Fabrizio Plessi Artist Talk

12 May 2022
Fabrizio Plessi on YouTube
3:51

Fabrizio Plessi

Calling Fabrizio Plessi a video artist is wrong, said H.E. Ambassador Umberto Vattani 2015 at the opening of the Pezzi Storici exhibition in the Cadoro – Center for Art and Science in Mainz. Video films are just one tool in the Venetian-by-choice toolbox, which he uses just as much as steel, paper or fabric. Rather, the two opposing elements of water and fire are the focus of Fabrizio Plessi’s work. And the artist’s decision to settle in Venice was not insignificantly influenced by the omnipresence of water in the lagoon city.

“Water is his obsession in every imaginable dimension, in all manifestations and functions. He circles it again and again in his work, he allows himself to be challenged by it, he fears it, he plays with it, he transforms and works on it. And he always makes new, surprising suggestions on how to deal with it. He gave his work, which has been created from 1968 to the present day, the generic term Acquabiografico...”, writes Jens Christian Jensen in his catalog of the Kunsthalle zu Kiel in 1977.

But it is also true that Fabrizio Plessi can rightly be described as a pioneer of video art. After early experiments with other forms of artistic expression such as performance and alongside works in other media (such as drawings) that are still present today, video works have become just as much a trademark of Plessi as Plessi has become the face of video art. No other medium allows the depiction of the fleeting, restless, constantly changing character of water better than video. Fabrizio Plessi’s use of video in his sculptures and installations is as changeable as water. While in earlier works – such as the legendary installation Roma at Documenta 1987 – it was embedded in the context of other sculptural materials, the development of the more recent works goes hand in hand with an increasing reduction to the screen, as in the works of the Splash group or the Installation Gold featured in the new exhibition In the Change of Time at La Galleria Venezia this summer.

As part of the preparation for this exhibition, Dr. Dorothea van der Koelen met Fabrizio Plessi for an artist talk. In it, the gallery owner and the artist talk, among other things, about the inspiration for Plessi’s latest creation and the basic principles of his artistic work.

Works

Fabrizio Plessi - Omaggio a Venezia
Fabrizio Plessi
Omaggio a Venezia ‧ 2001
Video sculpture with golden mosaic and steel base
320 x 200 x 20 cm,
inv. nº 1578
Fabrizio Plessi - Splash (blue)
Fabrizio Plessi
Splash (blue) ‧ 2019
Video installation with 3 screens
variable size,
inv. nº 5711
Fabrizio Plessi - Gold
Fabrizio Plessi
Gold ‧ 2022
Video installation with 3 screens
100 x 250 cm,
inv. nº 5945

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Publications

Deutschlandreise

Fabrizio Plessi Deutschlandreise

2001 € 19.00

Traumwelt

Fabrizio Plessi Traumwelt

2004 € 38.00

Opus Video Sculpture

Fabrizio Plessi Opus Video Sculpture

1998 € 128.00

Dr.  Dorothea  van der Koelen

Gallery