PROGRAMME 14° EDITION - Lo schermo dell'arte

THINKING BEYOND - MOVING IMAGES FOR A POST-PANDEMIC WORLD | EXHIBITION OPENING

curated by Leonardo Bigazzi
produced by Lo schermo dell’arte and NAM – Not A Museum

The exhibition presents the works of the participants to the 10th edition of VISIO – European Programme on Artists’ Moving Images and it is the second appointment of a cycle of exhibitions, inaugurated in 2020 with Resisting the Trouble – Moving Images in Times of Crisis, which aims to reflect on the ways in which artists relate to the complexity of the present, going beyond established canons and models and imagining new possible worlds. Thinking Beyond – Moving Images for a Post-Pandemic World intends to celebrate the transformative power of art and the ability of artists to read tragic and traumatic circumstances as generative opportunities.

THINKING BEYOND - MOVING IMAGES FOR A POST-PANDEMIC WORLD | EXHIBITION

curated by Leonardo Bigazzi
produced by Lo schermo dell’arte and NAM – Not A Museum

by Matthew Barney, US, 2019, sound, 134’ 3’’
Italian premiere

Last film realised by Matthew Barney, author of works that revolutionised the very idea of cinematic narration. Landscape, both as a setting and as a subject, has long been a focal point of the iconic American artist’s work. In this full-length film, set in Idaho’s Sawtooth mountains, classic myths confront the relationship between man and nature. Without dialogue, the protagonists of Redoubt communicate through gestures and choreographies to tell a story freely inspired by the myth of Diana and Actaeon, to establish their place in the wilderness.
All hunting scenes in Redoubt were staged using special effects. Trained animals were provided by professional handlers who monitored their safety and the conditions on set. Wild animals were filmed in their natural habitats.

THINKING BEYOND - MOVING IMAGES FOR A POST-PANDEMIC WORLD | EXHIBITION

curated by Leonardo Bigazzi
produced by Lo schermo dell’arte and NAM – Not A Museum

by Andy Cohen, Gaylen Ross, US, 2021, 100’
vo: Mandarin; sub: Italian, English
Italian premiere

Unpublished archival materials and interviews recount the political and cultural climate of Beijing in the late 1970s. A group of self-taught artists, including a young Ai Weiwei, form the Stars collective, which defied government censorship and proposed a new way of making art based on individual free expression that denounces the inhumanity of the Cultural Revolution.

by Suneil Sanzgiri, US, India, 2019, 11’
vo: English, Hindi; sub: English, Italian
Italian premiere

Indian-born artist Suneil Sanzgiri combines aerial shots of a drone, film excerpts and a Skype interview with his father to reconstruct a memory of India, which he has never visited. The narrative is intertwined between the biographical story and the story of a decolonization movement, giving rise to a reflection on the construction of identity through moving images.

by Bárbara Wagner & Benjamin de Burca, Germany, France, 2021, 30’
vo: English, Gaelic, French, Arab, Occitan; sub: English, French, Italian
Italian premiere

This eighth film produced by the duo Wagner & de Burca, on the occasion of Manifesta 13, is set in Marseille. The interiors of two historic houses, which have now become museum houses, are animated by a group of visitors who perform traditional Irish and North African music and dances. The action becomes an ephemeral occupation of those historical places, leaving room for imagination and temporary narratives.

by Oliver Laric, 2012, 6’ 17’’
v.o: English; sub: Italian
In the presence of the artist

The works that make up the Versions series are created through montages of images from films, Disney cartoons, YouTube videos, memes and animations created by the artist, with a voiceover by an actress who provides a robotic reading.

by Oliver Laric, 2014/15, 5’55’’, sound
In the presence of the artist

Untitled includes footage from over 100 years of animated films and videos to immerse the viewer in different cultures and time periods. Laric extrapolates the scenes in which people, objects and animals are transformed: elderly people become children, robots turn into cars and snakes and then belly dancers.

by Oliver Laric, 2013, 10’
v.o: English; sub: Italian
In the presence of the artist

