Videoart Yearbook Returns to Bologna with Four Established Artists

The 12th edition of Videoart Yearbook, the Italian video art annual, will take place on Thursday, May 25, at the Aula Magna di S. Cristina in Bologna. For the second consecutive year, the selection committee—comprising Renato Barilli, Guido Bartorelli, Alessandra Borgogelli, Pasquale Fameli, Silvia Grandi, and Fabiola Naldi—has chosen to feature only four established artists rather than the usual 40. The featured artists are Filippo Berta, Rita Casdia, Christian Niccoli, and Debora Vrizzi, each receiving 20–25 minutes of projection time to showcase their work. Barilli explained that Berta and Niccoli capture unexpected events with cruelty or enigmatic wonder, Casdia excels in computer graphics rivaling animation, and Vrizzi documents anthropological research with humor. The event will also honor Lorenzo Balbi, recently appointed head of Modern and Contemporary Art at Istituzione Bologna Musei, as the 'godfather.' Balbi will discuss the role of video art at the foundation he is leaving and his plans for Mambo, which he will direct starting July 1. The annual has accumulated around 300 video works over ten editions, and Barilli noted that the restrictive format aims to allow the 'nursery' of artists to replenish, hinting at a return to broader surveys in the future.