Fabrizio Plessi: MariVerticali

Fabrizio Plessi, among the pioneers of video art, “lands” in the Sala delle Cariatidi of the Palazzo Reale in Milan, aboard giant boats, inside which a continuous stream of gold flows on television screens.
In one of the most evocative places in Milan’s history, the MariVerticali exhibition consists of twelve steel structures, nine meters high, dedicated to the seas of the planet, tilted to the edge of falling, in an attempt to maintain the fragile hold. With their precarious balance, the boats represent a metaphor for the contemporary human condition of instability, uncertainty and tension.
In the last three years, the artist has made water, his element of choice in most of his creations, undergo a transformation into gold: this metamorphosis has occurred for a series of works entitled “The Golden Age“, to which the project conceived for the archaeological area of Roman Brixia and for the Museum of Santa Giulia in Brescia, on the occasion of Bergamo Brescia Italian Capital of Culture 2023, also belongs.
On the 80th anniversary of the bombing that marked the current appearance of the Sala delle Cariatidi, the artist’s boats, stand in defense of the history and beauty of the place, against violence and destruction, just as Pablo Picasso did when, in 1953 he chose this very room of the Royal Palace to exhibit “Guernica”, one of his most painful masterpieces.