Where and when
Speakers: Silvia Grandi, Gianni Melotti and Maurizio Marco Tozzi
From the wonderful experimental experiences of the seventies to the present day, Italy has always been a driving force for the development of video art. A very often underestimated cultural heritage whose history is a continuous discovery. The conference will be an opportunity to retrace the most significant moments of the early decades, from the 1970s to the 1990s.
The story will start from the events that led Italy to be one of the international centers of production and diffusion of video art: from the January ’70 exhibition at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Bologna, to the performances of the L’Attico Gallery in Rome, to the first works created at the Galleria del Cavallino in Venice, at art / tapes / 22 in Florence and at the Centro Videoarte Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara.
The story of the events of the Eighties will follow: the formation of the Studio Azzurro collective, and of the Correnti Magnetici group, the experiments of Giacomo Verde and Gianni Toti and the birth of Ondavideo, one of the first events, still active today, around new technologies and to their artistic use. Finally, the nineties, a period that saw this ever-evolving artistic expression become the protagonist of the most important international festivals.
Silvia Grandi, researcher at the Department of Visual, Performative and Media Arts of the University of Bologna, she teaches Phenomenology of Contemporary Art in the Master’s Degree in Visual Arts and Phenomenology of Styles in the DAMS Degree Course. His interests are aimed at the artistic panorama of the twentieth century, with particular attention to the relationships between art and fashion and to the contaminations present in recent decades between the various areas of visual (art, video, advertising) and object design (fashion, design) in the light of the evolution of new media. As an art critic he has collaborated with numerous trade magazines (Ars, Artel Flash art, The Red Room, Sign, Celestial Theme, Title) and is curator of contemporary art exhibitions and reviews. For two years (2000-2001) he also coordinated the exhibition activities and communication of the Spazio Salara in Bologna, in collaboration with the Gallery of Modern Art of Bologna, on behalf of the Department of Culture of the Municipality of Bologna.
Gianni Melotti he studied art and photography at the Institute and Magisterium of Art in Florence. In 1974 he began working as a professional photographer at Maria Gloria Bicocchi’s art / tapes / 22 artist video production house in Florence, documenting the video research of numerous international artists such as: Chris Burden, Daniel Buren, Giuseppe Chiari, Urs Luthi, Nam June Paik, Charlemagne Palestine, Giulio Paolini, Arnulf Rainer, Bill Viola. Its archives contain all the original photographic material of art / tapes / 22, (backstage and still frame), including negative film and slide, and in digital format. During the same years he photographed the activity of the non-profit art space area of Florence and presented his research in this place on several occasions. In 2011, in Venice, he took part in the Video Medium Intermedium exhibition, curated by Bice Curiger, in which his photographs of art / tapes / 22 owned by the Historical Archive of Contemporary Arts (ASAC) of the La Biennale foundation are exhibited. from Venice. In 2013 he took part in the exhibition Words, words, words…, curated by Stefano Pezzato at the Pecci Museum in Milan. Since 2014, some backstage and still frame photographs have been part of the permanent collection of the Museo Novecento in Florence.
Maurizio Marco Tozzi is a contemporary art curator. For years he has dedicated his research to audiovisual languages and to the relationship between creativity and new technologies. He graduated in Cinema and Electronic Image at the University of Pisa and specialized in Net Art and Digital Cultures at the Academy of Fine Arts of Carrara. He directs Over The Real – International Video Art Festival and has curated exhibitions in which the following have participated among others: Alessandro Amaducci, Angelica Bergamini, Alain Escalle, Bill Viola, Bruno Larini, Christian Boustani, Giacomo Verde, John Bizas, Lino Strangis, Marcantonio Lunardi, Paolo Cirio, Tommaso Tozzi; and has collaborated with Invideo Milano, La Casa Totiana and the virtual platform of the Metaverse Museum. He participates in conferences on various themes of contemporary art also addressed in his essays including the recent La Videoarte Italiana (2016) published by Danilo Montanari and Seamless Interaction with Works of Art published within Media Art. Towards a New Definition of Arts in the Age of Technology (2015). He has been a member of the Order of Journalists since 1993 and collaborates with various publications, including Juliet Art Magazine.
Daniel Buren, backstage, 1974, art/tapes/22, Photo © Copyright Archivio Gianni Melotti, Firenze