Highlights: 19-22 October

D'ORO D'ART - The Grand Voyage

Till Sunday, 22 October, 9.00 am - 6.30 pm at Frankfurter Buchmesse, Hall 4.1 H19 / till Saturday, 21 October 10.00 am - 8.00 pm at NOS
By Federico Solmi

Conceived by Salvatore Giorgio Dino, founder and CEO of D’ORO Collection, and curated by Barbara London and Valentino Catricalà, D'ORO D'ART challenges the essence of traditional bookmaking, weaving it together with the stimulating allure of video art.

In 2023 D'ORO D'ART Project evolved, it opened its arms to embrace a new artist, ushering in a contemporary era of artistic and technological exploration: Federico Solmi. The new collaboration includes three series titled “The Grand Voyage” of three one-off books each.

In The Grand Voyage, Solmi creates and adorns three characters in disguise that transcend the conventional. He transports these, as a symbol of industrial prowess into a realm far removed from the natural world. Here, in a post-physical, pixelated, computer-generated universe, they find themselves bewildered, their every move resonating with an air of surrealism.

The covers are original portraits in which Solmi wields acrylic colors and adorns his creations with gold and silver leaf. The imagery that is created when the book is closed unites with the video art creating an unforgettable experience that reflects our times entering in the very essence of contemporary culture.

The three books that compose The Grand Voyage series are: The Wanderer, The Wizard and The Goddess.

ANNO OXYPETALUM

Till Sunday, 22 October, 9.00 am - 6.30 pm at Palmengarten Frankfurt 
By Anna Ridler

Anno oxypetalum (literally “the year of the pointed petals”) is a clock made of the flowers of night-blooming cacti, tracking the amount of light across one year. Each flower represents 10 minutes, each second approximately 2 days. Over the course of the piece the flowers fade in and out as the light ebbs and flows across the seasons. The timing of dawn and dusk is precisely accurate for London starting at the 2021 winter solstice. A third level of time is also incorporated into the work - when the piece is sold, the smart contract is programmed to start the video at the beginning of the season in which it was sold. The smart contract is able to accurately compute the solstices and equinoxes until the year 3000. It is inspired by plants’ chrono-biological clocks, by which they bloom and close at fixed times of day. Plants behave this way regardless of external stimuli - a night-blooming cactus, for example, will only bloom at night, even if it is exposed to darkness during the daytime and light at night; a morning glory moved into permanent darkness will still flower in the mornings. The work call backs to Carl Linnaeus’ idea of a horologium florae or floral clock, proposed in his Philosophia Botanica in 1751 after observing the phenomenon of certain flowers opening and closing at set times of the day, and harkens back to an earlier, medieval way of delineating time according to the amount of daylight present, before the advent of modern timekeeping.

Ripples

Till Saturday, 21 October, 10.00 am - 8.00 pm at NOS
By Jeppe Lange

Jeppe Lange's video work “Ripples” is a feverish dream through the history of fashion. Utilizing generative AI, Lange connects styles across different eras, revealing the cyclical nature of fashion and the continuous dialogue between tradition and innovation. By revealing the unseen currents and unexpected connections, “Ripples” offers a fresh perspective that transcends individual garments and designers. Fashion emerges as a fluid and interconnected journey, shaped by the interplay of creativity, culture, and human expression.

In conversation with director Behrooz Karamizade

Newcomer award at the Hessian Film Awards 2023
Friday, 20 October, 4.30 pm - 5.00 pm at Frankfurter Buchmesse,
Aldus Up Stage (4.1 / The ARTS+ Areal)
With Behrooz Karamizade, Anna-Katharina Gerson

Behrooz Karamizade was awarded the jury prize at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in 2023 for his film EMPTY NETS. He is already considered a great storyteller, following in the footsteps of the great Iranian auteur filmmakers. Behrooz Karamizade will receive the Newcomer Award at the Hessian Film Awards on October 20, 2023. His film LEERE NETZE is nominated there for the best film.

Behrooz Karamizade was born in Ahwaz (Iran) in 1978. First his family emigrated to the former Soviet Union. Since 1985 he lives in Germany.