Pezzi di Pace
Felice Limosani
Curated by Sonia Zampini
Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni
Firenze, Piazza Santa Trinita 1
september 22, 2023 – january 28, 2024
opening, Thursday, Sept. 21, 5-7 p.m.
press release
Pezzi di Pace is the site-specific installation created by Felice Limosani for the courtyard of Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni, in the historic heart of Florence. A project curated by Sonia Zampini director of the Roberto Casamonti Collection, visible to the public from September 22, 2023 to January 28, 2024.
In the Renaissance courtyard of the palace, enclosed by the perfect geometries of its architectural lines, an obelisk will rise up to the height of the first arches, pointing skyward, suspended above a sheet of water. The surface of the obelisk, made of a highly technological steel sheet, will reflect everything around it, slowly changing perspective, thanks to its rotating movement. Felice Limosani, an artist who makes multidisciplinary training his strength, conceived Pezzi di Pace commissioned by Roberto Casamonti, a work where every conceptual and physical limitation is thinned in favor of a visual harmony that integrates and makes all the elements involved converse and tune; a metaphysical work that creates a magnetic relationship and total adhesion with the viewer, physically welcoming him in a solemn ideal canon. Limosani invites us to reflect on the present moment, on the collective desire for Peace, a coveted but constantly unfulfilled condition due to the inability to quell conflicts, the denial of rights, due to religious and ethnic tensions, and environmental disasters. Pezzi di Pace, in the author’s intention, is a sign, it has nothing political, we are all called to contribute a piece to peace through culture, knowledge, education, kindness, mutual respect, values fundamental to its realization and art is a means. Not surprisingly, the artist, has chosen an ancient form, for this narrative, a form that traces History, as when Rome’s army occupied Egypt and took away the obelisk of Heliopolis, dear to the Egyptians, as Sonia Zampini well describes in the critical essay accompanying the exhibition. In that case, something was taken away that, in addition to bearing witness to the conquest, represented the cultural identity of that place with all the implications related to the mythological symbolism it represented. Pezzi di Pace is an ideal conjunction between heaven and earth, between the human dimension and the place of ideas; it is a desire to complete and balance opposites: us and the world, us and others.
“I conceived the work Pezzi di Pace,” Felice Limosani declares, “as an installation that, starting from aesthetic experience, makes use of poetic, symbolic and metaphorical references.The obelisk is not only a memorial, whose etymology leads back to the Latin verb monere (to remember), but in this case it is meant to be a peremptory and assertive symbol. It stands in space as a visual annotation that without rooting itself in the earth is suspended over a body of water. Its static as much as ecstatic condition represents the balance between concreteness and dream. The rotation alludes to the continuous and evolutionary process of life, mixing reflections and perspectives, truth and perception. Simultaneously, steel, speaks to us of strength and endurance, universal values that determine the growth and development of every living condition. In the polished and mirrored surface of the work, reality is reflected and with it also the wish for peace, as a condition that persists, always in place, underlying in our consciences and gestures.”
“I went to visit Felice Limosani at his studio,” says Roberto Casamonti. “I found in his works a great technique and skill but also a great visionariness imbued with thought and poetry. I consider Limosani a very good artist, a true artist, and it is my intention to represent him in all respects in the art world.
I was very fascinated by the project that Felice and Sonia, director of the Collection, came up with together for Palazzo Bartolini Salimbeni. The obelisk is a symbol, full of history, perfect for this place, it has an almost hypnotic power. Pezzi di Pace is an evocative title, in such a dark historical period, dominated by wars, environmental disasters and social injustices. I would like, with this work, to contribute, in our own small way, to ensure that peace can be fulfilled in all its dimensions for us and for future generations.”
Limosani is unique, as Cristiano Seganfreddo, editor of the contemporary art magazine Flash Art, points out in the fine text in the catalog. His language is indefinable, impossible to pigeonhole him, but his poetics are capable of arousing a sense of awe that goes beyond place and time.
A book, Forma Edizioni, on the artist’s work with texts by Sonia Zampini, Felice Limosani, Cristiano Seganfreddo and Jeffrey Schnapp will be published for the occasion.
The installation will be on view until January 28, 2024, according to the days and hours the Collection is open.
FELICE LIMOSANI – Internationally recognized artist, interpreter and innovator of Digital Humanities, expert in expressive vanguards and emerging languages. He works with the idea of integrating humanities and digital technologies through art and design to create in the form of synaesthetic experiences, new levels of perception, knowledge and expanded culture.
Based in Florence, his multidisciplinary studio operates with the legal status of a Benefit Society to develop novel models of cultural heritage enhancement, including supporting social, educational and environmental contexts. His work ranges from art installations, construction of physical and virtual immersive environments to curating commissioned corporate projects.
A researcher committed to connecting aesthetic and sensory languages with advanced interfaces, he lectures at universities and study centers, placing the human factor at the center of social, technological and cultural innovations. He has been a member of the scientific committee of Fondazione Matera Capitale della Cultura Europea 2019 and Fondazione Venezia Museo Multimediale M9. He curated the exhibition “Planet EXPO 2015 know, taste, enjoy” for the Milan Triennale.
Harvard University acquired in the digital collections section, his work Dante,The Eternal Poet, for safekeeping and dissemination in perpetuity.
He has created commissioned works exhibited at:
Louvre Paris, Miami Art Basel, Italian Cultural Institute New York, Opera di Santa Croce Florence – Pazzi Chapel, The White Chapel Gallery London, Palazzo Strozzi and Palazzo Vecchio Florence, Galleria dell’Accademia Florence, Accademia di Francia Rome, Triennale Milan, Mies Van der Rohe Pavilion Barcelona.
An expert in visual culture and multidisciplinary languages, he has given lectures and seminars for Stanford University, Central Saint Martins – IUAV University Venice, University of the Arts London, Ecal Ecole Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne, YPO Presidents Organization, Domus Academy Milan, Ca’ Foscari Venice, La Sapienza Rome, Istituto Marangoni Milan, NABA Milan.
The essay “Italo Globali” (Lupetti 2014), placed him among the leading Italian innovators appreciated in the world. www.felicelimosani.com
Roberto Casamonti Collection
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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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