Masbedo. Todestriebe

The Fondazione Merz presents Todestriebe, a project by Masbedo (Nicolò Massazza and Jacopo Bedogni) based on the theme of lack of communication and involving different languages, topics, and subjects both in terms of creativity and city venues. The event also coincides with the release of the duo’s first long feature film “The Lack” presented at the 71st Venice International Film Festival in the section Giornate degli Autori (Venice Days).
The project revolves around the exhibition at the Fondazione featuring 9 video works, some of which are site specific while others span the last ten years of the artists’ production. It has been conceived as a single installation site connecting all the works and taking up the entire exhibition space to transform it into an immersive environment, into which visitors can dive as they journey through the exhibited works.
The duo’s work provides the backdrop to several reflections and investigations that explore Art’s relationship with theatre, cinema, literature, music, dance, as well as Art’s visionary quality and ability to represent nature and the human condition.
The interaction with the figure and work of Mario Merz will be central to the exhibition. The artists chose the video Lumaca, shot by Gerry Schum in 1970. Showing Merz drawing a spiral onto a glass screen in front of him, the video dates back to the dawn of video art history itself and almost unintentionally represents a work of video art, while condensing Merz’s thought into a single gesture.
Having envisioned a collective work, Masbedo invited a group of International video artists (among which Jan Fabre, Marzia Migliora, Catherine Sullivan, Nicolas Provost, Sigalit Landau, Shaun Gladwell, Damir Ocko, Emmanuelle Antille, Rä Di Martino, Gianluca and Massimiliano De Serio) to reflect both on this historic video and on the very identity of video art by each presenting a work that is a personal mark, a reflection, a note. All the works together ultimately form a spiral-shaped installation, a sequence of videos as fragments of a dialogue
The exhibition opens October 3 with a live performance of sound and image created by artists in the outdoor pools of the Fondazione.
A series of events rotate around the show, to further explore the topics that Masbedo’s work implies.
A conference with some internationally known personalities such as Romeo Castellucci and Michel Maffesoli, the national premiere of the film “The Lack”, a screening of some of their videos in collaboration with the National Museum of Cinema in Turin and a workshop held by Masbedo in collaboration with the Scuola Holden and with the Accademia Albertina delle Belle Arti di Torino.

Vai alla guida d'arte di Turin