Looking at our times through the prism of the moving image.
At Fondazione In Between Art Film, we foster dialogues between video, cinema, and performance, supporting artists and institutions whose visions cross the boundaries between creative disciplines.
NEWS
Congratulations to Ari Benjamin Meyers, whose film “Marshall Allen, 99, Astronaut” (2024), which we commissioned and produced on the occasion of our show NEBULA at the Complesso dell’Ospedaletto in Venice, will be on view at @kunstvereinbraunschweig from March 15 until June 1, 2025
The work is centered around Marshall Allen, renowned free and avant-garde jazz musician and current leader of the legendary Sun Ra Arkestra, of which he has been a continual member since 1958. For this film, the artist composed two original scores for Allen to interpret, inviting him to engage, through music, in an intimate conversation about the spontaneity of music-making, the rigor of rehearsals, and the potentiality of collaboration. Telling a musical and visual story of transformation from the earthly to the otherworldly, the work transcends temporalities and places and pays homage both to Allen’s century-long life lived through music and to Sun Ra’s revolutionary musical vision and political utopia, which discerned in the unknown of sonic experimentation and the vastness of the universe the possibility of a transformed present and a radically different future. (Text by @abinoppst)
More info via the link in bio
Images credit: Ari Benjamin Meyers, Marshall Allen, 99, Astronaut, 2024. Still from single-channel video. Commissioned and produced by Fondazione In Between Art Film, and co-produced by @fluentumcollection, for the exhibition Nebula, 2024. Courtesy of the artist, Fondazione In Between Art Film, and @estherschippergallery
Saodat Ismailova’s film “Melted into the Sun” will be presented tomorrow at @batalhacentrodecinema as part of her solo show of the same name, which runs until May 11, 2025. Congratulations, Saodat!
The opening will be accompanied by a talk between the artist and Leonardo Bigazzi.
“Melted into the Sun” (2024) by Saodat Ismailova (1981, Uzbekistan) is inspired by the ambiguous figure of Al-Muqannaʿ (“The Veiled One”), a fuller who became a spiritual leader and political agitator in southern Central Asia in the 8th century.
The film meditates on the cultural and political echoes of his revolutionary ideas about the sharing of property and wealth. Adopting a cyclical vision of history and knowledge, the artist transports us to the banks of the Amu Darya River, the circular burial ground of Chillpiq, the city of Bukhara—all sites where the legendary exploits of Al-Muqannaʿ are said to have been performed. But Ismailova also takes us to places that are home to a number of pieces of Soviet infrastructure, such as the Kirov dam, and the solar furnace of Uzbekistan.
This visual journey through time betrays the skilled use of illusion and science made by Al-Muqannaʿ for demagogic purposes, and considers the central role played by technology and the manipulation of the Earth. The lyrical sequences of reflections and flashes, together with the textured soundtrack, continue to make his profound and still-unanswered questions reverberate into the modern day. (Text by @abinoppst)
More info via the link in bio
“Melted into the Sun” (2024) was commissioned by Fondazione In Between Art Film and co-produced by Fondazione In Between Art Film and Batalha Centro de Cinema, Porto, on the occasion of the exhibition NEBULA, which was held at the Complesso dell’Ospedaletto, Venice, in 2024.
Images credit: Saodat Ismailova, “Melted Into The Sun,” 2024. Stills from single-channel video, color, sound, 35’ 50”. Commissioned and produced by Fondazione In Between Art Film. Coproduced by Batalha Centro de Cinema, Porto. Courtesy the artist and Fondazione In Between Art Film
The complete video recordings of ᴛʜɪᴄᴋ ᴀᴛᴍᴏꜱᴘʜᴇʀᴇꜱ are now available to watch online via our Vimeo channel
ᴛʜɪᴄᴋ ᴀᴛᴍᴏꜱᴘʜᴇʀᴇꜱ was a cross-disciplinary symposium held at Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi, Venice, on 17–18 October, 2024, on the occasion of the group exhibition NEBULA
Curated by @abinoppst and organized in collaboration with @palazzo_grassi, Pinault Collection Venezia, the conversations, panels, and screenings of ᴛʜɪᴄᴋ ᴀᴛᴍᴏꜱᴘʜᴇʀᴇꜱ probed questions concerning the act of seeing and the sensory experiencing of moving images; at the same time, it focused on the pervasiveness of images and media content, and the corporeal relationship they condition and create, as well as complex, planetary-scale phenomena within the continuous aftermath of the Capitalocene
We are grateful to the many people who attended the symposium to listen to the speakers and to engage with their points of view on the objects and the conditions of perception in and beyond the context of the exhibition NEBULA
