In our last post, we discussed a very special exhibition of Italian Renaissance tapestries which is currently taking place at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.
However, there is actually a second unique exhibition that is being housed in that great Florentine institution at the moment which is really rather different. In fact, one could say that it is the opposite.
While the tapestries represent the pinnacle of craft and design of the past and the work of European Old Masters, this new exhibit is characterised by an example of fine art by a great American master of the present.
Placed next to the copy of David outside the entrance to the building, is Jeff Koons' Pluto and Proserpina. Be quick to find a villa with internet in Florence so you can see this contemporary masterpiece in the unexpected surroundings of the epitome of the Italian Renaissance!
However, there is actually a second unique exhibition that is being housed in that great Florentine institution at the moment which is really rather different. In fact, one could say that it is the opposite.
While the tapestries represent the pinnacle of craft and design of the past and the work of European Old Masters, this new exhibit is characterised by an example of fine art by a great American master of the present.
Placed next to the copy of David outside the entrance to the building, is Jeff Koons' Pluto and Proserpina. Be quick to find a villa with internet in Florence so you can see this contemporary masterpiece in the unexpected surroundings of the epitome of the Italian Renaissance!
For the first time in 500 years, a large statue has been placed outside of the Palazzo Vecchio. With Renaissance palaces surrounding, the copy of David nearby and the stunning sculptures of the Loggia dei Lanzi within sight, this very contemporary work enters into a dialogue with the past. It is obviously not of the past but, at the same time, shows an awareness of what has come before. Three meters tall and made of stainless steel in a polished gold chrome, it is physically differentiated from its surroundings as being made of something that was only possible to produce in recent decades. However, it also physically echoes the past with a likeness which is not dissimilar to that of the Rape of the Sabine Women by Giambologna (in the nearby Loggia dei Lanzi) and with the Genius of Victory by Michelangelo (in the Salone dei Cinquecento).
Inside the Palace, in the Sala dei Gigli (or “Hall of the Lilies”) there is another work by Koons, the Gazing Ball (Barberini Faun) which is part of a series of sculptures made of plaster casts after famous Greek-Roman statues. To this, Koons has added a mirror ball placed in a precarious position, transforming it into something new, mirroring the past and distorting it so that we look again. The mirrored ball throws the gaze of the viewer back at themselves and away from the object in question, involving us in the work and discouraging passive consumption of art.
Koons, who was given the keys to the city of Florence, is one of the artists involved in the project “In Florence”, an ambitious program that will see today’s principal artists dealing with the spaces and works of the Renaissance. The exhibition explores the relationship between the provoking beauty of the works by the brilliant American artist and timeless masterpieces. It highlights change and progression in art but also underlines similarities; as Koons references works of the past that surround, so, too, did those artists, who copied from antiquity and predecessors.
Koons, who was given the keys to the city of Florence, is one of the artists involved in the project “In Florence”, an ambitious program that will see today’s principal artists dealing with the spaces and works of the Renaissance. The exhibition explores the relationship between the provoking beauty of the works by the brilliant American artist and timeless masterpieces. It highlights change and progression in art but also underlines similarities; as Koons references works of the past that surround, so, too, did those artists, who copied from antiquity and predecessors.
Photo credits
Picture 1: Jameson Fink / CC BY 2.0;
Picture 2: David Shankbone / CC BY 3.0
Picture 1: Jameson Fink / CC BY 2.0;
Picture 2: David Shankbone / CC BY 3.0
