A Divided Self — Video Artworks from Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation

Recontemporary is pleased to confirm its annual exhibition program, which every September offers an in-depth focus on some of the most significant Italian and international video collections. The initiative was created with the aim of exploring the multiple dimensions of video language, analyzing current trends in the contemporary art market through the discerning eye of one or more collectors.

Last year, the project debuted with the Seven Gravity Collection; this year we are excited to present A Divided Self, a selection of works from the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Collection, on the occasion of the Foundation’s thirtieth anniversary.

The exhibition, opening on September 3, brings together a core group of video works from the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Collection that share similar approaches to representing subjectivity through the moving image. In the works of Cerith Wyn Evans, Douglas Gordon, Babette Mangolte, Kelly Nipper, João Onofre, Diego Perrone, and Paul Pfeiffer, certain affinities emerge in the strategies for staging the self. The artists featured in the exhibition place the subject at the center, focusing attention on the relationship between reality and representation, the performative dimension of the body, or the theme of the double, at times employing techniques of estrangement.

The exhibition is made possible with the support of Fondazione CRT as part of the “Immagini e Prospettive” initiative.

Many of the works on display were created between the 1990s and the early 2000s, a historical moment when digital recording devices became available on the market and turned into mass-consumer goods. This aspect resonates in the selected works, as in many cases they consist of very simple recordings, often without any editing, whose strength lies instead in the meaning triggered by the situations and subjects represented, or by the way the images are installed within the space.

Certain recurring themes create a dialogue between groups of works, following multiple trajectories: the dimension of spectacle is present in the works of Mangolte, Perrone, and Onofre, while in Gordon and Pfeiffer the theme of the double dominates; in Nipper and, again, in Mangolte, the dancing body takes center stage. Evans’ work, on the other hand, recalls the tradition of portraiture: the figure of Pier Paolo Pasolini is evoked through a quotation from his Oedipus Rex, inscribed on a palisade and then left to burn for a few fleeting seconds.

Within Recontemporary’s exhibition space, some works will be accessible for the entire duration of the show; the videos by Mangolte, Nipper, Onofre, and Perrone, however, will each be screened for one week.