The speakers included: 2050+/Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, Maria Alicata, Mara Ambrožič Verderber, Giorgio Andreotta Calò, Karimah Ashadu, Lucia Aspesi, Cristina Baldacci, Erika Balsom, Leonardo Bigazzi, Lucrezia Calabrò Visconti, Krist Gruijthuijsen, Nav Haq, Sharon Hecker, Fatima Hellberg, Eleni Ikoniadou, Chrissie Iles, Saodat Ismailova, Amal Khalaf, Helena Kritis, Basir Mahmood, Diego Marcon, Lorenzo Mason Studio, Ari Benjamin Meyers, Matteo Pasquinelli, Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, Alessandro Rabottini, Mark Rappolt, Giulia Rispoli, Francesco Spampinato, Mike Sperlinger, Carla Subrizi, Paola Ugolini, Ana Teixeira Pinto, Valentine Umansky, and Isobel Whitelegg
ᴛʜɪᴄᴋ ᴀᴛᴍᴏꜱᴘʜᴇʀᴇꜱ was coordinated by Chiara Nicolini, Giovanni Giacomo Paolin
Educational partners Department of the Arts, @unibo; Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage, @cafoscari; and @curatorial.school
Media Partner @moussemagazine
Visual identity @lorenzomasonstudio
NEBULA was curated by @alessandro.rabottini and @leonardobigazzi at Complesso dell’Ospedaletto, Venice, from 17 April – 24 November 2024, on the occasion of the Biennale Arte 2024
Video recs: @maco_film_venice_london
Photos: Matteo De Fina
Emilija Škarnulytė’s film “Aphotic Zone” is currently screening at @louisianamuseum within the context of the group exhibition OCEAN. Congratulations, Emilija!
As a cinematic journey across the ocean’s abysses, “Aphotic Zone” echolocates the mythological as much as the critical aspects of humanity’s avarice in its, albeit brief, stay on Earth. It crosses a trench at 4 km depth to reach the pitch black (or, aphotic) zone of the Pacific seamounts of Costa Rica on the other side. The only visible lights beam from strange, bioluminescent creatures in its inky depths. A Remotely Operated Vehicle samples deep-sea corals with its robotic arms while images of the undulating seafloor generated from 3D laser scanner data as well as of the towering Duga radar (a Soviet-era missile defense system near Chernobyl, Ukraine) shift and scale into a landscape of prehistoric creatures and advanced technology. Here, more-than-human and machinic agencies weirdly coexist with the sonic memory of a distant civilization: mixed by Oscar-winning engineers Jaime Baksht and Michelle Couttolenc, the sound was recorded in Mexico City’s main plaza during the commemorations for the 500th anniversary of Spain’s bloody conquest of Tenochtitlan. The former capital of the Aztec Empire becomes a sonic ghost reverberating with the contemporary destructions of societies and ecosystems. Oscillating between the documentary and the oneiric, Aphotic Zone imagines the future as its vantage point with the aim of looking back into the present amid the threats of the climate crisis and economic extractivism; the idealistic prospects of science; and what will survive the ravages of human greed. (Text by @abinoppst)
“Aphotic Zone” (2022) was commissioned and produced by Fondazione In Between Art Film on the occasion for our exhibition PENUMBRA, which was held at the Complesso dell’Ospedaletto, Venice, in 2022.
Image credit: Emilija Škarnulytė, Aphotic Zone, 2022. Still from video. Courtesy of the artist, Dr. Erik Cordes and the Schmidt Ocean Institute, and Fondazione In Between Art Film
Andro Eradze’s film “Flowering and Fading” (2024), which we co-produced with @schermodellarte, will have its US premiere at @momaps1 in the group exhibition “The Gatherers,” curated by @rubakatrib with @sacredboi.
Congratulations, Andro!
“Flowering and Fading” invites the audience to embark upon a journey into the realm of imaginative companionship. Through its narrative and allusive signs, the film offers the viewer a sense of fellowship: exploring bonds between a human and a dog, it delves into an anthropomorphic symbiosis resonating among these two entities. By blending ghostly dreamscapes with common domestic settings, it creates an atmosphere which transcends conventional storytelling.
Image credit: Andro Eradze, Flowering and Fading, 2024, video still. Courtesy the artist, Fondazione In Between Art Film, SpazioA Pistoia, and Lo schermo dell’arte
Congratulations to Ali Cherri, whose film “The Watchman” (2023), which we commissioned and produced on the occasion of his solo show “Dreamless Night at @gamec_bergamo and @fracbretagne, is on view at @boursedecommerce until March 8, 2025
The screening is a prelude to the museum’s forthcoming exhibition “Corps et âmes,” which is curated by @jmg.jmg
“The Watchman” is centered around the figure of a soldier whose job is to guard the border of the unrecognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. This soldier, like many others before him, spends his prolonged and dull shifts perched on a watchtower looking out for “the enemy,” who may or may not arrive down the hills of the recognized Republic of Cyprus under Greek-Cypriot rule. The stagnating landscape traps the protagonist in a physical and metaphorical threshold where the edges between alertness and sleepiness, reality and imagination are constantly trespassed until his fantasies and reveries take over and unleash unexpected events. Through a speculative fictional approach typical of Cherri’s filmic practice, the film continues the artist’s critical investigation into conflicts of acknowledgment, the inheritance of historical trauma, and the radical potential of the imagination.
