For the 14th edition of the Short Film Festival, the survey of the performative video works of the Archivio Videoart Yearbook created between 2012 and 2023 is concluded. Thanks to the precious collaboration of Silvia Grandi, professor at the University of Bologna and co-founder of the yearbook, it was possible to access an archive that boasts more than four hundred videos collected during the sixteen editions of the festival and which now, thanks to an important partnership project, will become accessible at the MAMbo in Bologna in order to spread knowledge of the panorama of Italian video research of the last twenty years to a wider audience.
In the video performative works, the artist's exposed body becomes a public and private space at the same time, where one can share one's tensions, ideas and emotions. But to what extent is art a tool of communication and to what extent does it instead transform into a retention mechanism? Dario Lazzaretto tries to answer by returning a self-portrait that becomes sound. Like Dorothy Gale, Francesca Fini faces her journey, but the path is full of pitfalls. She will have to use all her acrobatic skills to keep her story in a balance between meaning and symbol, between politics and art, peace and war. In Alzaia(S), Francesca Leoni and Davide Mastrangelo draw inspiration from the pictorial work of Telemaco Signorini: L’Alzaia of 1864, to denounce a society that continues to build the most perfect of illusions by casting a blinding light on what must be seen and confining in the cone of shadow the things that must remain hidden. For Virgilio Villoresi, her arms become roads and her hands pages on which to write the title of his short film inspired by the photography books of Mario Mariotti. Lucido, by Giovanna Ricotta is a praise to madness and the desire to overcome one’s limits in search of perfection. In Filippo Berta’s collective performance we witness the vain attempt of each individual to stand out by emitting an increasingly invasive, increasingly chaotic noise. In Shãn (“mountain” in Chinese) Sabrina Muzi places man in relation to the landscape. Two bodies, the human one and that of the mountain, enter into resonance. The climate and ecological crisis, the post-pandemic contemporaneity and, more generally, the present are the starting point of Pensate domani è la fine del mondo, by Elena Bellantoni — a performance that evokes Andreij Tarkovskij’s film Nostalghia. There is no solution in Zwei by Christian Niccoli, where two men hanging from the two ends of a rope are tied by a mutual dependence with no possibility of a common way out. How do you live in a monochrome world? Red by Salvatore Insana invites us to experience a red universe. In Family Portrait, the passage of time and affections is represented by the dust that, deposited on the body of the artist Debora Vrizzi, is blown away by the members of her family. Finally The Care by Elisabetta Di Sopra. Love that is care, files caress by caress, also who we are who act. Not only does it say to the other: you end here, but it says to us: you begin here.
Videoart Yearbook together with Lorenzo Balbi announces the concession of the archive to the MAMbo in Bologna, an important partnership project focused on the valorization of the over four hundred videos collected during the sixteen editions of the exhibition in the spaces of the Bologna museum, also with the aim of spreading knowledge of the panorama of Italian video research of the last twenty years to a wider audience.
PROGRAM OF THE PROPOSED WORKS:
VIRGILIO VILLORESI, Fine, 2012, 2’
The latest short film by Virgilio Villoresi, a short work on commission, begins from the end. It opens with a handwritten note containing the title and, on the hands and with the hands of Villoresi himself, it unfolds entirely, including the opening and closing credits. Painted hands that interact with small objects, arms that become roads, flags that become crosses. The technique of painting on hands was a revelation for Virgilio after discovering the photographic books of Mario Mariotti, an extraordinary Florentine artist who died in 1997 and who, for over thirty years starting in the 1960s, produced an endless gallery of anthropomorphic phantasmagoria capable of enchanting every type of audience.
DEBORA VRIZZI, Family Portrait, 2012, 3’23”
I sit, dusty, at a table. My family, standing next to me, blows away the dust that has settled on my body. A family that nourishes us and devours us. We enjoy this dual aspect, the foundation of love, a contradiction without a solution. I speak of the passing of time and affections.
GIOVANNA RICOTTA, Lucido, 2012, 8’
Lucido is a work that underlines, in its synthesis, a moment of transition, a praise of madness and the desire to achieve perfection, analyzed through the body of classical dance: the barre. A work dedicated to the constraints imposed on us or created by us and to the will to overcome them by finding and accepting one’s own identity and limits. The performing body represents a classical dancer, who will not wear a traditional tutu, but a straitjacket like a ballerina uniform, redesigned for Lucido.
