Play

THE "PLAY" EXHIBTION

La Venaria Reale organises a great exhibition looking into video games as the “tenth form of art”performed by 3 billion #people worldwide, acknowledging its profound impacts on contemporary society.

In the year dedicated to the “game” theme, the Reggia narrates a creative industry which is still often perceived just as an #entertainment world and a mere pastime. But, is it really like that?

Video games are actually a creative bridgehead on which ideas and visions are born, meta-art in which architecture, painting, sculpture, music, performing arts, poetry, cinema, and comics cohabit creating stratified collective worlds.

Throughout the twelve Sale delle Arti exhibition rooms, digital canvases by great video game masters interact with renowned masterpieces from the past and the present, encouraging us to reflect on the new aesthtics, cultures, languages, policies and economies of the 21st century.

For the very first time you will have the chance to admire the influences of great masters of the past including De Chirico, Hokusai, Calder, Dorè, Savinio, Piranesi, Kandinsky, Warhol (along with Hellenic vases dating back to the 5th century BC) on the aesthetics of video games such as Ico, Monument Valley, Rez Infinite, Okami, Diablo IV and Apotheon.

The convergence of static imagine, animated image and interactive image is the focus of the other spaces: visitors can engage with living artists like #billviola, #invader, #caofei, #jago, #taborrobak, the #aesf collective, and #federicoclapis, who have drawn from the (video) game language to create some of their material and digital works.

Following the rooms devoted to the aesthetic and symbolic influences, video games are introduced in connection with contemporary mythology. A long storyline bonds great human stories. Video games are nothing else than the last link of a chain of testimonies which originated over 4000 years ago with the Epic of Gilgamesh, and has been running through The Iliad, the Odyssey and the Divine Comedy, all the way to recent days with Star Wars, The Matrix and Harry Potter. The two rooms dedicated to the themes of Eros and Thanatos introduce visitors to ten video games that have profoundly impacted on the life of millions of #people by using new interactive writing forms. Masterpieces such as Florence, Death Stranding, To The Moon, Life is Strange, Gone Home, League Of Legends, Warhammer 40,000: Battlesector, and The Graveyard, will deeply touch visitors.

The Sala dei Maestri (Master's Room) celebrates a selection of video game pioneers endowing them with the status of art representatives. #people who have changed the history of video game media, generating long-lasting cultural impacts on imagination. You will get the chance to sit at the desks and enjoy the company of works by visual artist Yoshitaka Amano, the iconic designer of Final Fantasy, game designer Yu Suzuki, the creator of a wealth of Sega video games, screenwriter Christian Cantamessa, author of the stories in Read Dead Redemption 2, and by Piedmont-born Andrea Pessino, the founder of American Ready at Dawn who has worked on icons including God of War, Okami and Dexter. The room is completed by one of the musicians who have marked the history of video games, Jesper Kyd, who is associated to the melodies of Assassin’s Creeed. The five masters symbolise thecomplexity of a collective industry which can require as many as over 300 creatives for making a single video game, generating fresh employement and moving 200 billion dollars every year worldwide.

Today, video games also stand as an innovative social and political hotbed. From the pacifist marches for Ucraine in The Elder Scrools Online to titles that trigger stances linked to the great themes of the 21st century: ecology, geopolitics, war, gender identity, privacy. Works such as Paper, Please, Riot, This War of Mine will be playable and will return careful consideration of the times to come.

The Play Homo Ludens room concludes the exhibition. The reconstruction of four “settings”, ranging from an early ’80s Japanese arcade to the Metaverse of the future, have the goal to recount the evolutionary timeline of video games, leading adult visitors down memory lane, and helping much younger ones to understand the video game stratigraphy, from the commercial debut to the near future. You will have the chance to play with Pacman, Street Fighter and Space Invaders arcade machines, to sit on a lounger to reexperience the era of Sony's first Playstation, and to challenge the latest Xbox console video games before putting on a visor and leaping into the future.

The Homo Ludens area will be enhanced by the collaboration with Lucca Comics & Games, which will loan original tables signed by international pop culture masters, including #jimlee and #michaelwhelan. The original works displayed in the rooms will also feature drawings for Batman, Captain Tsubasa and Superman.

Finally, visitors can enjoy time for reflexion and wonder in a selection of small panoramic rooms, with an exclusive view of the Reggia Gardens, dominated by nine intriguing questions designed to induce you to look into the themes dealt with in the exhibition from your own point of view, in a meditative transition from virtual to real.

The exhibition is curated by Fabio Viola, game designer, professor, essayist and founder of the TuoMuseo artistic collective, and by Guido Curto, director of the Consortium of Savoy Royal Residences.

THE PLAY POSTER: HIRO BY SILVIO GIORDANO

The poster representing the exhibition is a custom-designed work of art.
Hiro is the title of the work of the master's poster, created by visual artist #silviogiordano for the Play exhibition. It depicts a boy seen through a video game monitor featuring bright colours and interference glitch. Hiro is also the protagonist of cyberpunk novel “Snow Crash” by Neal Stephenson, in which the word Metaverse was coined for the very first time.

Silvio Giordano is a visual artist who creates electronic images bordering both immersive video art and artificial intelligence. This Leone d’argento for Creativity award winner is also the Creative Director of the Matera Film Festival.

LENDING MUSEUMS:

Anagni (FR), Collezione Angelo Casa, in exhibition at Pop House Gallery Bergamo, Collezione Federico Salerno
Bolzano, Collezione Maurits - www.maurits.bz
Collezione Videogame Legends

Londra – Torino, Mazzoleni
Long Beach, California, #billviola Studio and USC Game Innovation Lab Lucca, Lucca Comics & Games Powered by Lucca Crea
Mamiano di Traversetolo (PR), Fondazione Magnani Rocca
Milano, Galleria Deodato Arte
Monaco, Collezione Amedeo M. Turello - Courtesy Marco Voena Napoli, MANN, Museo Archeologico Nazionale
New York, Collection of Eleanor and Bobby Cayre
Pisa, Collezione Fabio Viola
Roma, Archivio Antonelli
Roma, Museo Carlo Bilotti – Aranciera di Villa Borghese
Torino, GAM - Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea Torino, MAO - Museo d’Arte Orientale
Torino, Museo Piemontese dell’Informatica - MuPIn
Torino, Musei Reali - Biblioteca Reale
Torino, Noire Gallery
Varese, Collezione Davide Turco

COURTESY OF THE ARTISTS:

AES + F, #yoshitakaamano, #christiancantamessa, #federicoclapis, Robbie Cooper, Cao Fey e Vitamin Creative Space and Sprüth Magers, #jesperkyd Jacobsen, #andreapessino, #yusuzuki.

ADMISSIONS AND TICKET OFFICE

Play - videogame #arte e oltre

Reggia di Venaria, Sale delle Arti From 22 July 2022 to 15 January 2023

• Full ticket: 14 euro

• Discounted: 12 euro

  Groups of at least 12, max. 25 people

• Discounted: 8 euro

  Young visitors aged 6 to 20 and University students under 26

• Schools: 4 euro per student
  Groups of at least 12, max. 25 students, free admission for 1 adult every 12 students

•  Free: Children under the age of 6
  For further information, free and discounted admissions: lavenaria.it