The "Assessorato alla Cultura del Comune di Milano" (The Milan Council Responsible for Culture) presents the exhibition “You-We+Ablo. 25 Videos from Collezione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo”, from 9 June to 8 July 2010 at the Rotonda di Via Besana in Milan.
The exhibition has been organised in collaboration with the Turin based arts foundation Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo.
Fifteen large video installations make up a nomadic, political and cultural exhibition route, almost comparable to an imaginary world tour of the social transformation of reality.
The featured artists come from different parts of the world and the project highlights how, following the global phase, an era of neodiversity is approaching, in which the once seen obstacles that arose from the differences between diverse cultures are fast being turned into new resources
Francesco Bonami, artistic director of the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, underlines that the form of nomadism that the artists are talking about through their work is not simply geographical but is above all that of cultural role models that have shifted without the influence of the net, lifestyles and ways of thinking; and which in their own way have influenced and formed hybrid societies that would otherwise be very different. The title You-We plays with phonetics and has an Asiatic ring to it, addressing a relationship between one and the other that is no longer one of opposition but one of position, which has become highly relative in the contemporary world. The Other is no longer an absolute but is dependent upon the point of view that is adopted. In many different ways, the artists here reflect on the ongoing, fluent exchange between ‘you’ and ‘we’.
“You-We” aims to update the public regarding the role that video art has adopted in recent years, through a collection that is ever-developing. The video works form part of an important nucleus of works – one of the most important in Italy – considered today to be a fundamental segment in the story of contemporary art.
“It is evident that in times like ours where we find ourselves living in a multiethnic city, contemporary art offers us a creative space for this cohabitation – explains Milan’s Local Minister for Culture Massimiliano Finazzer Flory – It is for this reason that we must re-integrate ‘You’ in the plural sense, that of others, into We, meaning all of us. The Rotonda di via Besana presents a performative exhibition in a sense that changes, and will change our own, point of view along the axis of the other who lives within us.”
“This exhibition – states Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, President of the Turin based Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo – is a concrete result of the synergy between a public body and a private non-profit institution; additionally, it offers further confirmation of the ability to build a system between the two and to create a great cultural pole between the cities of Milan and Turin.”
Featured artists: Bani Abidi (b.1971 Karachi-Pakistan. Lives and works in Karachi and New Delhi), Lina Bertucci (b.1958 Milwaukee. Lives and works in New York), Mircea Cantor (b.1977 Cluj-Napoca. Lives and works in Paris and Cluj-Napoca), Sebastian Diaz Morales (b.1975 Comodoro Rivadavia-Argentina. Lives and works in Argentina and Amsterdam), Marine Hugonnier (b.1969 Paris. Lives and works in London), Amar Kanwar (b.1964 New Delhi. Lives and works in New Delhi), Koo Donghee (b.1974 Seoul, Korea. Lives and works in Seoul), Yong-Baek Lee (b.1966 Kimpo, Korea. Lives and works in Seoul), Steve McQueen (b.1969 London. Lives and works in London and Amsterdam), Anri Sala (b.1974 Tirana. Lives and works in Berlin), Doron Solomons (b.1969 London. Lives and works in Tel Aviv), Catherine Sullivan (b.1968 Los Angeles, California. Lives and works in Los Angeles), Fiona Tan (b.1966 Pekan Baru, Indonesia. Lives and works in Amsterdam), Song Tao (b.1979 Shanghai. Lives and works in Shanghai), Artur Żmijewski (b.1966 Warsaw. Lives and works in Warsaw).
On occasion of the exhibition “You-We” a further project entitled “Ablo” will also be presented. This show is a symbolic conclusion of the main exhibition that aims to reflect on how every society is enriched by exchange and by the constant bonding of one’s own culture with that of others. Furthermore, the recent news of disturbing events among locals in the area of Via Padova in Milan has significantly emphasized the issues surrounding integration.
Ten young Italian artists have been invited to create videos on one subject. The artists have each filmed a three-minute video whose main character is Abdoul Kader Traore.. Ablo, as he likes to be called, is a griot musician from Burkina Faso who has been living in Milan for seven years and playing with various music groups, such as the Milanese and multiethnic “Orchestra di via Padova” and the group “Sinitah”.
The ten videos will be presented and screened together, one after another, constituting a single work and creating a kind of visual and cultural kaleidoscope whereby the same person is viewed and portrayed by different personalities with different points of view.
Featured artists are: Dafne Boggeri (b.1975 Tortona. Lives and works in Milan), Gianluca and Massimiliano De Serio (b.1978 Turin. Live and work in Turin), Riccardo Giacconi (b.1985 San Severino-MC. Lives and works in Venice), Sabina Grasso (b.1975 Genoa. Lives and works in Milan and Berlin), Antonio Guiotto (b. 1968 Padova. Lives and works in Padova), Domenico Mangano (b.1976 Palermo. Lives and works in Palermo and Rome), Patrizia Monzani (b.1976. Lives and works in Lavagna-GE), Maria Domenica Rapicavoli (b.1976 Catania. Lives and works in London), Patrizio Di Massimo (b.1983 Jesi-AN. Lives and works in Milan and London), Diego Marcon (b.1985 Busto Arsizio-VA. Lives and works in Milan and Venice).
Just as each artist has found his or her own personal way of talking to and about him, Ablo has also had to relate to each of the artist’s individual needs and ways, to their questions and requests, by becoming their actor for a day and having generated unique relationships with all of them.
Cultural diversities come to light through the relationship formed between the artists - all from Italy - and Albo and his West African origins. Just like Albo, the artists themselves have had the chance to travel to many countries due to the nature of their work. Hence, their shared experiences make way for dialogue, which remains individual and personal to each and everyone of them.
Ablo is a symbolic conclusion of the exhibition that aims to tell how every society is enriched by exchange and by the constant bonding of one’s own culture with that of others.
The video will be donated to the Milan Council by Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo.
Shadow for a while, 2007 16mm film projection, b/w, mute / 2'00''
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