Fabrizio Plessi

Fabrizio Plessi is known as one of the greatest contemporary video artists. Born in 1940 in Reggio Emilia, he studied at Venice’s Fine Arts Academy where he later held the chair in painting. Already since 1968 the artist concentrated his activity on natural elements and water in particular which, in the first years of his career became the main theme of his works,  represented in installations, films, videos and performances including the ‘70s attempts to cut a lake in two, to iron waves and to make holes on the water’s surface. In the ‘80s and ‘90s he developed a meditation on man’s relationship with the environment, integrating his water images in more “terrestrial” stone and wood constructions. He dedicates great attention to fire and melted lava as he loves the fluidity of their movements. He also questions himself over luxury. How could luxury be represented? Always fascinated by the fluidity of things, his bubbling spirit imagines a video in which melted gold flows in a slow cascade. This idea finds expression in the Luxury is slow video installation Fabrizio Plessi conceived for Maison Louis Vuitton in Canton Road, Hong Kong: a hypnotic vision of melted gold which slowly flows in a cascade from an enormous LED screen and draws inspiration from the timeless nature of luxury, evoking a sense of tranquilly in modern life’s frenzy. From the ‘80s onwards, Fabrizio Plessi has been protagonist of a series of important exhibitions: at Paris’ Centre Pompidou, New York’s Guggenheim Museum, at the Museum of Contemporary Art of San Diego,  at Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale, at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin and Biennales in Venice. His most extraordinary works space from the amazing Electronic Water Fall (2000) installations for the Sony Center in Berlin to Waterfire (2001) at the Correr Museum in Piazza San Marco, Venice. Fabrizio Plessi regularly designs scenery for ballets and operas and created the designs for the electronic stage of Luciano Pavarotti’s historic open-air concert in New York’s Central Park. Fabrizio Plessi lives and works in Venice and Mallorca.