Plessi in Venice, Canal Grande’s water becomes art
Water is actually one of the most characteristic features in his works. That’s why Venice, the city of water, will host “Plessi in Venice”, a major projectdevoted entirely to this natural element and interpreted by Fabrizio Plessi, one of Italy’s most highly acknowledged and esteemed maestros at international level. Since 1968, water is an element that has been guiding many of his creations, whatever form they take being them installations, films, videos or performances. Plessi in Venice comprises two distinct sections, both curated by Marco Tonelli.
The first one is the exhibition “Plessi. Liquid Life. The flow of memory. 1000 projects”, organized by the Veneto Museum Hub partnering with Fondazione Alberto Peruzzo, with the patronage of Expo 2015 and of the Italian Pavilion at Expo 2015, taking place from 6 May to 22 November 2015 in Giorgio Franchetti Gallery at Ca’ d’Oro, a highly evocative building and a historical landmark on the Grand Canal in Venice. For the exhibition in Ca’ d’Oro, Plessi has devised a video installation with screens set into tables that broadcast images of an “electronic flow” of water, ideally representing the flow of thoughts of his entire creative life.
The other event, organized by Fondazione Alberto Peruzzo with the patronage of the Veneto Regional Council, is held on the same dates in Tesa 94 in Venice Arsenal, and comprises a major installation entitled “Plessi. Liquid light”, which for the first time in forty years does not present any trace of monitors or plasma screens, but just a tenuous, mysterious light blue luminescence, reminiscent of the blue glow on a TV screen, that shines out of the keels of fourteen overturned boats, the traditional Balearic islands’ boats, called llaüt, which are used for trawl fishing, and the background accompaniment of the sound of lapping waves.
Fabrizio Plessihas held more than 500 one-man shows, from the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Guggenheim in New York to the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art and the Guggenheim in Bilbao. In the last years of his career, in 2013, the Plessi Museum was inaugurated on the Brenner Pass, home to a permanent exhibition devoted to his art and the first case of a museum space on an Italian motorway. In 2104, he was awarded with the Pino Pascali Prize.
Plessi. Liquid Life
The flow of memory. 1000 projects
Venice, Giorgio Franchetti Gallery at Ca’ d’Oro
6 May – 22 November 2015
