Curated by Solange Farkas and adjunct curator Rosely Nakagawa, the brand new Deposito Dell'Arte installation, by Italian artist Fabrizio Plessi, consisted of twelve pieces gathered into a single one. It was the result of a project first made public by Plessi in 1997, in his book Progretti del Mondo (Progress of the World).
The installation was set up in large containers, or boxes, containing twelve different pieces. Each box had a meaning, a name, and an expression of its own, and the whole set was arranged in a specific sequence.
artists
Works
Curator's text
Fabrizio Plessi’s art is label resistant. His work presents, at the same time, the consistency of a classic, traditional artist and the bold, adventurous spirit of a vanguard creator. These two paths converge into a single one, hybrid and fertile, capable of transforming Plessi in a unique personality within the international artistic community.
Born in 1940, in the small town of Reggio Emilia in northern Italy, Plessi moved to Venice in the early 60’s, where he studied at the renowned Accademia delle Belle Arte. The city left him deep impressions, which have followed him throughout his career. His lifestyle as well as his particular and distinctive creative process were inspired by the tradition of Venetian adventurers like Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus. On the other hand, living for a long while close to water, the city`s characteristic element, definitely influenced his work determining a very particular concept and style.
Notwithstanding, already in 1968, Plessi begins an intense production of artistic work – installations, films, videos and performances – germinated and inspired by his constant travels around the world.
The 70`s provided the appropriate environment within the international art circuit for the acceptance of a daring and consistent work like Plessi’s. It was at that time that the Plessian language was christened. After having exhibited his work at acknowledged art forums like the Experimental Pavillion at the Venice Biennial (1970 and 1972) and public institutions such as the Palazzo dei Diamanti in Ferrara, the Stadtiche Gallery in Antwerp (1975, 1978 and 1980), and the Palace of Fine Arts in Brussels (1975 and 1983), Plessi was unmistakably crowned as one of the most revolutionary expressions in modern European art. But it was in 1982, when his complete work was exhibited at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, that he began to work focusing on the environment and the elements of nature, exploring video resources in three-dimensional structures. The relationships between illusion and reality and the representation of a liquid element – water being quintessential to his art – were intensified and amplified thanks to state-of-the-art technology, ranging from mechanics to electronic reproduction.
Plessi, nonetheless, states that his effective formation – that which he considers truly meaningful to his work – took place in the latter part of the 60’s, when the Arte Povera concept was introduced. “At the time I was extremely interested in simple materials and this new movement which, for reasons I ignore, excluded electronic media”, he says. What apparently looked contradictory – after all, electronic technology has always been associated to technical sophistication and expensive materials - did not affect Plessi. “ I have always seen electronics, television more specifically, as nothing more than a material resource, as simple and ordinary as iron, coal, straw or marble.” Therefore, the combination of water and video, synonyms of natural manner into his works. “There is a strong analogy between these two elements. Water is an ancestral, original element. Video is an element of our times, an inheritance of the technology affecting our hectic and automated lives. Although apparently so far apart, both establish an assimilative relationship, with their secret lives full of complicities. Both are mobile, fluid and stable”, explains the artist. “Deep down, technology is cold and must be warmed up with artistic and natural elements.”
There is another essential element in Plessi’s work: his drawings. They are not only essence and cornerstone of his work as they, in effect, reveal his art. All of his work initially take shape through traces perpetuated during the creative process – a ritual of fundamental importance to the artist. “The creative process begins with my travels. That is when IK take notes and write about my sensations and emotions. Later, I draw. And it is at this moment that my work begins to take shape”, he says. The final result is consequence of a very particular language which escapes conventional definitions. “My work has a very conceptual structure and has been contaminated by electronic language and the art typically produced in the 60’s and 70’s”, he says. “I use television as a creative material but I am not a videoartist, in the same way Michelangelo cannot be identified as a marbler just because he sculpted on marble. Maybe I am, as people have said, an adept of the electronic Baroque style.”
Plessi has no qualms acknowledging he has effectively trailed a unique artistic path, one he rides totally alone – a diagonal between electronic and traditional arts. “ My work is like a strong flash which lightens up a secret zone in the brain and, once the mind opens itself to this experience, it will never be the same again.”
The work Plessi presents at Videobrasil, Deposito Dell’Arte, is of historic importance to his career: it is the accomplishment of his utopian project, published last year in a book entitled World Projects. A total of twelve works combined into a single larger one which represent, according to him, “twelve travels, twelve places, twelve ideas, twelve ethnicities and only one art – contaminated by technology, but also by local expressions, cultures and materials”. Many of these works have been exhibited at other international centers and, as they are always re-created and re-assembled, each single exhibition is absolutely unique throughout the world. According to Plessi, “the work at Videobrasil shows all the possibilities a great artist can explore in South America”. The ideal location for such manifestation could not be any place other than São Paulo, a city which Plessi believes has a fascinating personality: “welcoming cosmopolitan people from different cultures and experiences.”
Deposito Dell’Arte will be installed in a large indoor environment within Sesc-Pompéia in São Paulo, distributed in twelve containers inside which each of Plessi’s 12 works will be presented. This solution was adopted by the artist in order to achieve the dark environments required to view his work, as Sesc’s installations, given the nature of their architecture and dimensions, could not be darkened. Each container has its own meaning, name and unique expression., and are all laid in a specific sequence which must be observed by the spectator.
ASSOCIAÇÃO CULTURAL VIDEOBRASIL, "12º Videobrasil": de 22 de setembro de 1998 a 11 de outubro de 1998, p. 59 e p. 61, São Paulo, SP, 1998.