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Archeology of the Future – Exhibit by Fabrizio Plessi

An Installation by Acclaimed Italian Artist

Fabrizio Plessi

Before the birth of light,

When all was ash, motionless and still

Before the great arousal of quartz,

When the only light was that of the sun,

Before the opaque solidity of the earth,

When all was mud and damp mire,

Before the flow of icy water,

When all was glowing basalt magma,

Before even the obstinate strength of fossils,

When all the grey stones of the earth slumbered,

That! Yes, that was the ideal moment

To dig and draw from the dark depths of time

“The archaeology of the future”.

 

LOCATION 
Embassy of Italy 
3000 Whitehaven Street NW 
Washington, DC 20008

  

For info, please contact culturale.washington@esteri.it

 

 

Biography

Fabrizio Plessi was born in 1940 in Reggio Emilia, Italy. He studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice, where he subsequently held a professorship in painting. One of Europe’s most influential video artists, Plessi has worked also in film, live performances, sculpture and installations. An early pioneer of video art, Plessi was one of the first artists to experiment with the medium in Italy. Trained as a painter, he began adding moving images to his work in the 1960s. As early as 1968, his multidisciplinary exercises concentrated on the natural elements, with water, in particular, becoming the main theme of his works. Plessi was drawn to this element for its primordial and mystical associations. In the 1980s, Plessi began to meditate on the relationship between art and technology, and between humanity and the environment, both natural and manmade. He began integrating his images of elemental forces, such as water, fire and lava, in large-scale “terrestrial” constructions of stone and wood. By capturing the elements and juxtaposing them with the artificial environment, he challenges our ideas about history, memory, and landscape. In 1987, Plessi achieved worldwide recognition when his iconic work Roma was exhibited at Documenta 8 in Kassel, Germany. Staged as a monument of the ancient Rome, the installation included stone ruins embedded with 36 video screens circling on a conveyer belt. Plessi has since created numerous site-specific installations, often tending towards the grandiose and the Baroque, and has exhibited in major galleries and institutions internationally, including multiple participations in the Venice Biennale, and an exhibition project at the Guggenheim Museum SoHo in New York. In November 2013, the Plessi Museum, dedicated exclusively to his work, opened at the Brenner Pass, the former customs duty area between Italy and Austria. In 2014, Plessi received the prestigious Premio Pascali award, and in 2015, he was invited to inaugurate the magnificent museum hall at IULM, Milan’s university of languages and communication, with the work Foresta Blue, an adaptation of his Foresta Sospesa, a concept he had developed in 1999 and again in 2012. In 2016, Fabrizio Plessi created Under Water, a video installation he conceived for the pavilion of Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venice. This impressive yet minimalistic production features large screens displaying glowing fragments of a splendid gold and black Byzantine floor mosaic, and moving in a wavelike motion to the notes of a composition arranged by British composer Michael Nyman. In 2017, Fabrizio Plessi conceived Fenix DNA, an experimental work between video installation, light art, conceptualism and performance created for Teatro La Fenice in Venice.

 

 EXHIBIT – VISIT INSTRUCTIONS:
 

ON VIEW – BY APPOINTMENT ONLY – UNTIL OCTOBER 13, 2017

(Monday to Friday from 10am-12noon/2pm-4pm)

TO MAKE AN APPOINTMENT: email reservations requests at iicwashington@esteri.it

When you email your reservation request, please provide the following:

  1. date
  2. time
  3. name of each guest 

PLEASE NOTE: the date and time you request may not be available. You will receive a confirmation email. Not open on weekends or holidays. 

PHOTO ID & VISIT CONFIRMATION REQUIRED

 

  • Organizzato da: Embassy of Italy, IIC Washington