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Play, the art in the video game, the video game in the art

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Play, the art in the video game, the video game in the art

Play – Videogame Art and Beyond it’s not the usual video game show. First of all, because it is set up in the spaces of the Venaria Reale, just outside Turin, and therefore the works exhibited inside interact with the external environment: glimpses of roofs, architectural details, perspectives of the splendid garden. Then because, even if we wanted to consider it a traditional art exhibition, it presents about twenty paintings, lithographs, canvases of good value, on loan from other museums or private collections. And above all because, for once, he puts together video games and art without having to apologize to either one or the other.

In the twelve rooms of the exhibition set up by the architect Diego Giachello of the Officina delle Idee, the spirit is not the typically American spirit of the exaltation of all that is contemporary, of a history without a past: it is rather that of a finally peaceful coexistence between forms of expression for separate if not opposed decades. This is clearly understood at the end of the exhibition path, where the social penetration of video games is reconstructed: confined to the gaming rooms at the beginning, then destined for the teenagers’ rooms (the PlayStation present shows that we are in 1994, but we could go back to Pong), and finally at the center of family entertainment, with an Xbox towering beside the TV in an ideal middle-class living room, whatever that means in 2022.

The speech is perhaps even more interesting from the point of view of age: who was 18 in 1994 today is 46, and if you work in the artistic-cultural field it will hardly need to be convinced that video games can be an art form. He knows it from having lived it firsthand: and basically Play retraces the stages of a cultural education that is that of the curator Fabio Viola (who is 47 years old), game designer, teacher, essayist, but also – necessarily – of Guido Curto (born in 1955), director of the Consortium of Royal Savoy Residences , which comes from classical studies.

The story is therefore personal, but in the sense that everyone can find in Play a piece of its cultural identity, which is reflected in Fifain shooters, or in more contemplative titles like in The Last of Us, one of the many video games that address gender issues. Indeed, an entire section is dedicated to identity (and not just gender), which illustrates how players see themselves as the protagonists of their videogame adventures. Like this Play it is a reflection on how much and how video games are part of today’s culture and life, aimed both at the shrewd visitor and at the tourist who comes to Venaria to admire the Diana Gallery.

Robbie Cooper, Jason Rowe - Rurauni Kenshin, giclee print, 2003.  Courtesy l’artista.

Robbie Cooper, Jason Rowe – Rurauni Kenshingiclee print, 2003. Courtesy l’artista.

The first level of reading, the most obvious, is the relationship with art (the section is in fact entitled Art Play): there is Kandinskij next to screenshots of Reztwo De Chirico side by side a Icoseveral Piranesi juxtaposed a Monument ValleyFrank Underwood’s favorite game in House Of Cards. The choice is interesting, because the title is admittedly inspired by Escher, but the difficulty of finding the original works has prompted the curators to look further back in time, opening a further level of reading. The parallelism between Calder and Gris, but also in this case it would have been possible to broaden the gaze (to Mirò, for example). And Hokousai is a clear inspiration for the visual language of Eyesvideo game for PlayStation that tells the struggle between good and evil in an idealized Japanese Middle Ages: it was released 172 years later The Great Wave.

On the left, Giorgio de Chirico, Mystery and melancholy of a street, girl with a circle, 1948, oil on canvas.  Rome, Carlo Bilotti Museum - Villa Borghese Orangery.  Right, Team Ico, Ico, 2001, action adventure game.  Pisa, Fabio Viola Collection

On the left, Giorgio de Chirico, Mystery and melancholy of a street, girl with a circle, 1948, oil on canvas / oil on canvas. Rome, Carlo Bilotti Museum – Villa Borghese Orangery. Right, Team Ico, Ico2001, action adventure game. Pisa, Fabio Viola Collection

The exhibition also explores the reverse path, that is art that is inspired by video games, and does so in a section entitled Play Art. The boundaries are more blurred this time, also because the means of expression is sometimes the same, as in Free to Play by Tabor Orbak, built as a hypertrophic Candy Crash Saga. Everything about pixels is also The Night Journey by Bill Viola, where the viewer (who is a player here) can get lost and find themselves in the dreamlike images of the American video art master. After previews in various museums around the world, since 2018 it is a game for PS4, PC and Mac; a work of art that can be had for as little as $ 9.99.

Bill Viola, The Night Journey, 2007-2018, bozzetto

Bill Viola, The Night Journey2007-2018, sketch

Video games are an expression of pop culture, global and interactive works of art that reach half the world: it is estimated that the players globally are over 3 billion. So obviously there is room for Andy Warhol and his tireless transfiguration of the banal into art, starting with flowers drawn in 8 bit with the Amiga computer.

Sometimes the digital comes off the screens, as with Banksy (apocryphal, but what does) where the pitcher does not have a bunch of flowers in his hand but the Pokémon ball. And again: alien warriors of Half-Life which become golden statues by the Russian collective AES + F, in a whirlwind of quotes, from Jeff Koons to Donatello’s David. Finally, to close the circle, there is the rediscovery of Walter Benjamin’s aura, with the Nft of the Italian Federico Clapis (Digital Growth Flooded), which seems to be taken from Death Stranding. It is a unique work, despite being entirely digital, and therefore by definition replicable in infinite copies identical to the original. Just like video games.

Among the many perspectives that Play analyzes there is that of videogames as a profession. The dedicated room is a bit of a symmetrical reflection of the initial one, but here the mythology of Super Mario, Lara Croft, Ezio Auditore, Nathan Drake is analyzed behind the scenes: entire computers are exhibited with clips and rehearsals, scripts, soundtracks, tables, to show how complicated and fascinating is the process from which video games are born. And to give a name and a face to their authors, as is done for artists.

During the weekend, the facade of the Reggia di Venaria turns into a huge monitor for a game open to all

During the weekend, the facade of the Reggia di Venaria turns into a huge monitor for a game open to all

Play (open until January 25, 2023) is part of a series of events in the year that the Reggia di Venaria dedicated to the game, which is also told by other exhibitions, such as the one dedicated to photography or the one that illustrates the world of traveling artists , with the spiritual guide of Arturo Brachetti. And if in Italian the connection seems bizarre, in English play, as well as for “play”, it stands for “theatrical performance”, as well as for “playing”. On weekends you can really play: a large digital keyboard in the courtyard allows everyone to interact with a pop-electronic soundtrack combined with light effects, transforming the facade of the eighteenth-century building into a gigantic monitor where the shapes and colors of the most unlikely of video games.

The event

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