Although the main theme of this outstanding exhibition in the Rotonda della Besana, in Milan, is nomadism - not only geographical nomadism but cultural nomadism, which, according to Francesco Bonami, the curator of "You-We+Ablo", has transformed modern societies into hybrids - it is the power that video has attained as an artistic medium that is its real underlying theme. The decision of the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo to use video alone to deal with so many different aspects of modern society is a move in this direction; it has been supported in this by the acquisition of works that specifically show this imaginary journey through cultures, making them available to the Milan public. As Bonami says, "An exhibition simply of videos is more effective than one where you mix different art forms, because videos require you to spend time watching them and cross in your mind a threshold of vision and hearing. It's like what happens when you are in the theatre or at the cinema."

The exhibition demonstrates his ideas by exploring multiculturalism and nomadism. It is organised into two complementary parts, an ideal point of departure for the subject. The fifteen large video installations that follow each other around the edge of the room were created by mainly non-Western artists. They focus on different stories, the products of widely divergent cultures and customs, allowing the artists to explore a universe that is so many-sided. This journey by stages around the world leads us on to the heart of the exhibition, and the centre of the space: the project Ablo, a collage of ten three minute video-portraits curated by Roberta Lombardi. Ten Italian artists were specially commissioned for the work (Dafne Boggeri, Gianluca and Massimiliano De Serio, Riccardo Giacconi, Sabina Grasso, Antonio Guiotto, Domenico Mangano, Patrizia Montani, Maria Domenica Rapicavoli, Patrizio Di Massimo and Diego Marcon).

The subject of the videos is Abdoul Kader Traore ("Ablo" in the work), a musician from Burkina Faso who lives in Milan and plays in the multi-ethnic orchestra based in Via Padova. The videos all tell the same story: it is the observer, and the point of view, that changes, bringing into one individual's story the richness of a multiple vision. As Bonami says, "It is like Akira Kurosawa's film Rashomon, where each of the characters tells the same story, enriching it with new meanings and overtones." Ablo is passed "from hand to hand" and his story is told through the sound of his music. This is paired with a wide range of images: a room where he teaches percussion, his hands playing the drums on Monte Stella, his lips telling his story, a tale from his homeland, a preparatory meeting for an art project, another meeting in a restaurant in Milan, and the story of a boy in his country. Ablo becomes the symbolic conclusion of the exhibition, a demonstration of how direct exchange and interaction between more individuals and cultures could develop the richness of Italian society - and how video could represent this coming together with simplicity and power. Loredana Mascheroni