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Almine Rech

Francesco Vezzoli TV 70: Francesco Vezzoli guarda la Rai

May 9 — Sep 24, 2017 | Fondazione Prada, Milan

“TV 70: Francesco Vezzoli guarda la Rai” is a project by artist Francesco Vezzoli developed in collaboration with Rai, Italy’s national broadcasting company.

In between individual experiences and collective narratives, the exhibition translates the artist’s gaze into a visual experience that explores 1970s TV production. Italian public TV is interpreted by the artist as a driving force for social and political change in a country in transition from the radicalness of the 1960s to the hedonism of the 1980s, as well as a powerful machine for cultural and identity creation. During that decade, Rai revised its pedagogical mission and distinguished itself for the high cultural quality of its productions, such as the collaborations with film directors Bernardo Bertolucci, Federico Fellini, Paolo and Vittorio Taviani. Divided between formal austerity and experimental vocation, 1970s television amplified the development of collective imagination into a plurality of landscapes and individual perspectives, anticipating the narratives which characterized the commercial television of the following decade. TV became a specific medium, and its shows went through a progressive transformation: they first shifted from culture to information, and subsequently from information to communication.

Press release

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