The commission, which includes the critics Marco Senaldi, Marco Tonelli and the director Rosalba Branà, has motivated their choice as follows:
“Fabrizio Plessi, one of the first artists to experiment with video art in Italy between the 1960s and 1970s has always been known internationally as the creator of captivating and extraordinary video-sculptures and environmental video-installations. He has never denied his debt to Pino Pascali’s work and the element of water that has turned into a distinctive factor in Plessi’work. The Pino Pascali Award is the completion of an internationally successful career.”
As a tribute to Pascali’s art, Fabrizio Plessi has created for the Museum two majestic video-installations in which the element Water is a metaphor for purification, life, death and rebirth.
The central area of the Museum will be crossed by virtual rivers flowing on the floor, while the walls will be covered by big “waterfalls”, a clear reference to Pino Pascali’s works “Confluenze” (“Confluences”) and “Cascate” (“Waterfalls”). The impalpable energy deriving from the 40 monitors, the sound, the evasive nature of light and water colours will make the installations site-specific, a sensorial, visual and sound experience of a strong emotional impact.
“I love waves- Plessi admits – which sweep away the doldrums of our everyday life and its dullness. It is impossible to live without creating waves, it is always necessary to rock the boat.”
As a modern alchemist, he manages to have materials such as coal, wood, iron, straw and marble live harmoniously with high technology, thus creating what the artist defines as “shimmering electronics”. Technology is not the ultimate goal, rather it becomes an expressive and poetic tool. Electronics and virtuality are warm and human languages. The Kunsthochschule für Medien in Cologne has, while specifically thinking about Plessi, created the chair of “Humanization of technology”, which is exactly what the artist manages to communicate through his video-installations: meanings, knowledge, philosophy, emotions of the soul.
An eclectic artist, he has made use of media, cinema, Tv, theatre, opera, scenography and fashion. In every field he has made a unique stylistic impression. Plessi’s tribute to Pascali is passionate and felt, he received the prize after having participated at 12 Venice Biennales, exhibitions held at prestigious institutions such as the Guggenheim Museums in New York and Bilbao, at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Ludwig in Cologne and Budapest. He has also won numerous prizes among which are the Quadriennale in Rome, while in Hannover he was nominated best artist; in 2013 the Plessi Museum was inaugurated in the Brenner Pass, a rough diamond set among Bolzano’s mountains, a precious treasure chest and historical memory of an artist able to reinvent himself and constantly revitalize the international art world.
Fabrizio Plessi is represented by the Contini Gallery in Venice.
www.plessi.net
