How Long Is “Maria Fotografia”?

The film begins with a photo shoot, shown in a sequence of often frontal views and counterviews, in which Michelangelo Pistoletto photographs Maria Pioppi, encouraging her to assume different poses and to interact with various objects. The negatives of the photographs gradually appear over the flow of images. The images once hung on the walls, are subjected to a series of bizarre performative actions by a group of young people, as if at an opening (including the artist Ugo Nespolo and the filmmakers Renato Ferraro and Gioachino Nichot), who then shift into a dance with playful and erotic overtones. Two versions of the film exist, one developed positive and one negative. —Tate Modern.