IF ARTE POVERA WAS POP: ARTISTS’ and EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA in ITALY 1960S–70S
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TATE FILM IF ARTE POVERA WAS POP: ARTISTS’ AND EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA IN ITALY 1960s–70s Tate Modern, Starr Auditorium 23–25 October 2015 2 TATE FILM If Arte Povera was Pop: Artists’ and experimental cinema in Italy 1960s–70s TATE FILM IF ARTE POVERA WAS POP: ARTISTS’ AND EXPERIMENTAL CINEMA IN ITALY 1960s–70s £5 / £4 per screening This film season at Tate Modern proposes to investigate the roots and forms of circulation of arte povera, a deeply interdisciplinary artistic movement that opened itself to theatre, performance and cinema. If Arte Povera was Pop is a provocative supposition, which puts in evidence the movement’s closeness to time-based media and the existent dialogue between artists working across the visual arts and film. Alongside rare artists’ films, adventurous avant- garde works, and the documentation of seminal exhibitions, the season will focus on two major Italian cities, exploring the heterodox context of arte povera in Turin, and Rome’s cosmopolitan, eccentric scene, a city historically associated with pop art and marked by the experience of the Cooperative of Independent Filmmakers, founded in 1967. The eclectic voices of authors Tonino De Bernardi, Carmelo Bene, Alberto Grifi, and those of artists as Ugo Nespolo, Mario Schifano or Pino Pascali’s advertising commissions, express the vibrancy of a unique moment in the history of the European avant-garde, which the season explores, interrogates and reveals in greater depth. Organised as a dialogue with the The EY Exhibition: The World Goes Pop, the season If Arte Povera was Pop presents archival premieres, sessions of expanded cinema and conversations with artists. Images, cover and this page: Luca Patella SKMP2 1968, film still 4 TATE FILM If Arte Povera was Pop: Artists’ and experimental cinema in Italy 1960s–70s TATE FILM GOOD MORNING MICHELANGELO: LA VESTIZIONE NEONMERZARE ART, ARTIST AND FILM IN TURIN Tonino De Bernardi, Italy 1968, 8mm Ugo Nespolo, Italy 1967, 16mm, colour, Friday 23 October, 19.00–21.00 transferred to video, colour, sound, 26 min sound, 3 min The opening programme explores the cultural The first part, composed of close-ups of faces From 1967 to 1969 Ugo Nespolo made three context in Turin and influential artists Mario shot at a sharp angle from below, takes place films about three artist friends: Mario Merz, Merz, Alighiero Boetti and Michelangelo at the top of a ladder, where Pistoletto creates Alighiero Boetti and Michelangelo Pistoletto. Pistoletto. Featuring key films produced in an ornate collar and a long cloak of cellophane Neonmerzare, featuring Merz, was shot in the Turin by Ugo Nespolo, Pia Epremian, Tonino that wraps Maria Pioppi. The action shifts gallery of Gian Enzo Sperone in Turin, in 1968. De Bernardi and Plinio Martelli on the occasion then to the ground, where the images of several With lyrical movements, the camera tracks of Michelangelo Pistoletto’s exhibition at the men stripped to the waist (including the artist a series of neon tubes, establishing an ideal gallery L’Attico, Rome, 1968 and Ugo Nespolo Plinio Martelli) blend with those of two nude dialogue between the traditions of the abstract films on Mario Merz and Alighiero Boetti. and brilliant, Buongiorno Michelangelo suggests women dancing in the surface of a mirror cinema of light and colour, and experimental Followed by discussion with Ugo Nespolo a performative, cooperative and perhaps also work by Pistoletto himself, inspired by a famous documentary filmmaking. The symphony of playful aspect of the attitude of this short and photographic sequence of Eadweard Muybridge. lights is accompanied by jazz improvisation BUONGIORNO MICHELANGELO / intense period. The ‘performed’ humble industrial materials by the saxophonist Carlo Actis Dato. GOOD MORNING, MICHELANGELO foreshadow several motifs developed by Ugo Nespolo, Italy 1968, 16mm transferred to PISTOLETTO & SOTHEBY’S Pistoletto from 1968 with the company BOETTINBIANCHENERO video, colour, sound, 18 min Pia Epremian, Italy 1968, 8mm transferred to Lo Zoo, especially the action Cocapicco e Ugo Nespolo, Italy 1968, 16mm, Featuring: Michelangelo Pistoletto, Maria video, colour, sound, 22 min Vestitorito presented at the Piper Pluriclub black and white, sound, 6 min Pistoletto, Daniela Chiaperotti, Tommaso Trini, disco on 8 May 1968. Daniela Palazzoli, Gianni Simonetti, Vasco Are, This film represents an encounter with several In 1967, a few months after the famous Gian Enzo Sperone, Gilberto Zorio. major icons of the history of western painting, MARIA FOTOGRAFIA exhibition Arte povera-Im Spazio at the gallery ‘while attempting’ – as the filmmaker says – Plinio Martelli, Italy 1968, 16mm transferred to La Bertesca in Genoa (when the critic Germano The film challenges the aura of the artwork, ‘to always create a link between art and life, video, black and white, sound, 12 min Celant defined the first guidelines of arte povera), pushing it towards performance in urban space. an impertinence with respect to those images Alighiero Boetti, at the age of 27, had a solo During the exhibition Con-temp-l’azione (1967–68, that the production of works of documentation The film begins with a photo shoot, shown show at the Turin-based gallery Christian curated by Daniela Palazzoli), at the three [books and magazines] brought to the attention in a sequence of often frontal views and Stein. The first part the film explores the galleries Stein, Sperone and Il punto, two works of everyone for the first time.’ Reclaiming art counterviews, in which Michelangelo Pistoletto works assembled with iron, wood and industrial by Michelangelo Pistoletto – the newspaper history in a performative, playful way and photographs Maria Pioppi, encouraging her materials (Eternit, camouflage fabric, enamel ball La sfera di giornali 1966 and La rosa bruciata evoking the tradition of tableau vivant, Pistoletto to assume different poses and to interact paint), then shifts to the reactions and relations 1965 from oggetti in meno (Minus Objects) – are with his daughters Cristina and Maria Pioppi with various objects. The negatives of the with the works of the audience at the opening taken out into the street. The film marks the ‘act out’ in a series of little scenes: Orpheus photographs gradually appear over the flow (the artists Michelangelo Pistoletto, Mario beginning of a more militant and performative and Eurydice, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Raphael, of images. The images once hung on the walls, Ceroli and Giulio Paolini, and the dealer Gian phase in Pistoletto’s career, opening up possible Chaim Soutine, James Ensor, Edgar Degas, are subjected to a series of bizarre performative Enzo Sperone are recognisable). The black and references to Situationism, Fluxus and nouveau Vincent Van Gogh. Shot in Pistoletto’s studio actions by a group of young people, as if at an white images are accompanied by a saxophone réalisme. The film starts with Pistoletto shaving in 1967, which had been officially declared opening (including the artist Ugo Nespolo and improvisation by Carlo Actis Dato. in front of one of his ‘mirrors’: the codes of ‘open,’ against a backdrop of photographs of the filmmakers Renato Ferraro and Gioachino everyday life and advertising burst into the pop culture icons, mirrors, and a soundtrack Nichot), who then shift into a dance with playful Programme duration: 87 min scene. The large ball of newspapers roams Turin of vocal sounds, noises and pianoforte, the and erotic overtones. Two versions of the film in a convertible automobile. The music of The film was part of creative collaborations between exist, one developed positive and one negative. Beatles accompanies the exploration of different young filmmakers from Turin and the artist filming and editing techniques. From the gallery before his solo show held in February – March of Christian Stein, La rosa bruciata is carried 1968 at Galleria L’Attico in Rome, where the films along the porticos of the city. Intense, amused were screened. Image: Ugo Nespolo Buongiorno Michelangelo 1968, film still 6 TATE FILM If Arte Povera was Pop: Artists’ and experimental cinema in Italy 1960s–70s TATE FILM THE ROME SCHOOL – PART 1 CIAO, CIAO Saturday 24 October, 16.00–18.00 Adamo Vergine, Italy 1967, 16mm transferred to video, black and white, silent, 6 min This programme explores the artists associated with the influential but short-lived Independent The film comes from an 8mm home movie shot Cinema Co-operative / Cooperativa Cinema by the filmmaker during an excursion in 1955. Indipendente (1967–70) in Rome. The sequences, joined in a loop, are projected on ground glass and shot again with an 8mm IMMAGINE DEL TEMPO / IMAGE OF TIME camera, using all the possible variations of Mario Masini, Italy 1964, 16mm transferred to speed and focus. The film is in the double video, black and white, sound, 4 min 8mm format that was usually divided in two lengthwise, after developing, and then projected Mario Masini, collaborator of Alberto as standard 8mm. Instead, Adamo Vergine uses PRIMAVERA NASCOSTA / HIDDEN SPRING COSTRETTO A SCOMPARIRE / Grifi, cameraman for Carmelo Bene and the full width as if it were 16mm film, in such Claudio Cintoli, Italy 1969, 35mm transferred to FORCED TO DISAPPEAR cinematographer of Teza 2008 by the legendary a way as to show four film frames at the same video, colour, sound, 10 min Gianfranco Baruchello, Italy 1968, 16mm Ethiopian director Haile Gerima, explores the time in the same projection, two for the left Collaborators: Pino Borghini, Francesca Bolic, transferred to video, colour, sound, 15 min lithograph by the artist Emilio Vedova that gives footage and two for the right. Fausta D’Eufemia, Vittorio Cintoli the film its title. A wide range of movements Cinematography: Elio Gagliardo The film is the story of the crude destruction, over the lithograph and editing that alternates AMOUR DU CINÉMA Music: Francesco Santucci meticulously done by the artist himself, of a accelerated sequences of urban landscapes, Rosa Foschi in collaboration with Luca Patella, Production company: Corona Cinematografica frozen turkey produced in America.