The Fourth Encounter in Motovun (1976): A Platform for Experimentation for Early Video Art

In Summer 1976 the Fourth Susret u Motovun (Encounter in Motovun) took place. As part of the festival, it was organised a video encounter - dedicated to the theme of ‘Identity’ (Identitet=identità) - that turned out to be a key event for the experimentation of the medium that at the time was relatively new and not still widely available in many regions in Europe. The encounter was organised by the Ethnographic Museum of Istria, Pisino, the Contemporary Art Gallery in Zagreb, the Likovna Gallery in Motovun and by Galleria del Cavallino (Cavallino Gallery) - directed at the time by Paolo and Gabriella Cardazzo - from Venice. On that occasion, they were produced more than twenty video artworks with Italian and Yugoslav artists including Sanja Iveković, Živa Kraus, Zdravko Milić, Dalibor Martinis, Goran Trbuljak, Michele Sambin, Luigi Viola and Claudio Ambrosini. This chapter gives an overview of the fruitful relationships developed between Italy and Yugoslavia in the field of video and analyses the importance of the Motovun encounter in the development of the medium in Europe.