Italian multimedia artist Antonio Rovaldi lives and works in Milan, where frequent long distance walks and bike rides provide an open air studio for him to contemplate landscapes, space and distance. These elements are key to his drawings, sculpture, photography, performance, and video art.
Rovaldi uses two projectors for his video installation The Opening Day (2009), a looped performance of a pitcher taking aim at mass-produced ceramics. The intangible arc of a fastball creates suspense, while surround sound and opposing screens submerge the audience in the action. The pitcher is dressed in full uniform and appears as focused as if he were on first base at a high stakes game. The viewer feels as if they are simultaneously a participant in the middle of the action and an invisible bystander on the sideline.
The pitcher reacts to either hitting or missing the ceramics, displaying a victorious open armed gesture when toppling a giant dog figure. Displayed as classical still life, the ceramics represent the traditional hierarchy of "high art" which has been shattered by moving-image work that was once considered to be outside the realm of fine art.
-Jen Schiller
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