2008 – 2020
Rediscovered
2008
The rediscovery of Tambellini began at the Anthology Film Archive, New York, N.Y. with his Film and Video Retrospective presented by the Circuit Off program.
Aldo Tambellini (2020), Takahiko Iimura (2022), and Jaime Davidovich (2016) at Tambellini’s retrospective, Anthology Film Archive, New York, N.Y. Circuit Off Program Film and Video Retrospective, 2008
2009
Tambellini was asked to recreate his highly acclaimed, 1968 Electromedia performance,
Black Zero
in 2009 as part of the PERFORMA 09 by Roselee Goldberg, Director, in New York.
Black Zero
was performed using two bass players, Will Parker and Hillard Greene, Ben Morea on sound machine, Maggie Clapis as the performer, Christoph Draeger curated the show. The performance included, 800 hand-painted slides (Lumagrams), 5 films, space sound, 7 slide projectors, and 3 video projectors. It was performed in front of a full house at the White Box Gallery, New York, NY.
As Featured Artist, Tambellini’s Film and Video Retrospective took place at the Mash-Up, International Media Festival 2009, Osnabruck, Germany
2010
Tambellini’s collection of 16mm projection prints, workprints, tests, outtakes, and preservation masters of his film work from the 1960s to the late 1970s, including his Black Films series, Cathodic Works, documentaries by and about Tambellini, as well as many rolls of unedited camera original material were donated to The Harvard Film Archive.
Tambellini is awarded a Gold Medal from the Italian Government, Lucchesi Nel Mondo Association, in recognition of his lifetime achievement in the Arts.
2010
After over 40 years, Tambellini is reunited with is work.
Tambellini with his good friend and artist, Boris Lurie, at the HOWL! Festival, New York, NY, 2005
2011
With generous support and funding from Gertrude Stein, president of the Boris Lurie Art Foundation, Tambellini exhibited a retrospective at the Chelsea Museum, New York – Black Zero. The retrospective included an evening performance of Black Zero and a continuous projection of Tambellini's early works.
Tambellini and the Liberation Poetry Collective, published their second book, Liberation Poetry, An Anthology.
get the poor off the street
& ship them to nowhere oblivion
get the objectionable unsavory sight far away
dispersing with endangered species
& then forget they ever existed
there is no place for poverty
in cosmetic democracy
get the poor off the street
& let neglect & time
consume their remaining days
evaporating their existence into air
get the rich to wall street
to invest in 3rd world country cheap labor
then build cultural monuments
with deductible tax dollars
with the artists glorifying the wealthy
make the rich super-rich
to be mentors & models
of successful democracy in action
for the world to emulate
but for God's sake
get the damn poor off the street
anywhere out of here
anywhere to disperse
out of sight
from Liberation Poetry: An Anthology, March 21, 1995
Aldo Tambellini’s Black Zero performance at Tate Tanks, 2012, Photo by Gabrielle Fonseca Johnson
2012
In October 2012 Tambellini exhibited in the Tate Tanks at London’s Tate Modern. The program included two of his performance pieces, Black Zero and Moondial and an Electromedia installation. There were also screenings of his Black Film Series and other films from his 1960s era at the Tate. The installation Retracing Black is now part of Tate Modern’s permanent collection.
Aldo Tambellini’s Black Films were screened at Centre Pompidou, Paris, France in the program Back to Black. During this time, Von Archives issued the first collection of 1966-1976 Aldo Tambellini, Cathodic Works.
The Harvard Film Archive was fortunate to receive generous support in 2012 from the Avant Garde Master Grant Program of the National Film Preservation Foundation. This support enabled the creation of new 16mm preservation masters and projection prints for ten Aldo Tambellini titles. These titles include the entire Black Films Series as well as a set of Black projection performance films. The work was carried out at Cinema Arts in 2014, resulting in the production of new materials for the following titles: Black Is (1966), Black Plus X (1966), Black Trip 1 (1965), Black Trip 2 (1966), Black TV (1969), Blackout (1966), Moonblack (1965-68), Sunblack (ca. 1966), Black '67 (1967), and Black Spiral (1969).
2013
James Cohan Gallery, New York, NY, presented Italian-American artist Aldo Tambellini,
We Are the Primitives of a New Era, Paintings and Projections 1961-1989, curated by Joseph Ketner, the exhibition ran from September 12th through October 19th. This was the artist’s first New York gallery exhibition in nearly four decades.
On October 19, 2013, Tambellini introduced his remastered Black Film Series at The Museum of Modern Art as part of To Save and Project: The 11th MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation.
Tambellini was the Featured Artist at the 2013 Montreal International Film Festival with performances and screenings at the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal.
2015
Tambellini was chosen to be part of the Padiglione ITALIA at the 56th International Art Exhibition, Venice Biennale. His work, was displayed in the Arsenale Complex, included a new installation – a multi-screen projected work entitled Study of Internal Shapes and Outward Manifestations and a series of 2D illustrations entitled Memory Atlas.
2017
ZKM dedicated its first large solo exhibition to Tambellini Black Matters, in spring 2017. Paintings, videos, photographs, installations, and Lumagrams (hand-painted slides) from his most productive and versatile creative phase, as well as works not previously shown, provided an overview of Tambellini's comprehensive, multimedia oeuvre. That same year, ZKM began to digitize Tambellini’s videos, the largest collection of videos to be included at
The ZKM | Center for Art and Media.
Tambellini published, aldo tambellini,
Listen, a poetry collection.
met garcia lorca
standing under
the gigantic
dish antenna
the signal
bouncing off
the bloody moon &
back past years
into a jungle
lorca tells me
of the people
vomiting on
new york streets
while famished dogs
tear off the liver
of the homeless
living in subterranean tunnels
then I see
lorca’s skeleton
passing by silently
then I say
I know you
from the underbelly
below the brooklyn bridge
they killed you
for being a poet
from Aldo Tambellini, Listen, November 5, 1990
2017
A selection of Tambellini’s work was displayed at the Tate Modern.
Tambellini in his studio, Salem, MA, July 2018, photograph by Tony Luong
2019
Working with Blake Heo, head of Topos Studio, in Seoul, South Korea, Tambellini created,
We are the Primitives of a New Era, a VR immersive project. Based on Tambellini’s same-titled work in 1961, the project is a VR interpretation of the original project.
November 12, 2020
At the age of 90, Tambellini dies in Cambridge, MA…
Aldo Tambellini, Avant-Garde Filmmaker and Video Artist, Dies at 90
Aldo Tambellini, Experimental Filmmaker Who Considered Many Meanings of Blackness, Has Died at 90
Aldo Tambellini, experimental artist obsessed with black, dies aged 90
Aldo Tambellini (1930–2020)
Aldo Tambellini, a multimedia artist, filmmaker, and poet, dies at 90
Aldo Tambellini, a pioneer in electronic intermedia, video art, collaborative, political, and social art, a painter, sculptor, light artist, poet, and avant-garde theater and performance art “impresario” died at the age of 90, on November 12, 2020.
