Americans in Florence: Europeans in Florence

"Established in Florence in 1973 by Maria Gloria Bicocchi, art/tapes/22 was another major centre of international renown. This studio for the production and distribution of artist videotapes, had a very close connection and exchanged experiences - since its early days - with the European and U.S. art circuits. [...] In 1974 art/tapes/22 organised the travelling exhibition Americans in Florence: Europeans in Florence (it would go the United States Yugoslavia and the Netherlands) and pondered its own intentions :
We at art/tapes/22 fell that video is at the forefront of artistic concerns and its profound structural immediacy will undoubtedly launch it to a vital position in the future (in terms of a reorganization of both the art activity and communication about it). To bring our efforts to full fruition, dissemination must extend beyond the existing circuit of galleries and museums to create a open-endend system of cross-cultural exchange... By its nature, the medium of video coalesces art with several other disciplines, and functions as a catalyst for the current transformation of ideas and energies into more generalistic forms of expression". (Source : Americans in Florence: Europeans in Florence, exhibition catalogue, Long Beach Museum of art, California 1974 dans Valentini, Cominciamenti, p. 85 dans Silvia Bordini, "Memoria del video: Italia anni Settanta", Rewind Italia: Early Video Art in Italy, John Libbey, New Barnet, 2016, p. 52-54).