AGENDA - Italy, Arts

Fabrizio Plessi, Blu

21 April - 23 September 2012 at Contini Gallery, Venice.

Fabrizio Plessi, Blu. View of Contini Gallery.

In the space of the Contini Gallery of Art in Venice, Italy, at San Marco 2288, designs, projects and video installations of “Mari Verticali” (Venice Pavilion of the 54th Edition of the International Biennale of Art in Venice, 2011) and the projects “Llaut Light” (La Llotja, Palma di Mallorca, 2011) will be exhibited from April 21th to September 23rd 2012.

For the occasion the artist has expressly realized three “digital boats” - video sculptures - to be presented for the first time at the exhibition.

Mariverticali (Vertical Seas)
Twelve massive boats rise vertically out of the darkness, their sheer bulk invading and occupying the space around them.
Twelve of the world’s seas, each enclosed in a dark hull, churn noisily at our feet.
Twelve soundtracks merge and unfurl in the diaphanous surroundings and we can hear the lap of the undertow and the roll of distant waves.
The effect is of a grand, stirring symphony of living waters in constant movement, rushing through ceaseless, liquid transformations.
The wisdom of ancient craftsmanship and the achievements of cutting-edge technology are finally brought together in a perfect symbiosis of past and future.
All the raw power of water, the main theme and driving force behind the installation, water which bathes, washes and cleanses the shallows of our unavoidable daily lives.
Everything is ready to cast off on these new electronic arks that have been raised skywards for us; incredulous, astonishing digital natives.
Text by Fabrizio Plessi

“Llaut Light”
This exhibition of fishing boats with sound and light, created by Fabrizio Plessi for patron Maison Louis Vuitton, was held to mark the re-opening of La Llotja, a 15th Century Gothic Mediterranean merchants exchange in Palma. Fourteen traditional wooden boats were collected from around the island to create this spectacular and inspiring exhibition.

A dry stone sheep pen. Dusk.
A small, feeble lamp illuminates something beyond. Slowly , slowly
a keel covered in dust and mud emerges.
Its once reddish color faded forever becoming a sort of burned rust from the past.
The atmosphere of an archeological excavation
The moment is unrepeatable. Once again, time maintains the primitive energy
of the finding. An emotion found only
In the Valley of Kings, in Pompeii or Herculaneum.
Something created for the sea is hidden far from it.
A web of paths and Ariadne’s thread crumpled by dust.
A boat becomes architecture. Architecture becomes ruins.
Ruins become boats again.
Art by its mysterious and unpredictable path is also this: Saving history
That would otherwise be abandoned and forgotten
Underneath a blanket of indifference and ignorance.
Hundreds of llaut boats in fiberglass, white and shiny, cheerful in their
False radiance will never even compare to
A dirty, empty llaut sitting in the shadows
of a dry stone sheep pen.
Text by Fabrizio Plessi

Fabrizio Plessi born in 1940 in Reggio Emilia. He studied at the Art School and the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, where he later became the professor of painting. From 1968 he began taking an interest in the theme of water, which will become cornerstone of his work, in the form of installations, films, videotapes and performances. In 1970 his works were exhibited at the experimental Pavillion of Venice Biennale and at the next one in 1972. From here he began helding exhibitions in galleries and museums, including the Städtische Galerie, Monaco, the Internationaal Cultureel Centrum in Anvers and the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels.

In the 80s began to experiment with the video, focusing his research on the relationship between representation and reality of illusion 'liquid element, amplified in the extreme technical possibilities electronic and mechanical reproduction. Plessi In 1985 presented his first major retrospective in Italy, (the first exhibition of video installations environmental Italy), at the Rotonda della Besana in Milan. The following year he represented Italy at the XLII Venice Biennale, and creates the opportunity for one of his most significant works: the Bronx.

Since 1987, the year when he in Kassel presents a monumental art installation Rome he gained international notoriety, and from here onwards will begin to exhibit in the most prestigious exhibition spaces in the world, including the Museum of Art, Spanish Contemporary Kuntsterverein of Cologne, the Biennale in Nagoya (Japan), the Fundació Juan Miró in Barcelona, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the space in Berlin Sony to name a few. In recent years his artistic research brought him a lot in Venice, a city where the water, the central point of his artistic research, plays a dominant role.

In 2003 he created an installation called Digital Fall for Peggy Guggenheim Collection, one of the most technologically advanced sculptures in the world, with a constant air-conditioning system and a flat screen ultra bright LEDs and display Fulcolor. Finally, in 2005 creates a new version of Sea Vertical, displayed at the entrance of the Giardini della Biennale, a stele that emerges from the water of the lagoon for 44 meters in height and that will become the symbol of the Biennale itself.

Contini Gallery
San Marco, 2288
Venice 30124 Italy
Tel. +39 041 5230357
galleriavenezia2@continiarte.com
www.continiarte.com

Opening hours
Open all days
From 10:30am to 7:30pm
Free admission

Published: Friday, 20 July 2012

Author: WSI Administration