This conversation with gallerist Jenifer Chert was recorded on Nov. 9th during the Artissima Art Fair in Turin. Her booth was presenting the work of Vanessa Safavi a young Swiss-Iranian artist, based in Switzerland and Berlin. On show are two different pieces. The installation with the little colorful taxidermized birds titled “Each color is a gift for you”, a quite self-explanatory title, is a piece which has to do with the idea of exoticism seen from a western prospective. The birds abandoned on the corners of this space are a color gift. The white silicon pieces on the wall are called “Vital Energy and Relaxed Being” and are in contraposition to the birds, as they have nothing vital or energetic to express. They are really plastic silicon pieces, but they are there to induce as to reflect on this shifting of values, natural versus synthetic, vital versus non-vital, etc. These topics are important in the whole artistic research of the artist. And in particular, these two pieces relate quite well together.
Vanessa Safavi is a young artist (born in 1980). She has been travelling quite a lot. Last year she had a residency in South Africa next year she will have a residency in New York. The idea of traveling is also an important part of her work; the idea of getting in contact with different cultures s something that she is always reporting in her work and in her research.
Then Jennifer Chert talks also about working in Berlin where, in 2008, opened the Chert gallery. Berlin is still less expensive compared with other towns in Europe. She works with young artists that usually are not represented by other galleries. Since she started working in the city, she felt that Berlin was already very structured and decided to try.