In a white room with a table and two chairs, the avatars of 5 characters alternate. Realized with CGI, as though on blind dates, they sit facing each other and engage in short conversations and their dialogues open an area for negotiation of meaning and representation.

by Oliver Laric, 2007, sound, 2’6’’
In the presence of the artist

Fifty YouTube users reinterpret a hit by rapper 50 Cent through dance and lip-sync’ing.

by Andrew Norman Wilson, US, 2020, 11’
vo: English; sub: English, Italian
Italian premiere

Phil Collins’ song, In the Air Tonight, a hit from the 1980s, is steeped in an urban legend about the song’s enigmatic lyrics. In this video, American artist Andrew Norman Wilson proposes a vision of the song through a montage with extracts from Hollywood films and television series, imbued with typical noir rhythm and Miami Vice settings

Cinema La Compagnia
10:10 pm
Cinema tickets
In collaboration with The Recovery Plan, Florence
ondemand: from November 10th to 21st onPiùCompagnia, in collaboration with MYmovies
Trailer

by Jeffrey Wolf, US, 2018/2021, 76’
vo: English; sub: Italian
Italian premiere

Bill Traylor is an artist exhibited in museums and collections world-wide whose works describe the African American community in the early 20th century. The film collects unpublished materials that trace his origins as a man born under slavery and raised as a plantation worker in Alabama, and reconstructs his career, which began when he was around 80 and living on the street in Alabama’s capital, Montgomery.

THINKING BEYOND - MOVING IMAGES FOR A POST-PANDEMIC WORLD | EXHIBITION

curated by Leonardo Bigazzi
produced by Lo schermo dell’arte and NAM – Not A Museum

OLIVER LARIC IN CONVERSATION WITH VALENTINA TANNI

Austrian artist Oliver Laric will be in conversation with curator and art historian Valentina Tanni, author of Memestetica. Il settembre eterno dell’arte (Nero, 2020) whose research focuses on the relationship between art and technology, with particular attention to web cultures.

by Dennis Scholl, US, 2020, 77’
vo: English; sub: Italian
Italian premiere

The documentary tells the largely unknown story of one of the leading exponents of Abstract Expressionism, American painter Clyfford Still. The film highlights the complex relationships between this controversial artist and other key figures of 1950s American art such as Mark Rothko, Jackson Pollock, Barnett Newman, as well as the relationship with collectors and gallery owners of the time.

by Oliver Laric, 2006, sound, 2′
In the presence of the artist

One of Laric’s first video experiments in 3D animation. A hypnotic dance of movements that form the body of a snake that breaks apart, accompanied by a piece of Indian-inspired electronic music.

by Oliver Laric, 2010, 9′
vo: English; sub: Italian
In the presence of the artist

The first version of a remix of images from films, Disney cartoons, and Youtube videos, accompanied by a robotic voice, compose an intense visual essay.

by Oliver Laric, 2018, sound, 4’35”
In the presence of the artist

With this work, Laric continues his research on hybridization and transmutation, using clips from a wide range of sources. Subjects are digitally tracked by the same vectorized line in continuous movement between sequences. The line that returns in the various permutations of the subject suggests an unlimited number of possibilities of unique forms.

by Oliver Laric, 2021, sound, 4′
In the presence of the artist

In his latest video Laric returns to reflect on metamorphosis by presenting visualizations of imperceptible changes in organic matter and living organisms. The soundscape accompanying the video was specially created by Finnish musician and producer Ville Haimala.

by Oliver Laric, 2006, sound, 1’5’’
In the presence of the artist

787 clip-art illustrations, mounted in a continuous flow giving the idea of perpetual motion and providing a taxonomy of human culture.

by Pietro Daviddi, Italy, 2021, 27’
vo: Italian; sub: English
In the presence of the author and Luca Lo Pinto, artistic director of MACRO – Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Roma

