historian Professor Nicole Dacos.

According to Ms. Dacos, a leading expert on Raphael,  the author of the painting is Ugo da Carpi, a well-known engraver who worked in Raffaello’s workshop under his guidance. As for the reason why this replica of the famous Vatican fresco was made in a place of no special significance, the mystery remains unexplained.

The painter, who used the sophisticated ‘tempera’ technique, worked in what was probably the top room of a lookout tower, subsequently included circa 1750 in the existing building. All the four scenes of the Vatican Raphael were meticulously executed, although some sections were destroyed due to the opening of two doors and two windows over the centuries. However  the remaining 50 sq meters (500 sq ft) now covered in parts by wallpaper but substantially intact, are a  significant complement to the Vatican Raphael. In fact, according to a fascinating theory yet to be verified, the replica could be the final ‘sketch’  of Raphael’s future masterpiece, prepared to be shown  for approval to Pope Julius II. The “warrior pope”  often lived in Civitavecchia both to relax at sea and to preside over the construction of the Bramante Fortress (Forte Michelangelo) which  he  himself inaugurated  in 1508.

Alvaro Ranzoni is a journalist and contributor to the BBC and Panorama.

French wine-makers and dealers were convicted Wednesday of selling millions of bottles of fake Pinot Noir to the US firm E&J Gallo in one of the biggest scams ever to rattle the world of wine.

A court handed out suspended jail terms and hefty fines to 12 people for selling 18 million bottles (135,334 hectolitres) of wine they said was Pinot Noir but which was in fact made from far cheaper grape varieties.

The convicted included executives from wine estates, cooperatives, a broker, wine merchant Ducasse and the conglomerate Sieur d’Arques.

“The scale of the fraud caused severe damage for the wines of the Languedoc (region) for which the United States is an important outlet,” the judge told a packed courtroom in Carcassonne in southwestern France.

He said that the accused made seven million euros (9.8 million dollars) in profits from the scam, with Ducasse raking in 3.7 million euros and Sieur d’Arques 1.3 million euros.

The fines he imposed ranged from 1,500 to 180,000 euros, while the suspended jail sentences went from one to six months.

Millions of bottles were sold in the United States under Gallo’s popular “Red Bicyclette” Pinot Noir label, which in 2006 was marketed as having “aromas of dark fruit flavours” and whose palate was said to be like “black cherry and ripe plum.”

Gallo, which was neither a defendant nor a plaintiff in the case in Carcassonne, said after the verdict it was “deeply disappointed” at its supplier Sieur d’Arques.

“We believe that the only French Pinot Noir that was potentially misrepresented to us would have been the 2006 vintage and prior,” the firm’s vice-president of public relations, Susan Hensley, said in a statement.

Gallo also said that — based on details from the French trial — it imported less than 20 percent of the falsely-labelled Pinot Noir involved, “and is no longer selling any of this wine to customers.”

US authorities are investigating potential infractions.

Read more here.

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Hanoi Vietnam.

2 flights and 20 plus hours of traveling.

I’m a long way from New York City but it’s a warm late December morning in North Vietnam, and I’m just fine with that. I’m a little confused about the time change… Can it really be that I haven’t eaten for 2 days??!  Not sure, but I am hungry and that’s not up for debate.

This is not a travel piece, and I am not a travel writer. I am a culinary student and I’m in Vietnam. And I packed light. All I brought was my camera and my appetite.

This was my first meal in Vietnam. Cha ca fish. I was starving and would have eaten just about anything at this point, except cottage cheese – can’t stand the stuff. That said I enjoyed meal but little did I know that I would find this fish just around about any corner in Vietnam.

The ubiquitous Cha ca fish- part catfish, part bass. It’s a firm, round white-fleshed fish, that tastes just a little bit tough and fishy. The consensus at the end of the meal was that fresh herbs, greens and toasted peanuts were the winners.

I was pleasantly surprised when I found the same fresh herbs (basil, thai basil and coriander) accompanying my next meal (which was about an hour later).

Bun Cha (above) is my personal favorite.

It’s something I could eat at any meal of the day or, for that matter, every meal of the day. Bun Cha is a luke warm fish broth with cold rice noodles served with fat bits of meat (either pork or beef or other) or sometimes fried egg rolls, garnished with fresh herbs, soy beans, toasted peanuts and finished with chili sauce. If you are particularly fortunate, your Bun Cha will be served with a cold local beer called Bia Hoi and prepared by the lady seen above.

Bun Cha is an anomaly. A hearty, savory dish that is both unctuous and refreshing. Maybe this is because it is a fish soup served neither hot nor chilled, but at room temperature. One would think: Its definitely a fish soup, isn’t it? But the trick is, while it has a fish broth and fish sauce, the floating bits of protein in the broth are beef.

