Nebula examines the video installations presented by 10 international artists in the exhibition with the same title, reflecting on the role of the moving image in contemporary culture.

In conjunction with Nebula—Fondazione In Between Art Film’s second exhibition at the Complesso dell’Ospedaletto in Venice, on view from April 17 to November 24, 2024—Marsilio Arte is publishing a catalogue edited by Bianca Stoppani, with Alessandro Rabottini and Leonardo Bigazzi.

The volume features original texts, archival images, and research materials. Retracing the eight “stations” of the exhibition in the same order, it also explores the process of developing and making the site-specific video installations by Basir Mahmood (b. 1985, Pakistan/Paesi Bassi), Ari Benjamin Meyers (b. 1972, USA), Christian Nyampeta, Giorgio Andreotta Calò (b. 1979, Italy), Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme (b. 1983, Cyprus/1983, USA), Cinthia Marcelle and Tiago Mata Machado (b. 1974, Brazil/1973, Brazil), Saodat Ismailova (b. 1981, Uzbekistan), and Diego Marcon (b. 1985, Italy). All of these works were commissioned and produced by Fondazione In Between Art Film, an institution founded by Beatrice Bulgari to promote the culture of the moving image and support international artists, museums, and critics who explore the dialogue between time-based media and various disciplines.

The exhibition concept centers on the phenomenon of fog as a physical and metaphorical condition in which our ability to orient ourselves visually is limited, and we must develop other sensory tools in order to grasp our surroundings. As Beatrice Bulgari explains, “Nebula is a symphony of images and sounds that fill the space, capturing the ambiguity of our times—times that often feel impenetrable and difficult to navigate.” These works are guided by the “desire to forge connections that we hope will be artistic, cultural, and human, all at the same time.”

The catalogue is an invitation to explore the political, social, and philosophical ideas that inspired each of the artists, whose visions shed light on an ongoing dialogue between past and present, determinate and indeterminate. Giacomo Bianco’s images open and close the book, showing the innumerable gradations of color in the sky of Venice.

The catalogue begins with a foreword by Beatrice Bulgari, president of Fondazione In Between Art Film, moving on to a note by Bianca Stoppani and essays by Alessandro Rabottini and Leonardo Bigazzi. The central section is rounded out by photos of the installations that retrace their sequence in the exhibition.

Like the exhibition project itself, this book marks a new step in the mission that the foundation undertook in 2022 with Penumbra, the first show in its series at the Complesso dell’Ospedaletto: to highlight the dialogue that the artists’ works establish with the hybrid, sophisticated architecture that houses them, and to continue exploring the status of the moving image in the sphere of contemporary art.
The guiding idea behind this catalogue was the attempt to capture the experience of the video installations on paper. In their note, Bianca Stoppani explains the quandaries and questions that emerged during the process, underscoring the need to solve a primary dilemma: how to reconfigure cinematic space to fit inside a book.

The publication also features texts by Karen Archey, curator of contemporary art at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; Natalie Bell, curator at the MIT List Visual Arts Center in Cambridge, MA; curator and writer Nasrin Himada; Paolo Pecere, professor of history of philosophy at Roma Tre University; critic and essayist Philippa Snow; Xiaoyu Weng, curator and former head of the Kadis Foundation’s Asia Programs in San Francisco; and Isobel Whitelegg, curator and historian specialized in Brazilian art. The concluding essay is by Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli, who oversaw the exhibition design.

The catalogue, which will be published on October 18, will be accompanied by Thick Atmospheres, a program of interdisciplinary events curated by Bianca Stoppani and organized in Venice in collaboration with Palazzo Grassi, Pinault Collection Venezia at Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi on October 17–18, 2024. It will feature several artists from the exhibition, along with curators, critics, and scholars, in an extensive calendar of talks, screenings, and performative contributions that will explore the main themes touched upon by the eight video installations and the ideas that informed both the curatorial approach of the exhibition and the architectural settings devised by 2050+ at the Complesso dell’Ospedaletto.