The Blog
31 March – 2 April 2011
COLOGNEOFF 2011 e ARAD
presents:
ITALIANIAN CHARACTER, A NATIONAL ART MOLESKINE
curated by: VisualContainer + Care/of
Screening: 1 April 2011
ARAD ART MUSEUM (Arad, Romania)
ITALIANIAN CHARACTER, A NATIONAL ART MOLESKINE
What result can offer art about contemporary Italy then? What identity would offer the most recent works by our artists facing their time?
In such a context, videoart seems to be one of the most favourite and useful media to take the pulse of the real and provide the most adherent image to what we may call contemporary Italy of early third Millenium.
In the third-millenium artworks by Italian videoartists, the investigation of single and collective identity within the “Italian system” has become a crux: in the first decade of Y2K, they express a tormeting will to be in direct contact with the daily living, and the need for a umbilical cord to the most ordinary back-grounds and relevant rules and rhythms, urban and anthropological environments and peculiar problems.
On such basis, VisualContainer and Careof, two Milan-based not-for-profit organisations devoted to the promotion of Italian videoart within the international art environment, join their forces into a videoart exhibition to be shown at the Italian Cultural Institute, and presenting a most original and contemporary insight into the Italian character as it is being perceived by young artists.
Within the proposed selection, some videoartists investigate and show contemporary society in real time, thus offering a new format of socially committed documentary. Others would rather go for the most sophisticated chances of post-editing or directly creating images by resorting to other languages such as animation or television and movie found footage, eventually accessing to a presentation that rejoices any mimesis and doesn’t show the real as its is, but rather expresses its logic and properties.
Contemporary is clearly apparent in the great social issues, particularly the ones played by anyone being different or emigrant, which are sometimes filled in with empathy by the artist and sometimes ironically addressing political institutions that seems to be providing nothing but an apparent and simplistic solution.
by: Giorgio Fedeli (Visualcontainer)
Care/of video selection:
Michela Formenti – Senza respiro e voce [breathless and voiceless], 7’13”, 2005
Alberto Guidato – Fratelli d’Italia – 1’30”, 2002
Francesco Lauretta – Condizioni marginali [marginal conditions], 9’03”, 2002
Adriano La Licata – il tradimento del ponte [the bridge’s betrayal], 4’00”, 2008
Christian Niccoli – Planschen, 5’05”, 2008
VisualContainer video selection:
Alessandra Arnò – One shot, 0’42”, 2003
Elena Arzuffi, Domestic parkour, 04′ 32″, 2007
Barbara Brugola – Fingers 2.0, 2′ 25″, 2009
Iginio De Luca – L’urdemo emigrante, 2’45”, 2008
Maria Korporal – Passing by 07′ 39″, 2008
Sabrina Sabato – Tr-E2.flv, 18′ 00″, 2003
Natalia Saurin – Dance dance dance, 4’20”, 2009
CologneOFF 2011 – videoart in a global context designed, coordinated, curated and directed by:
Wilfried Agricola de Cologne
