ON OUR RADAR | HAPPENINGS | CABANA MAGAZINE
Robilant+Voena’s global expansion and prowess continues with their current hit exhibitions in London, and their newly opened gallery space in Milan. Sophie Goodwin reviews two opposing yet brilliant bodies of work: Priscilla Rattazzi: Between Worlds and Jordan Watson: Octavia’s Butler.
BY SOPHIE GOODWIN | HAPPENINGS | 22 NOVEMBER 2024
Priscilla Rattazzi: Between Worlds
Priscilla Rattazzi’s first exhibition in London is an introspective, emotional window into her world. Revealing five decades of work, it is full of deliberate contradictions: the past wrestles with the present. "My life is between worlds. It shifts between Europe and America; analogue and digital; people and dogs and landscapes."
A love letter to her life, the curation focuses on what she cares about: friends, motherhood, nature. The 24 photographs on display at Robilant + Voena on Dover Street, half of which are from negatives and half from digital files, illustrate her complex professional shift from analogue to digital. She is an observer as much as an artist, and holds people close. Friend and collaborator, Luca Stoppini, designed the catalogue, full of great words and arresting images laid out with precision and sensitivity.
Left to Right: Priscilla with Hoodoos; Alberto Moravia; Ghost Wahweap, Utah 2019; Peter Marino and his copper beech, Southampton NY. Images © Priscilla Rattazzi.
The exhibition encompasses three bodies of work: Portraits (1975–2023), Hoodoos (natural rock formations in south-west Utah, 2009–19), and Three Lindens (1991–2021) seamlessly interlocking together and hung in the gallery by Priscilla herself. From people and dogs to rock formations and ancient trees, her work is fed by personal turmoil as much as love and connection. The artist has found peace and purpose through her imagery. "I started pointing my camera towards nature to extricate myself from what felt like emotional quick sand." Three Lindens was a way to feel anchored and rooted in nature through the breakdown of her marriage.
Rattazzi’s imagery is a testament to survival, an embodiment of resilience, and dignity. Between Worlds is a pictorial representation of her own unique vocabulary which has guided her throughout her life. Fittingly, Rattazzi is also a writer and has published four books, each bursting with her words and photographs.
The diverse subjects in the exhibition reflect her multifaceted career. The portraits include depictions of well-known individuals, including Gianni Agnelli, Alighiero Boetti, Alberto Moravia, and the Duke of Beaufort, hinting at Rattazzi’s foundation as a fashion and portrait photographer, and her background within an illustrious Italian family.
The hoodoos, quietly monumental, were captured as a statement against a political act that threatened their continued existence; the photographer made the series in response to the then President Trump’s plan in 2017 to halve the area of protected lands in southwest Utah. In this context, the rock formations appear like stoic memorials to the future loss of this natural environment.
Priscilla Rattazzi: Between Worlds
22 November – 20 December | 38 Dover Street, London
Jordan Watson at Robilant+Voena's new gallery in Milan © Alessandro Zambianchi
Jordan Watson: Octavia’s Butler
The latest jewel in Robilant+Voena’s creative crown is their larger Milan gallery in Via della Spiga. "The city is seeing a shift, both among locals and globally as more and more people across the world have decided to call Milan their new home, and thus its status as a cultural hub is growing dramatically," says Edmondo's charming son, Michele de Robilant, now the lead on their opening nights around the world.
As the gallery's historic programme expands into the contemporary space, Jordan Watson’s work, capturing the city’s vibrancy whilst delivering a potent, global message on inclusive representation, "seemed perfect to inaugurate our gallery for an audience of old and new Milanese" Michele explains.
Jordan Watson debuts his work in a dedicated exhibition, promoting access and dismantling barriers to the art world through his platform Love Watts, which he created in 2010. Watson has immersed himself in the digital sphere, passionate about education by "building the best art platform I could imagine… for people like me. People who hadn’t been exposed to traditional fine arts early in life." He wants his legacy to be a movement, not just a body of work, he says.
Watson, like Rattazzi, is filling a void. Enlivened by shards of memories and broken promises, he is informed by his memories of growing up in Jamaica and Queens. Impressively, Watson is mostly self-taught. His vibrant paintings draw on Afrofuturism, a movement blending science fiction and Black culture to imagine a future of Black excellence and prosperity. His works portray Black men, and especially women, participating in activities like cycling, skiing, and motorsports, fields that have historically been hostile to Black participation.
His partnership with Robilant + Voena was natural: "[Their] history of showcasing old masters, then modern art, and now contemporary works perfectly mirrors the progression of art through time, and I’m honored to contribute to that legacy," he says. "In this show, I present scenes of Black excellence and imagine a future that, while aspirational, deserves to be reality—like the simple yet powerful image of a Black woman as an F1 racer. Through these works, I aim to paint the future, and the gallery is helping to create it by embracing visions yet unseen in the fine art world.’
Left to Right: Jordan Watson in New York; Proof of Stake, Jordan Watson, 2020; There's no second place, Jordan Watson 2023; Jordan Watson.
The show's title is a tribute to science fiction author, Octavia E. Butler, whose exploration of Afrofuturism and Black excellence has inspired Watson. "Just as her novels, like Parable of the Sower, can shift from quiet, reflective scenes to vivid, evocative moments, my paintings oscillate between simplicity and bursts of expressive imagery. I often depict Black wealth and luxury, which feels like a visual celebration of the success Butler herself deserves. The parallels between her storytelling and my vibrant oil paintings make this title a perfect homage."
Watson’s bold, figurative style is hard to mistake. His color application evokes the Fauves or colorists, while landscapes reminiscent of Edvard Munch or Peter Doig create alluring settings for his lithe, powerful figures. Large-scale paintings, in oil paint and pastel on raw canvas, are a mishmash of his fractured sense of identity (past and present) and the national and the historic. He leans on the principles of modernism, surrealism, ‘80s/’90s graffiti, science-fiction, tech, and the futuristic. Only now is he ready to share his work - "I finally reached a point where I loved my own art" - and Robilant+Voena are more than happy to take him back to the future.
Jordan Watson: Octavia’s Butler
20 November 2024 – 17 January 2025 | Via della Spiga 1, Milan
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