A major exhibition in Rome at two venues on video art in Italy since the late 1960s

From April 12 to September 4, 2022 hosts Il video rende felici. Video Art in Italy, curated by Valentina Valentini, which aims to present video art and artists’ cinema in Italy from the late 1960s to the first decades of the new century. A single exhibition project articulated in two spaces, Palazzo delle Esposizioni and Galleria d’Arte Moderna.

On display are nineteen installations to which are added more than three hundred works collected within dedicated exhibitions, for a total of more than one hundred artists involved. The exhibition includes various exhibition formats: single-channel video, video installations, multimedia, and interactive, with the aim of emphasizing the interference of video with cinema, television, theater, dance, photography, and the plastic arts. The works on display are complemented by the numerous documents, sketches, drawings, playbills, posters, photographs, and catalogs, which trace their production process and historical context. This intermediary dimension is analyzed in each space from a different perspective.

At the Palazzo delle Esposizioni, the itinerary aims to highlight the transformations of the installation format in its dialogue with space and technological devices, in a chronological span from the late 1960s to the 21st century. The works on display exemplify, in addition to the artist’s research, experimentation with electronic and digital technologies in relation to the history of video art in Italy. The program includes thirteen miscellaneous and solo exhibitions of artist’s films and single-channel video. The artists on view are Marinella Pirelli, Michele Sambin, Giovanotti Mondani Meccanici, Mario Convertino, Studio Azzurro, Daniele Puppi, Rosa Barba, Danilo Correale, Elisa Giardina Papa, Quayola, and Donato Piccolo.

Both installations and single-channel works from centers of video art production and dissemination, active in Italy since the 1960s and with a strong international vocation, will be exhibited at GAM. It is intended to highlight the relationships between video art, radical architecture and postmodernist design; the hybridizations between video and dance and between video and theater. A large section, on the other hand, is devoted to television experiments and programs made by artists and a selection of video festivals. Among the installations are works by Fabio Mauri, Daniel Buren, Bill Viola, Cosimo Terlizzi, Umberto Bignardi, Masbedo, Fabrizio Plessi, and Franco Vaccari.

The project is promoted by the General Directorate for Contemporary Creativity of the Ministry of Culture, Roma Culture, Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali and Azienda Speciale Palaexpo. Under the patronage of “Sapienza” University of Rome, University of Udine and University of Milan Bicocca. In collaboration with AAMOD | Fondazione Archivio Audiovisivo del Movimento Operaio e Democratico, Cineteca Nazionale | Fondazione Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, Lo schermo dell’arte | festival of cinema and contemporary art, RAI Teche, La Camera Ottica, Riccione Teatro. With the scientific collaboration of Sapienza University of Rome | Department of Design Planning, Technologies of Architecture. Organization by Roma Culture, Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali, Azienda Speciale Palaexpo and Zètema Progetto Cultura. Catalog edited by Cosetta Saba and Valentina Valentini, published by Treccani.

Reviews of artists’ films and videos, panel discussions and live performances are scheduled.

Hours: Palazzo delle Esposizioni Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Closed Mondays.

GAM - Gallery of Modern Art, Tuesday through Sunday 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Closed Mondays.

Image: Marinella Pirelli, Film ambiente (1968-1969/2004; installation, 35 mm transferred to digital, color, sound, modular metal structure, screen-printed polycarbonate panels; 375 x 375 cm). Marinella Pirelli Archives, Varese, Italy. Courtesy of Richard Saltoun Gallery. (Installation view in the exhibition Light and Movement, Museo del Novecento, Milan 2019. Photo by Lorenzo Palmieri. Courtesy of Archivio Marinella Pirelli, Varese).

A major exhibition in Rome at two venues on video art in Italy since the late 1960s

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