PLESSI
site-specific installation
facade of Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni
Florence, Via Tornabuoni (Piazza Santa Trinita,1)
september 21, 2022 – march 31, 2023
inauguration Wednesday, September 21, 7:45 p.m.
press release
From Wednesday, September 21, 2022, those walking in Florence, along the central Via Tornabuoni, will unexpectedly find themselves admiring an unprecedented video installation by Fabrizio Plessi that will animate the facade of Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni, home of the Roberto Casamonti Collection.
The project is a collaboration between the Roberto Casamonti Collection and the Uffizi Galleries and will be inaugurated on the occasion of Florence Art Week. A biennial project that, from time to time, will select an international artist to whom a site-specific work will be commissioned for the four niches at the height of the piano nobile of the facade that, in the sixteenth century (1520), housed the statues depicting the four Seasons, sculptures now dispersed, creating a direct confrontation between the ancient architectural structure and contemporary languages. The work, which will replace the ancient statues, created thanks to the Collection, will be visible for six months. The invited artist will donate his portrait to the Uffizi Galleries, thus enriching the precious Gallery of Self-Portraits.
Fabrizio Plessi, a pioneer and experimenter in technology applied to art, has chosen to depict four subjects dear to him: water, fire, gold and lightning, which are cyclically repeated in videos harmoniously inserted into the composure of the architecture of Baccio d’Agnolo’s building.
“The Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni project,” says Roberto Casamonti, “is very significant for me, as it further highlights the motivations that drove me to create my own Collection and subsequently to open it to the public: that is, the idea of sharing art, of bringing back to the streets and squares a renewed sense of aesthetics, a new vitality offered to our gaze capable of regenerating the cognitive attitude.
“The presence of water and fire together with the number of Plessi’s images recalls the four elements of classical and Renaissance natural philosophy, which in Florence inspired, among other things, the decoration of the interior of the Uffizi Tribune,” comments Eike Schmidt, “suggesting the concentration of the entire cosmos in a single room. Gold even represents an element present in the modern periodic system (the number 79). However, Plessi does not seem to be so much interested in the substantial, elemental, atomic, chemical and physical quality of the phenomena evoked as, like Leonardo da Vinci-particularly with the observations and interpretations on water viscosity and hydrodynamics contained in the Leicester Codex-their movement. A movement that opposes ours on the ground and imposes on us a pause for reflection: in the coming months, those walking along Via Tornabuoni can stop and admire the unexpected animation of the facade of Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni, and become involved in the cathartic contemplation of the four images in succession.”
“Water, fire and the storm with its flashes,” emphasizes Sonia Zampini, director of the Collection, “seem to be enclosed, like a sort of cosmic synthesis, within the ancient walls, an apologia for the passage of time and the cyclical nature of the universe. Finally, the fluid gold consecrates the visual act as a pure hierophany that lets an urban, everyday revelation shine through.”
A publication with texts by Eike Schmidt, Roberto Casamonti, Sonia Zampini and Chiara Toti will be available for the occasion.
Fabrizio Plessi was born in Reggio Emilia in 1940. He lives and works between Venice and Palma de Mallorca. He has participated in major exhibitions such as Documenta in Kassel, and in fourteen editions of the Venice Art Biennale. He has exhibited in prestigious international venues including the Guggenheim in New York, the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome, and the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. The Plessi Museum, designed by the artist as a work of architecture, sculpture and design, was inaugurated at the Brenner Pass in 2013.
Roberto Casamonti Collection
info@collezionerobertocasamonti.com
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Public opening hours: Wednesday through Sunday, 11:15 a.m. to 7 p.m., last admission 6:45 p.m.
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