Tag: florence

Ai Weiwei in Florence. The exhibition at Palazzo Strozzi

From 23rd September 2016 to 22nd January 2017, Palazzo Strozzi in Florence hosts Italy’s first major retrospective dedicated to Ai Weiwei, one of the world’s most celebrated and influential contemporary artists, curated by Arturo Galansino, Director General of the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi.

A dissident Chinese artist, fighting for freedom of expression, Ai Weiwei is known world-wide as much for his challenging contemporary art practice as for his political activism.

Ai Weiwei invades with his extraordinary creative freedom every space of Palazzo Strozzi: the façade, the courtyard, the Piano Nobile and the Strozzina with iconic monumental installations, sculptures and objects which are symbols of his career, and also  video works and photographic series with a strong effect.

For the first time, Palazzo Strozzi is used as a unitary exhibition space, thus creating an experience which is completely original for its visitors and allowing the Chinese artist to measure himself with a contest rich in historical solicitations and architectural sparks. A new and large installation by the artist interests two façades of the Renaissance building with twenty-two orange rescue rafts made of rubber anchored to the windows of Palazzo Strozzi: a project that draws the attention to the fate of the refugees risking their life every day to reach Europe through the Mediterranean Sea.

The centre of the courtyard is dominated by Refraction instead, a giant metallic wing made of solar panels that is motionless due to its dimensions and weight of over five tonnes. It is an evocative metaphor for the constriction and negation of freedom.

Visitors to the Palazzo will be greeted by Reframe, an architectural intervention covering the 2 main façades of the building with 22 bright orange lifeboats. A project that draws the attention to the lives of the refugees who daily risk their lives to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean Sea.

“ Hosting a retrospective of this nature in Florence means viewing the city as a modern cultural capital, not simply pegged to the vestiges of its past but able, at long last, to play an active role out in the forefront of artistic developments in our own era.” says Arturo Galansino. “The adjective ‘free’, which gives the title to the exhibition, refers to the freedom regained by Ai Weiwei in 2015, but also to his totally free and creative way in which he has used and interpreted the spaces of Palazzo Strozzi.”

www.palazzostrozzi.org

museo opera duomo firenze

Museo dell’Opera del Duomo

The Museo dell’Opera del Duomo testifies, with its rich heritage, the incredible history behind the Duomo of Florence. The present holy building began being built in the fourteenth century, while before in the same place stood the church of Santa Reparata, built around the fifth century.
This whole story is explained and exhibited in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, which is right behind the apse of Piazza del Duomo 9.
For some centuries the rooms that now house the museum were home to the Opera del Duomo, an institution that had and still has the task of providing maintenance and care of the monumental complex: statues, projects, documents, memorabilia and objects that have formed the nucleus of the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo .
After a first enlargement in preparation for the Jubilee in 2000, the exhibition space has since been expanded: now the 25 rooms cover 6,000 square meters on three floors.

The new display dramatically details the reconstruction in actual dimensions of the inferior part of the old facade of the Duomo di Firenze designed by Arnolfo di Cambio exactly as it appeared in some medieval codes. Because of these, it is now possible to admire the positions in which they were originally imagined to be, Florentine sculptures from 300-400 AD. The original doors of the Battistero, Porta del Paradiso and Porta Nord of Lorenzo Ghiberti were positioned in front. Reading the list of the names of the artists whose works are exhibited in the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo can be likened to opening a book on Art History, with names such as Michelangelo, Donatello, Arnolfo di Cambio, Lorenzo Ghiberti, Andrea Pisano, Antonio del Pollaiolo, Luca della Robbia, Andrea del Verrocchio: all great artists who were formed in Florence between the 14th and 16th centuries, who assisted in the construction of the Duomo and whose works are exhibited there today.  To protect and preserve these works from damage from pollution and weather, the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo features copies of these works on the outside: the 36 meter Galleria del Campanile di Giotto is now the home to 16 natural sized statues and 54 smaller ones that adorned the belltower.

Even though it was less known to the public than the Uffizi or Pitti museums, the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo holds its place as a place of culture. Its new design places it on par with the other principal european museums for both content and exhibition space.

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