Golden age: Fabrizio Plessi gilds Venice’s Museo Correr

Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox
Thank you for signing up to Wallpaper. You will receive a verification email shortly.
There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.
Opening this week, to coincide with the first day of the Venice film festival, the site specific work ‘L’età dell’oro' by the pioneering Italian video artist Fabrizio Plessi, fills all 15 first floor windows of the facade of the Museo Correr, which takes up the whole of the western end of Piazza San Marco.
Sponsored by the House of Dior, the piece with its title translated as ‘The Golden Age', references the Venetian gilding of Byzantine mosaics. The artist hopes it will ‘raise the temperature’ in the city, slowly awakening from the profound effects of Covid-19.
Installation sketches by Fabrizio Plessi
The 15 panels of cascading liquid gold, in which appear the text ‘PAXI TI BI' meaning ‘Peace to you' in Latin, are accompanied by the sound of water and piano music written and performed by Michael Nyman. Plessi, the 80 year old artist, born in Reggio Emilia, often uses water and fire in his work, which he refers to as ‘focal points giving energy to our lives’.
He describes ‘L’età dell’oro' containing characteristics which are ‘fluid, elastic and movable’, that are central to Venice, the city that’s been his home for decades. Piazza San Marco is ‘a symphony of stone and harmony’ and this work, taking up a whole quarter of the facade of the Piazza, is in dialog with the tower of San Marco on the eastern side. A summer electrical storm that passed through Italy earlier this week left Piazza San Marco drenched, added a pleasing infinite reflection to the photos taken the night before the opening, serving further to emphasise the water in Plessi’s work.
‘L’età dell’oro', originally scheduled for May this year, proceeds Fabrizio Plessi’s upcoming retrospective at Palazzo Ca’Pesaro, also moved forward from its autumn opening and now postponed to the spring of 2021. Venice was in total lockdown between March and May, and only from the first week of June were Italians permitted to travel between regions and International visitors welcomed back. Most of us will remember unforgettable images of the eerily empty city. The cultural life of the city is very important, for residents, Italians and international visitors. Showing resilience, museums started to reopen from early June, initially just at the weekends.
This is a Covid-19 social distancing friendly installation, visible only from outside in the square. The official ‘opening’ or switching on earlier this week included an intimate cocktail seated outside at Caffé Florian. This is reminder that Venice is alive.
INFORMATION
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox
Also known as Picky Nicky, Nick Vinson has contributed to Wallpaper* Magazine for the past 21 years. He runs Vinson&Co, a London-based bureau specialising in creative direction and interiors for the luxury goods industry. As both an expert and fan of Made in Italy, he divides his time between London and Florence and has decades of experience in the industry as a critic, curator and editor.
-
Slot Canyon Residence balances openness and seclusion in Palm Springs
Slot Canyon Residence by RIOS, set in the Las Palmas neighbourhood of Palm Springs, strikes a balance between openness and seclusion
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
‘London of the Future’ provides an optimistic window into the city of 2123
The London Society’s new monograph, ‘London of the Future’, attempts to define the role of architecture, design and planning in a far-future capital
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Dior MakeUp’s Peter Philips crafts looks inspired by design
Dior MakeUp’s creative and image director Peter Philips and photographer Charles Negre combine extravagant make-up with rare ceramics for a one-of-a-kind Wallpaper* story
By Mary Cleary Published
-
A behind-the-scenes look at the Dior Photography and Visual Arts Award for Young Talents
We travel to Arles for the Dior Photography and Visual Arts Award for Young Talents, with photographer Dexter Navy
By Mary Cleary Published
-
Art, science, and activism coalesce in ‘Thus waves come in pairs’ at Ocean Space, Venice
‘Thus waves come in pairs’, an exhibition of two new commissions at Ocean Space in Venice, features potent work by Simone Fattal, and artist duo Petrit Halilaj & Álvaro Urbano
By Will Jennings Published
-
Fondazione Prada exhibition is an ode to a vanishing Venice
At Fondazione Prada’s 18th-century Venice palazzo, group exhibition ‘Everybody Talks About the Weather’ straddles beauty and fear and probes Venice’s precarious environmental future
By Will Jennings Published
-
Alex Hartley’s eerie ode to Carlo Scarpa in Venice
Alex Hartley’s theatrical new installation ‘Closer than Before’ at Victoria Miro Venice is a haunting take on architectural destruction in Venice
By Thea Hawlin Published
-
Raffaele Salvoldi stacks hundreds of marble blocks for dazzling Milan installation
For a Milan Design Week 2023 installation, Italian artist Raffaele Salvoldi teams up with marble brand Salvatori to create architectural sculptures comprising hundreds of marble blocks
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith Published
-
Adriano Pedrosa announced as curator of the 2024 Venice Biennale
Adriano Pedrosa has been announced as the curator of the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024, becoming the first Latin American to spearhead the event
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith Published
-
Venice Biennale 2022 closing review: who, how and what on earth?
As the sun sets on the 59th Venice Art Biennale (until 27 November), we look back on an edition filled with resilience, female power and unsurprisingly, lots of surprises
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith Published
-
Bruce Nauman’s Venice mega-show is a full body experience
Focusing on the American artist's performative 'Contrapposto Studies', Bruce Nauman's show at Punta della Dogana, Venice, gives new meaning to body language – on view until 27 November 2022
By Laura May Todd Published