A better way to think about Bun Cha may be as a wet salad as opposed to a tepid soup. The raw greens, cold noodles, and cold meat are reminiscent of an Asian beef salad, something about as common as a rat in the subway, and in my opinion not much more appealing. But don’t get me wrong, Bun Cha – I’m a big fan of yours. The difference is the fish sauce. Vietnamese fish sauce come in two versions: non-fermented and fermented. Both are sweet and tangy but the latter has a smell similar to a men’s locker room.

After 48 hours in Hanoi, I hit Halong Bay. It’s beautiful. It should be one of the 7 wonders of the world. But it’s not, so there is a huge promotional campaign to have it included in the “next” 7 wonders of the world. I hope it works out.

Halong Bay has over 2000 limestone hills that seemingly just pop out of the water. It’s incredible. If you want to hear more about it, see pictures in a Lonely Planet guide or something…

Within these 2000 or so islands there are fully functioning communities, complete with their own stores, markets, even bars.

I decided to stop by one of these villages to pick-up some food for a simple lunch of fresh local fish. Who am I kidding? That was never going to happen. Things got out of hand pretty quickly and I had a full-on shellfish orgy on my hands.,

Here are a couple “before” pictures from lunch- a big-ass octopus and crayfish-looking shrimp straight from the bay.

Lunch wasn’t bad. The shrimp were steamed in vinegar and green onions and the octopus was steamed as well but in beer and red chillies. Both were served with fish sauce, but fortunately it was of the non-fermented variety. Otherwise lunch would have smelled like a wet gym-sock.

On the left is the octopus steamed in beer and chillies accompanied by the fish sauce. On the right are 2 different types of crabs that were pulled out of the bay less then an hour before they ended up on this plate and then in my belly.

On the left: the fish-monger called it a carp. But I knew better, once again the ubiquitous cha ca fish, this time fried and stuffed with tomatoes, peppers, and onions. As for the photo on the right, like I said: I enjoyed myself. Let’s leave it at that.

From Halong Bay it was time to head south and hit Saigon, the largest city in the country for a day visit.

Saigon is a big city with lots of motorbikes. About 4 million of them, so the air quality was not great, but the city more than made up for that with its gastronomic offerings. While in Saigon I ate everywhere from the gnarly (and I mean it in both the good and the bad ways) stalls in the markets (below [fish stand, roast pork, and random parts] yum) to a classic French restaurant where I was able to enjoy a traditional 5 course lunch of smoked salmon, foie gras, truffles, maigret de canard, and venison. The chef was from Nice and didn’t speak any English or Vietnamese. I may have been in Vietnam but in his house it was France, France and more France.

I enjoyed my classic French meal rich with the flavor of nostalgia, for what now feels like an ancient colonialism. The lesson I took away from this meal was that imperialism, like most other things French, tastes better in France.

During my brief stay in Vietnam I also had the chance to try some of what the hotel concierge called the “new Vietnamese haute cuisine.” It was good; I enjoyed it. But it was basically just better quality versions of the staples such as spring rolls, seafood pancakes, and the like. I really enjoyed this meal and I am going to choose not to be critical. Why? South Vietnam as we know it today is basically a completely new country. It was entirely destroyed less then 50 years ago and has only been open to trade with the United States since the mid-1990s.

I say give it time. With the quality of produce that is available in Vietnam and the ever-increasing influx of western cultural influences, there is a bright future for high-end Vietnamese cuisine.

That said the most memorable thing I ate in Saigon was Pho (below).

Pho is a large noodle soup served hot with beef or pork, and clear rice noodles, in a broth of unknown or secret origin. Like Bun Cha (and Cao La in some parts) the Pho is also topped with fresh herbs and served with fish sauce and chili sauce.

My final thoughts on Vietnam; I came in with high expectations and was a little disappointed to find that the cuisine did not vary regionally as much as I had anticipated.

But I arrived hungry and left full so the food couldn’t have been that bad.

The kitchen at El Bulli Image via Wikipedia

Spain’s most famous chef, Ferran Adriá, is to close his world famous El Bulli restaurant in 2012 and 2013, reports El País.

Adriá announced the closure at the Madrid Fusion Gastronomy Summit today, stating that in the current format, it would be “impossible to continue creating” in the three times Michelin starred restaurant. Adriá asked people not to speculate, and claimed the closure was to “normalise the lives” of the staff.

Located in Girona, on the Costa Brava, El Bulli opens its doors to the public from June to December, with tables allocated through a lottery system from the end of the previous season.

A press release elaborated that the two years off will be spent “analysing the know how, developments, techniques and styles of El Bulli after thirty years on its creative path, work that will see itself relected in an exhaustive and detailed encyclopedia.”

The team will work out of two “creative centres”, El Bulli Taller in central Barcelona, and the restaurant itself.

The 2010 season is to go ahead as planned, with the first diners booked in for 15th June.

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Eva Gabrielsson, long-time partner of best-selling author Stieg Larsson, has slammed a new book claiming he was a mediocre journalist who lacked objectivity, reports The Local.

