Social Videoscapes from the North

Mostra 2013

Social Videoscapes from the North

CURATED BY
Lorella Scacco

From 18.09 to 26.10.2013

Careof hosts the group exhibition Social Videoscapes from the North, focused on Nordic video production. The exhibition continues the investigation into the languages, poetics, and key figures of video art in the international context, initiated by Careof at the beginning of 2013.

Social Videoscapes from the North, a project curated by Lorella Scacco, presents in Milan the video works of five well-known artists: Maria Friberg (Sweden), Siri Hermansen (Norway), Eva Koch (Denmark), Rúrí (Iceland), Mika Taanila (Finland).

Their works engage in a dialogue within a single project around one of the distinctive aspects of video production from the Nordic countries: the gaze on the social landscape. Starting from the relationship between man and society, each artist interprets the theme according to their own poetics, while maintaining a documentary approach to narration as a common denominator.

Parallel to Social Videoscapes from the North, in the Video Archive room, Careof presents Northwave. A Survey of Video Art in Nordic Countries, a video selection curated by Lorella Scacco, previously shown during the release of the eponymous publication in 2009, published by Silvana Editoriale, which traces the developments of video art in the Nordic countries from the 1960s to today.

The exhibition project produced by Pro Artibus, a Finnish foundation affiliated with the Swedish Cultural Foundation in Finland, arrives in Milan at Careof after being presented in Finland in Ekenäs (May 24 – September 8, 2013).

On the occasion of the exhibition, a trilingual catalog (English, Swedish, Finnish) was published by Pro Artibus, containing essays by curator Lorella Scacco, Catrin Lundqvist, curator at Moderna Museet in Stockholm, and Chiara Agnello, artistic director of Careof.

With the support of the Comune di Milano and Fondazione Cariplo.

Bio

Maria Friberg (Malmö, 1966), through photography and video, such as Transmission (2010), explores themes of power, masculinity, the relationship between man and nature, and the resulting social changes.

The Norwegian artist Siri Hermansen (Geneva, 1969), whose artistic practice approaches a form of shared anthropology, presents two recent video productions Chernobyl Mon Amour (2012) and Land of Freedom (2012).

Considered among the pioneers of Nordic video art, with particular attention to public space, Eva Koch (Frederiksberg, 1953) tells stories of ordinary people in her works, such as Evergreen (2006), borrowing references from Art History.

Rúrí (Reykjavik, 1951), through video, performance, and installation, conceives art-making as an act of protest between ethics, aesthetics, and politics. On display is ITEMS, a work originally conceived in 16 mm in 1978, later reworked (2005).

The Finnish director and video artist Mika Taanila (1965 Helsinki), active between visual arts and documentary cinema, who participated in the last edition of dOCUMENTA (13), presents in Milan his latest creation My Silence (2013).

Lorella Scacco, art critic, journalist, and independent curator. Graduated in contemporary Art History and Aesthetics, she has conducted numerous seminars and given lectures at Universities, Academies, and Foundations in Italy and abroad. Since 2004, she has been a member of SIE, Società Italiana Estetica. She is an expert in contemporary art from the Nordic countries and New media art. She writes for specialized magazines and is the author of Estetica mediale. Da Jean Baudrillard a Derrick de Kerckhove, Guerini, 2004, and Northwave. A Survey of Video Art in Nordic Countries, Silvana Editoriale, 2009.
Selected curatorial projects: 2010: Marian Heyerdahl, Castello Sforzesco, Milan. 2008: The Hot Season–Italian Art Now, Stenersen Museum, Oslo. 2007: Mobile Journey, 52 Biennale di Venezia, Venice. 2006: Artext, La Triennale, Milan.
www.lorellascacco.it