FILIPPO BERTA, Concert for Soloists #2, 2015, 2’57”
Performance performed at the Italian Embassy in Berlin, Germany. A group of men drink broth sitting at a table in the Italian Embassy in Berlin. Each of them emphasizes each sip by sucking forcefully from the spoon, so as to emit an invasive noise. Each individual manifests his presence during the act of eating through this gurgling that comes out of his mouth, but finds himself inexorably absorbed by a collective chaotic noise. Everyone tries to distinguish himself from this collective uniformity (the same plate, the same dress, the same chair...), but it is a vain attempt and the result is a parodic competition in which everyone tries to cover the others and emerge from them.
DARIO LAZZARETTO, Humble self-portrait of a sound artist, 2016, 2’35”
In many cases, artistic expression guarantees the artist a valid filter to process the surrounding reality, as well as a way to sift through the ideas and emotions that the artist feels inside himself before communicating them to the outside world. But to what extent art is a tool of communication and to what extent it turns into a retention mechanism, it is not yet clear to me…
“…all I can say is the sound.
sometimes it is a bit suffocating
but out there the air is rarefied and sick
and this discipline becomes the filter and the chain…”
FRANCESCA FINI, The Yellow Brick Road, 2017, 4’05”
Shot in Jerusalem, Yellow Brick Road is the final scene of a long cinematic journey in the city of the three monotheistic religions. A journey that the artist has transformed into the adventure of a Dorothy Gale novel in the Emerald City, in search of the great and powerful Oz. A sparkling journey that turns into a slippery path that the artist must cross without falling. “In Jerusalem I feel like this: like Dorothy Gale who faces her mysterious journey, but my path is full of pitfalls. It is not easy for an artist who works with symbols to face a place so full of contradictory signals. The risk is to fall into the intolerable banality of art with the ‘message inside’, but at the same time, the choice to avoid any provocative reference could have produced something too weak, so I had to put my acrobatic skills into play and keep my story in a balance between meaning and symbol, between politics and art, peace and war.”
ELISABETTA DI SOPRA, The Care, 2018, 2’34”
The care of the other. Both when we present ourselves to life and when we entrust ourselves to death.
LEONI & MASTRANGELO, Alzaia (S), 2019, 4’15”
Alzaia(S) is an audiovisual reworking inspired by the pictorial work of Telemaco Signorini: L’Alzaia of 1864. «Our society is pornographic, because it continues to construct the most perfect of illusions: it casts a blinding light on what must be seen, confining in the cone of shadow the things that must remain hidden, without asking ourselves what is producing that void of light now all around us».
SABRINA MUZI, Shãn, 2019, 5’43”
The object of the work is the mountain (Shān in Chinese). Shān is an iconic image that, reiterated like a mantra, is charged with symbolic force, becoming the emblem of an archetype and witness to a place and its transformations. Two bodies resonate, the human one and that of the mountain, laying the foundations for a new perceptive investigation of the landscape.
ELENA BELLANTONI, Think Tomorrow is the End of the World, 2021, 5’50”
The climate and ecological crises, post-pandemic contemporaneity and, more generally, the present are the starting point of Think Tomorrow is the End of the World — a performance that recalls Andreij Tarkovskij’s film Nostalghia. During the performance, twenty-nine young people move in the space like destabilizing elements, as if they were ambassadors of the darkest omens on the fate of humanity. Here the language becomes tentacular and collective, creating an alliance between bodies. Half human and half animal, these unknown entities call for a reflection on new social paradigms through collective, gendered and multi-species action.
CHRISTIAN NICCOLI, Zwei, 2022, 5’29”
Two men are linked by a mutual dependence, that is, they are hanging at the two ends of a chorde lying on a very high wall. They are therefore in a seemingly eternal limbo, without really finding a common way out.
SALVATORE INSANA, Red, 2023, 5’00”
A mental vision, a perceptive experiment. The visual field transformed by color. Burning your eyes from seeing. A black, mobile spot, inside a red, homogeneous, dreamlike universe. A color of a solid, pulsating density, which presents itself as a story and not as a reference to the vast symbolic universe that has been revolving around it for centuries. A body stuck inside a monochrome, as if elusive, agile, wounded, nervously insinuates itself into the solid color, on the threshold, between waves of sonic heat and sharp caesuras. And something imprints itself on the retina, something that remains, saving and reappearing, without references to a specific space-time present. How do you live in a monochrome world?
