Video festival – “The body is a sacred garment”

In the selected artist films – which will be screened one after the other, in a continuous cycle, in this new re-created space – the investigated body is not only physical, but also mental, “a body that is the measure of our existence in this earthly dimension – explains the curator -, a body sometimes denied or represented only by an anatomical detail that becomes a metaphor for more complex existential scenarios “.
This is the first appointment of a two-year cycle born from the collaboration between the Museo Novecento and Beatrice Bulgari.

1. Until the end – Masbedo

The duo of Italian video-artists Masbedo (Nicolò Massazza – 1973, Milan and Jacopo Bedogni – 1970, Sarzana) with the work Until The End (2011) begin a new thematic cycle, no longer narrative, no longer exhausting struggles to affirm the his own human individuality, but the presentation, thanks to a single moving image, of a universal message that artists have defined as “condemnation” or “sentence for greatness”. Against a black background a dancer struggles with gravity trying to get off the ground. The video only shows the detail of her bare feet as she tries to lift herself up on toes. This gesture, basically very primitive, on the one hand symbolizes physical elevation but is also a possible metaphor for overcoming social barriers.

4. Damir Ocko – DICTA II

The work of Damir Ocko (Zagreb, 1977) is an invitation to explore the complexity of language and the way in which the neurophysiological system manages to create it in such a poetic way. His works oscillate between desire and deprivation, reality and fiction. In the DICTA II video, the artist explores the concept of nonsense by reading a series of “rescue” words called “safewords” collected in various BDSM Forums. BDSM stands for Bondage, Domination (or Discipline), Sadism, Masochism and indicates a wide range of relational and / or erotic practices that allow you to share fantasies based on pain, power imbalance and / or humiliation between two or more adult and consenting partners who derive from these satisfactions and pleasure. Enunciated with a colorless tone of voice and devoid of pathos, these words form a sort of distorted dictionary organized according to a cryptic method but which imitates the architecture of a meaningless language.

5. Silvia Giambrone – Sotto Tiro

The young Silvia Giambrone (Agrigento, 1981) in her works takes inspiration from her own life, she does not seek answers but asks many questions and she is interested in violence. Violence as a domestic ritual. Something so internal to the fabric of life that it is no longer recognized as violence. Silvia is interested in powerful but underground friction points, which tend to escape and therefore become unsuspected. In the video Sotto Tiro (2011), the artist, framed from the shoulders up, in front of a neutral background, is hit by a laser pointer that slides over her face and decollete without giving her a moment of respite.

7. Alessandro Piangiamore – Around an empty shell

For Alessandro Piangiamore (Enna, 1976) any explanation of his works could limit their evocative potential, the work is made up of images and, as the artist says, “images are inherently difficult to communicate”, they are like “omens” which can only be summoned. In the video “Around an empty shell” (2014) the camera focuses on the artist’s hands holding a shell with a mother-of-pearl surface that is scratched seamlessly with a folding knife. This action, probably meaningless but physically demanding, is part of the elusive mental journey that characterizes the artistic practice of Piangiamore.