In the summer of 2020, a small tourist plane flies over the crowded beaches of the Roman coast, dragging banners with an inscription consisting of a single verb in Italian and English. Not an advertising operation, but the personal exhibition TRACCE / TRACES by American artist Lawrence Weiner, produced by MACRO – Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome. The documentary collects the impressions and reactions of bathers, unaware spectators of the exhibition.

by Iván Argote, France, 2021, 11’11’’
vo: French; sub: English, Italian
Italian premiere in the presence of the artist

In a Parisian square we witness the removal of the monument dedicated to General Joseph Gallieni, a well-known figure of the French colonization of Madagascar. The action was staged by artist Iván Argote, who made real preparations for the statue’s removal, and then simulated it with a 3D animation. The video was then published on the website of a well-known French magazine to trigger a public debate on the issue of monuments dedicated to controversial characters.

by Renzo Martens, Netherlands, Belgium, 2020, 79’
vo: Lingala, French, English, Dutch; sub: English, Italian

The collaboration between Dutch artist Renzo Martens and a cooperative of Congolese workers made it possible to build a contemporary art museum in a former Unilever plantation in Congo. The workers make sculptures that are reproduced in chocolate and then successfully exhibited in New York, the profits from the sale of the works are used to buy back the land that was stolen from them.

by Susann Radelhof, Germany, 2019, 45’
vo: German; sub: English, Italian

The documentary is a tribute to the female figures who helped found the Bauhaus school, seat of the avant-garde and modern architecture, underlining the innovative potential brought by women.

THINKING BEYOND - MOVING IMAGES FOR A POST-PANDEMIC WORLD | EXHIBITION

curated by Leonardo Bigazzi
produced by Lo schermo dell’arte and NAM – Not A Museum

IMAGES THAT ACT. THE CONTROVERSIAL LEGACY OF MONUMENTS
Ivàn Argote in conversation with Riccardo Venturi

Starting from the film Au Revoir Joseph Gallieni by Iván Argote, in wich the artist triggers a public debate on monuments dedicated to controversial figures, the conversation addresses the issue of the colonial legacy still present in the public space of many European cities. The historical and symbolic significance of statues, streets, and squares that celebrate figures and events of this still-unresolved past will be discussed between artist Iván Argote and art historian Riccardo Venturi.

by Arthur Jones, US, 2020, 94’
vo: English; sub: Italian
Italian premiere

The film tells the story of Matt Furie, a cartoonist who in 2005 created the animated character Pepe the Frog, an anthropomorphic frog who became a widespread meme on the web and was often misappropriated by far-right movements. The documentary follows Furie’s legal battle to claim the use of the icon he created.

by M+M, Germany, 2019, sound, 6’9’’
Italian premiere in the presence of the artists

A praying mantis roams a perfectly reconstructed miniature home setting. The video is loosely based on Roman Polański’s film Repulsion.

by Janis Rafa, Netherlands, 2021, sound, 4’30’’
Italian premiere

A dog waits barking in a car for an indefinite period. As if the world had stopped, the animal seems alone and isolated from his surroundings; his only hope is human intervention.

by Riccardo Giacconi, Italy, 2021, 18’
vo: Italian; sub: English
In the presence of the artist

The film narrates a year spent by the artist in Atelier Colla, the largest and oldest puppet company in the world active for over three centuries, showing the rituals of a community called to accompany the existence of these anthropomorphic objects. The images are accompanied by the voice of the actress Silvia Costa who interprets a text written by an artificial intelligence.
The film is made in collaboration with Andrea Morbio, Silvia Costa and the Carlo Colla & Figli Puppet Company, and produced in association with by Slingshot Films.

by Roberto Fassone, Italy, 2021, 20’21’’
vo: English, Italian, French, Japanese; sub: Italian
World premiere in the presence of the artist

The film is conceived as a surreal choreography and exists in both a single-channel and dual-channel version. Stolen images, YouTube videos, archival footage, and 3D renders tell the unfolding of a psychedelic journey in four chapters. A continuous flow that passes through upside-down forests, poems by Yoko Ono, colorful tennis matches, short documentaries, vampires, and crystals.
The film is produced in collaboration with Azienda Speciale Palaexpo – Mattatoio | Project Prender-si Cura.

