Patrizio Di Massimo

9 Jul-20 Sep 2009

Overview

Oae is a new video work which takes Italy’s colonial occupation of Libya as its subject matter. Patrizio Di Massimo examines this dark chapter in his native Italy’s history by overlapping excerpts of his own footage with documentary and archive material taken fromThe Lion in the Desert, a film made in 1981 by Mustapha Akkad and censored in Italy at the time for its exposé of empire building and military atrocities. Filmed in high-definition colour on the streets of modern day Tripoli and amongst historical ruins across Libya, Di Massimo has created a complex collage that fuses past and present in an ambiguous film travel journal.