Fabrizio Plessi, the genius of video installations, dead at 86

On a national and international level, his participation in important exhibitions such as the Venice Biennale, Documenta in Kassel and personal exhibitions held in various museums around the world are countless: from the Center Pompidou in Paris to the Guggenheim in New York and Bilbao, from the Civic Museum of Reggio Emilia to the Scuderie del Quirinale in Rome, from the Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin to the Ivam in Valencia, from the MoCa in San Diego to the Ludwig Museum in Budapest and Koblenz, from Kestner-Gesellschaft of Hannover to the Museum of Modern Art of Mallorca, from the Kunsthistorisches of Vienna to the Mirò Foundation in Barcelona or the Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venice.

In 2011 the Venice Pavilion of the Venice Biennale reopened after years of closure with an impressive installation by Plessi entitled “Mari Verticali”. In November 2013 the Plessi Museum was inaugurated at the Brenner Pass, a work of architecture, sculpture and design that integrates perfectly with the surrounding natural landscape.

His site-specific works are evocative created for ancient and classic spaces such as the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento, the Lonja in Palma de Mallorca, the Hall of the Giants of Palazzo Te in Mantua or the Baths of Caracalla in Rome. In 2015 he represented the Belarus Pavilion for Expo Milan with a monumental electronic sculpture and in Venice the Liquid Light/Liquid life exhibition was held in the exhibition venues of the Arsenale and the Galleria G. Franchetti Ca’ d’Oro.

After having created theatrical sets for dance and theater shows such as Ex Machina, Icarus, Titanic, Romeo and Juliet, Vestire gli Ignudi, The Threepenny Opera since 1989, in 2017 Plessi created Fenix ​​”Dna” for the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, an evocative total, immersive and multisensory work of art, while in 2018 he held a solo exhibition at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow. In 2022, the installation “The seas of the world – Homage to Zaha Hadid” were inaugurated at the Torri Generali in Milan and the exhibition on her electronic scenography “Pagine di Luce” at Palazzo Collicola in Spoleto. In 2023 the Roman Brescia Archaeological Park and the Santa Giulia Museum welcomed “Plessi marries Brixia”, with a series of installations, video projections and digital environments and the Sala delle Cariatidi of Palazzo Reale in Milan hosted the large Mariverticali installation.

Between the autumn of 2023 and the beginning of 2024 Plessi was also invited to the “Pensiero Video” exhibition held at the Ragghianti Foundation in Lucca and dedicated to relating drawing to video art. In 2024 he was invited by the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei to Villa Farnesina in Rome, where after the three exhibitions dedicated to Leonardo, Raphael and Dante, Plessi represents contemporary Italian art: here he created, inspired by the Loggia of Galatea, the triptych “Bucare il mare”. Also in 2024, the Peruzzo Foundation of Padua dedicated the large exhibition “Plessi. Nero Oro” to his recent production and he was invited to the “Cyland” exhibition in the context of “CyFest 15” organized by Cyland International MediaArtLab and in the spaces of Crea-Cantieri del Contemporaneo in Venice. In autumn 2024 the Palazzo del Broletto in Como hosted “TuttoPlessi”, an exhibition project that tells a precious synthesis of the artist’s sixty-year career.

Fabrizio Plessi taught “Humanization of technologies” and “Electronic scenography” at the Kunsthochschule für Medien in Cologne, Germany for ten years.

The famous video artist also dedicated an important work for the fiftieth anniversary of the Adnkronos news agency (LOOK). In 2013, at the invitation of his publisher friend Giuseppe Marra, Plessi donated a cycle of six video works to the agency. The works were exhibited in a special exhibition at the Palazzo dell’Informazione in Rome, in Piazza Mastai. The installation combined the concept of technological art and the rapid flow of journalistic communication.

The mayor of Venice, Simone Venturini, expressed the condolences of the municipal administration and its staff for Plessi’s passing. “I lose a friend and Venice loses a pioneer, a visionary who has always had the courage to follow a personal language, without seeking easy applause – declares Mayor Venturini in a note – His works always brought light: a physical light and at the same time an idea of ​​energy, future and rebirth. Fabrizio was able to look at Venice without nostalgia, putting its history in dialogue with the contemporary, so much so that he presented our city as ‘the grammar of his artistic work’. My deepest condolences, also on behalf of the municipal administration, to Fabrizio’s family and to all those who crossed paths with his person and his poetics. We will work so that his message continues to reverberate in the works and initiatives of many other artists who will produce art following his example”. (by Paolo Martini)