Televendita

Televendita is the result of an interesting – though quite unusual – performative collaboration between Baba-Ali and Alessandro Orlando, one of the most popular Italian TV salesmen. The video consists in a TV sale simulation of some of Baba-Ali’s works introduced in a commercial purpose by Alessandro Orlando as if he were dealing with any kind of merchandise. The language used is that typical of television, but a sort of discrepancy is obtained in the very moment in which it becomes a work of art.
The artist’s idea is not that to criticize TV sales, but to play on the art discourse and language and to analyze the process of standardization of the interpretation and presentation of artworks in order to adapt them to a TV commercial format that can be broadcasted and received by the spectator.