In the book, entitled ‘Min vän Stieg Larsson’ (My Friend Stieg Larsson), journalist Kurdo Baksi alleges that the famed author of the Millennium series of novels, who also worked at the Swedish news agency Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå (TT), wrote biased articles and even invented material.

”Kurdo is trying to do a character assassination of Stieg as a journalist. This is pure slander,” Gabrielsson told the Swedish television channel SVT.

Gabrielsson says that Stieg Larsson only cooperated with Baksi for a short period on an anti-racist magazine and a few political articles in the 1990s and that Baksi did not actually know the author that well.

Before his death from a sudden heart attack in 2004, Larsson, much like his character in the Millennium novels, Mikael Blomqvist, was known for his workaholic lifestyle, running the anti-racist magazine Expo and penning freelance articles aimed at exposing Swedish neo-Nazis by night, and working at the TT news agency as a graphic artist and journalist by day.

Kurdo Baksi told SVT that Larsson was a ”mediocre” journalist who lacked objectivity in his work at the news agency.

Larsson’s former boss at TT, Kenneth Ahlborn, says the claims are false and an attempt to grab the media spotlight.

”I was Stieg’s boss. We worked in the same room every day. If anyone should speak about his relationship to TT it should be me. The assertion that he could make up biased, objectionable articles is so bizarre. We don’t work like that at TT and Stieg was not like that,” he said.

Read more here.

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A Georgian version of the popular US cartoon “The Simpsons” has become a hit on state TV recently. The main difference from the prototype is that they make lots of fun of Russian politicians, while forgetting their own, writes Russia Today.

It’s an average family with average problems – and it’s taking Georgia by storm.

The cartoon series launched just two months ago and has shot to the number two spot among the most-popular shows on one of Georgia’s main TV channels.

“The Samsonadzes” have been described as Georgia’s answer to “The Simpsons”.

But the show’s creators are quick to point out the differences.

“They’re as different as American and Georgian families can be. We just took an average family and made a parody of the common traits, like laziness or love of alcohol,” says the cartoon’s chief scriptwriter, Zviad Bliadze.

The cartoon focuses on a family of four and their everyday life in Tbilisi.

The creators hope their project will reach a level of success similar to that of “The Simpsons” – and in fact, both sitcoms share bright colors, lively animation and lampooning the mindset of the average family man.

Harlem Studio Fellowship by Montrasio Arte is a privately funded non-profit Residency Program for international artists, and created by Ruggero Montrasio.

Established in 2007, HSF by MA is directed by Francesca Montrasio, and curated by Raffaele Bedarida and Teresa Meucci.

This program offers quarterly residencies to emerging artists to create new work, without any restriction in terms of media. The program seeks to encourage young artists to explore their creativity, through a total immersion in the New York art scene. Not only are artists profoundly encouraged to interact with many NY art institutions, but they are also asked to confront themselves with the singular reality of Harlem. Unique among the innumerable residency programs in New York – most of them devoted to the White Box architectural style – HSF by MA is an early 20^th century townhouse, with beautiful stucco decoration on the ceiling, and original wooden fireplaces and floors. Artists are provided with a small budget, accommodation, studio and exhibition space within the wall of this exceptional house.

The choice of Harlem, as the creator of the program Ruggero Montrasio explains, is not accidental: “This is one of the few neighbourhoods in the NYC area that remained deeply faithful to its traditions, and proud of its history”. Even though the block where HSF by MA is located is reflecting a controversial phase of transition and gentrification is expanding more and more rapidly, a strong sense of community and artistic tradition still exist in central Harlem.

Each artist will receive professional assistance during their residency. In fact, the staff consults with each artist in order to strategize the best approach in realizing their work.

Moreover, every residency ends with a group exhibition, displaying works and projects accomplished by each artist during his or her stay in New York.

Susanna Pozzoli, On the Block, image 1, 2007-2009, inkjet print, courtesy HSF by MA New York

HSF by MA is also undergoing intense editorial activity. In February 2010, HSF by MA expects the launch of the book On the Block. Harlem Private View, which contains a precious selection of photographs by the Italian artist Susanna Pozzoli. On the Block. Harlem Private View is a series of photographic portraits recounting the block where HSF by MA is located (121st Street between Lenox Ave and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard) through a telling of the block’s interiors.

There is no open call to participate to the Program. Resident artists are selected and invited by a scientific commission constituted by Daniele Astrologo Abadal, Raffaele Bedarida, Teresa Meucci and Francesca Montrasio.

Over the past three years HSF by MA has invited twenty-four artists from all over the world: Cameroon, France, Germany, Italy, Israel, Hungary, Korea, Japan, Sweden, United States. Most of them are increasingly receiving an international recognition.

For more information, contact Harlem Studio Fellowship by Montrasio Arte at www.harlemstudiony.org.

Teresa Meucci is curator of the Harlem Studio Fellowship by Montrasio Arte.