exhibition
06 July 2021 > 25 July 2021
videogalleryYervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci LucchiAngels and warriors of cinema part II
videogallery – free entrance
curated by Bartolomeo Pietromarchi and Irene De Vico Fallani
videogallery – free entrance
curated by Bartolomeo Pietromarchi and Irene De Vico Fallani
The work of Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi is part of the tradition of international experimental cinema with a style characterized by the meticulous and precise treatment of filmic, pictorial and videographic material. The great wars, Fascism, dictatorships, colonialism and neo-colonialism are the themes that, starting from 1975, are reinterpreted through a rich corpus of works. Like surrealist objets trouvés, their works originate from the recovery of pre-existing footage on which the artists intervene by isolating details, changing colors and slowing down the speed of the film, in order to reproduce in unusual forms stories of archival materials that have not yet been told.
Gianikian and Ricci Lucchi’s work has been the subject of retrospectives and exhibitions around the world, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Cinémathèque Française, and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. In 2015 they won the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale for their participation in the Armenian Pavilion and also the FIAF – International Federation of Film Archives Award.
A broad retrospective on the artistic duo who, on the border between experimental cinema and the visual arts, explore the great tragedies of the 20th century with civil commitment.
PART II – CONFLICTS
The matter of film, its stratified, worn and corrupted consistency that Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi show us in Trasparenze (1998) opens the second chapter of the film screening program dedicated to two of the protagonists of avant-garde cinema and the cinematographic art of our time.
It is from the story of this relic, the erased memory of a rediscovered time, that we arrive at the War Trilogy, a story in three parts (Su tutte le vette è pace, 1998, Prigionieri della guerra, 1995, Oh! uomo, 2004) of the drama of the First World War. The film is the result of a decade of researches in the video archives of the countries involved in the fighting, mainly in the Tsarist and Austro-Hungarian empires.
Other material comes from the archives of Luca Comerio, a Milanese photographer and official filmmaker of the Great War who has handed down to us some of the most evocative images of World War I. An alternation of blown-up, slowed down and enlarged images of dead or dying soldiers, malnourished children and prisoners of war, draw our attention to the human being’s capacity to commit atrocities if driven by the thirst for military triumphs.
Angels and Warriors of Cinema is the broad retrospective with which MAXXI is celebrating the career of the artistic duo Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi. An opportunity to retrace, through four thematic focuses that will alternate throughout 2021, the extraordinary work of two artists who, on the border between experimental cinema and the visual arts, explore with civil commitment the great tragedies of the 20th century.
The first chapter, which celebrates the personal life and the indissoluble bond between the two artists, will be followed by an in-depth examination of conflicts with a selection of films dedicated to the theme of war, while in the third, the body, treated as an object and as a shell, will highlight the blurring of the human essence. The exhibition will close with a story told through images of the rise of the great totalitarianisms.
header: Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi, Su tutte le vette è pace, 1998 (video still)
BIO
Yervant Gianikian and Angela Ricci Lucchi