by Rä di Martino, Italy, 2021, 30’
vo: Italian; sub: English
World premiere in the presence of the artist

At the beginning of the 70s a group of young people founded the Center for Theater Research and Experimentation in the Tuscan town of Pontedera. Fuori dai Teatri collects some of the founders’ stories and memories and has them reinterpreted by actors Lino Musella and Anna Bellato with the verbatim technique, which consists of reciting the interviews live while listening to them through earphones. The actors’ vibrant narration is combined with historical archive images to create a multifaceted montage on this important and unique experience in the Italian theater scene: an artist’s vision on the energy of the origins.

by Philippe Béziat, France, 2020, 108’
vo: French; sub: English, Italian
Italian premiere

In 2019, to celebrate its 350th anniversary, the Opéra Bastille in Paris commissioned well-known French artist Clément Cogitore to stage Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Baroque opera Les Indes Galantes. The film follows the entire production process of the opera which questioned the classic canons of a conservative institution like the Opéra.

THINKING BEYOND - MOVING IMAGES FOR A POST-PANDEMIC WORLD | EXHIBITION

curated by Leonardo Bigazzi
produced by Lo schermo dell’arte and NAM – Not A Museum

SHIRIN NESHAT IN CONVERSATION WITH HEINZ PETER SCHWERFEL

The renowned Iranian artist and filmmaker Shirin Neshat is back at Lo schermo dell’arte to present her last film Land of Dreams, in dialogue with Heinz Peter Schwerfel, critic, filmmaker and director of Kino der Kunst.

by Alain Fleischer, France, 2020, 87’
vo: French; sub: English, Italian

Director Alain Fleischer and artist Christian Boltanski, who passed away last July, enjoyed a long, intense friendship. The film collects numerous materials shot by Fleischer between 1969 and 2019 and builds an accurate account of how Boltanski’s work developed over fifty years. The idea of memory, absence and presence are at the center of this documentary as they are in the French artist’s installations, photography and cinema.

by Beatrice Favaretto, Italy, 2021, sound, 12’
World premiere in the presence of the artist

The video was born within the Berlin post-porn scene thanks to the collaboration with the director and trans feminist activist Emy Fem. The artist has worked on the set of Fem’s last film and from this experience has produced the work The Pornographer in which an abstract tangle of bodies with fluid and indefinite sexuality becomes an invitation to confront our limits by welcoming the value of diversity.

by Caterina Erica Shanta, Italy, 2021, 31’24’
vo: Italian, Romani, Spanish; sub: English, Italian
World premiere in the presence of the artist

The film is the result of a collective film workshop the artist held in Turin, Italy, involving refugees and people with a migrant background. Together they began to weave a story that has its roots in the films each of them loved during their childhood. In the video, cinematographic memories dialogue with scenes filmed in the city, the place where we live together today.
The film is produced in collaboration with Artissima and Torino Social Impact.

by Sara Sadik, France, 2021, 16’09’’
vo: French; sub: English, Italian
Italian premiere

This 3D animation tells the emotional developments of Zine, a working class Marseille boy of the Maghrebi diaspora, who falls in love with a girl and decides to change his life for her. With a post-internet aesthetic that blends into a landscape inspired by the GTA video game, Khtobtogone is an immersion into and a tribute to urban youth culture.

by Shirin Neshat and Shoja Azari, US, Germany, Qatar, 2021, 113’
vo: English, Farsi, Spanish; sub: Italian
In the presence of the artist

Presented at Orizzonti at the Venice Film Festival, it is the first project in English language by the renowned Iranian artist and filmmaker, with the screenplay by Jean-Claude Carrière, starring, among others, Matt Dillon and Isabella Rossellini. Set in the near future, with a surreal and satirical tone, it tells the story of Simin, an Iranian woman who works in a US census office which, in order to monitor the citizenry, has begun to record their dreams. Playful and touching, Land of Dreams explores the greatness of the American experiment.