More info via the link in bio
“The Watchman” was co-produced by @thevegafoundation and @KinoElektron. The film received additional support from Galerie Imane Farès, Robert Matta - Fondation RAM, Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, and Frac Bretagne
Credit: @ali.cherri, “The Watchman,” 2023. Video still. Courtesy of the artist; Fondazione In Between Art Film; and @imanefaresgalerie
Formafantasma’s and Joanna Piotrowska’s film “Tactile Afferents” (2023) will be presented at @stedelijkmuseum within the context of the studio’s solo exhibition OLTRE TERRA, curated by @amandapinatih, and running from February 15 - July 13, 2025
Congratulations Andrea, Simone, and Joanna!
“Tactile Afferents” is a video that focuses on the sense of touch to explore ideas around co-domestication, which is presented simultaneously as an expression of interspecies tenderness and love, and as a form of violence. The film was co-produced by Fondazione In Between Art Film on the occasion of Formafantasma’s exhibition OLTRE TERRA, which was initially commissioned by the @nasjonalmuseet in 2023 and curated by @hanne_eide
OLTRE TERRA is an ongoing, transdisciplinary investigation focused on the history, ecology, and global dynamics of the extraction and production of wool in relation to the biological evolution of sheep
The title of the exhibition comes from the etymology of the word transhumance, a combination of the Latin words trans (across, “oltre” in Italian) and humus (grounds, “terra”). Transhumant practices rely on the movement of livestock from one grazing ground to another in seasonal cycles and according to the nutrients and resources available. In the context of the exhibition, the idea of “crossing grounds” also reflects the transdisciplinary attitude that defines the show.
The exhibition is accompanied by a publication edited by @hanne_eide, Kristian Wikborg Wiese, @cellizard, Andrea Trimarchi, Simone Farresin, @gregorio.gonella, and @rebeccasophielewin, with contributions by Badger Bates, Luca Battaglini, Elena Ciani, Hamish Chandler, Vinciane Despret, Hanne Eide, Formafantasma, Tim Ingold, Ingun Klepp, @lottozero, @ewanmceoin, Michel Meuret, @patrimont_valtellina, @alessandro.rabottini, Marcelo R. Sánchez-Villagra, Kari Weil, and @exlanasheep
The book is designed by @studiojoostgrootens and @dimitrijeannottat, and published by Walther König
Images credit: Joanna Piotrowska and Formafantasma, Tactile Afferents, 2023, stills. ©️ Joanna Piotrowska, Fondazione In Between Art Film, Formafantasma
Four works by Karimah Ashadu, Basir Mahmood, Gerard Ortín Castellví, and Janis Rafa from our Collection will be screened on February 4, 2025, at @eye_film on the occasion of the launch of “VISIO Moving Images in Europe Since the 2010s.” Congratulations Karimah, Basir, Gerard, and Janis!
The screening will be followed by a conversation between Mahmood; Leonardo Bigazzi, editor of the publication and curator at the Fondazione; and Julian Ross, head of film programming & distribution at the Eye Filmmuseum, reflecting on the past decade in artists’ moving image in Europe
About the works:
Ashadu’s “Machine Boys” (2024), which we produced for the International Exhibition at @labiennale Arte 2024 in Venice, explores the informal economy of motorcycle taxis – colloquially known as ‘Okada,’ in the mega-city of Lagos. Banned a few years ago due to the government’s inability to regulate the industry, the work portrays a hardy group of bikers who continue this illegal work, seeking to attain financial autonomy and independence. For this work, Ashadu received the Silver Lion for a Promising Young Artist
Mahmood’s “Sunsets, Everyday” (2020), which we commissioned and produced on the occasion of the project “Mascarilla 19 – Codes of Domestic Violence,” studies domestic violence through codes of gesture and body language. The film received the Ammodo Tiger Short Award from @iffr 2021
Ortín Castellví’s “Bliss Point” (2024, Dutch premiere), which we co-produced with @schermodellarte, explores the operations of food supply and advertising in the age of automation and AI-managed warehouses
Rafa’s “Lacerate” (2020), which we also commissioned and produced on the occasion of “Mascarilla 19 – Codes of Domestic Violence,” reflects on the subject of domestic and gender violence by portraying the extreme decision of a woman who turns from victim into executioner
Ashadu, Mahmood, Ortín Castellví, and Rafa are four Europe-based artists who participated in the VISIO programme over the last ten years
Image courtesy of the artists, Fondazione In Between Art Film, and Lo schermo dell’arte