Jacopo and NiccolòMASBEDO Work in progress
Carlotta Pesce is pleased to present a new encounter with the videoart of MASBEDO following the great success of the project Ionesco Suite in January 2013. This exhibition constitutes the second appointment (after Come into my life by Flavio Favelli in October 2014) in a new expository series promoted by Studio Carlotta Pesce that invites Italian and international artists to create expository projects in Bolognese domestic interiors.
Nicolò Masazza (Milan 1973) and Jacopo Bedogni (Sarzana 1970), artistically united with the acronym MASBEDO from the first letters of their surnames, in the last decade have become two of the most interesting protagonists of videoart on the international scene, producing a series of multimedia installations and performances, fruit of collaboration with actors, writers and musicians. “Contamination” is a key word to understand their artistic practice, characterised by constant trespassing into other disciplines. Cinema, theatre, music and literature fuse in an alchemy of aesthetically refined images of great emotional suggestion: complex visual plots, of a poetic yet disconcerting atmosphere set in a timeless dimension. The artists love to define this poetry as “technological existentialism” as it is an existential reflection on the human condition in the contemporary state, through a sophisticated and technologically advanced language.
The exhibition presented today in Bologna arises from the willingness to share the artists’ current work in progress with the public; historical and unedited works are exhibited next to materials which are currently being processed and will constitute future projects. The exhibition is taking place during a period of fevered activity for MASBEDO; they have recently been invited to the 71st annual Venice Film Festival to present their first feature film The Lack, favourably received by both critics and the public, as was the remarkable personal exhibition which has just finished at the Merz Foundation in Turin which retraced the last twelve years of the artists’ work.
After taking part in some of the most famous international art film festivals The Lack, produced by In Between Films in association with VivoFilm, will be screened in the Conference Room at MAMBo during the three days of ART CITY Bologna, on the occasion of the Art Fair 2015. Gianfranco Maraniello and Alessandro Rabottini will meet the authors in an open conversation with the public on the 23rd January at 6 pm.
Nicolò Masazza (Milan 1973) and Jacopo Bedogni (Sarzana 1970) live and work in Milan. They have taken part in several international exhibition including:
2014 Todestriebe, Merz Foundation, Turin; The Lack, Venice Days, 71st Venice Film Festival, Reykjavik International Film Festival, Reykjavik; 2013 Gelo, National Art Gallery in collaboration with MAMBO, Bologna; 2012 Castello di Rivoli, Turin; Venice Days, 69th Venice Film Festival. 2011 Art Unlimited, Art Basel; MAXXI National Museum of the Arts of the 21st Century, Rome. 2010 GAM Modern Art Gallery of Turin; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid. 2009 53rd Biennial International Art Exhibition Venice, Italian Pavilion; 2006 Contemporary Art Centre Luigi Pecci, Prato. 2013 Clouds. Landscape from Romanticism to the present, Leopold Museum, Vienna; Italian Videoart, MAMBA Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires.
Their works are part of important public and private collections including: Modern and Contemporary Art Collection CRT, Turin – Castello di Rivoli; MACRO, Rome; DA2 Museum of Contemporary Art, Salamanca, CAAM, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria; Andalusian Junta, Malaga; CAIRN Centre d’Art Digne les Bains; Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv.