Starting from Octobr 2nd , Francesco Vezzoli, one of the most affirmed and famous Italian contemporary artists across the world, is the protagonist with two crucial works in Florence. The works are exhibited in the most symbolic venues in the city: Piazza della Signorla e Palazzo Vecchio. The initiative is part of an itinerary that has seen famous artists as protagonists in the previous years, like Jan Fabre, Urs Fisher and Jeff Koons.
“Francesco Vezzoli in Florence” is a project made possible by Cristiana Perella e Sergio Risallti, the respective director from the Pecci Centre in Prato and a director of the Museo Novecento of Florence. Strategica group, already a technical sponsor of the exhibition “Palcoscenici Archeologici. Francesco Vezzoli” that is in progress in the Fondazione Brescia Musei, has been chosen as the insurance partner of this artists’ new project.
In the Piazza della Signorla, just a few steps from the rider monument descripting Cosimo I de’Madici, a monumental figure of a lion will be installed. It will be placed upon an ancient base, raising his paws in an aggressive manner and crushing a roman head from the II C. B.C. It is an encounter between diverse artistic epochs that has become the topic of quite a few of Vezzoli’s recent works.
The project includes second sculpture rich with iconographical, esoteric and astrological elements, positioned in the Studiolo di Frnacesco I de’ Medici a Palazzo Vecchio. Realized in the period between 1569 and 1573, it is the first time that this venue hosts a contemporary piece of art. A “metaphysical” bronze head is placed on a roman man wearing a toga, a reference to Gli Archologi of De Chirico, one of the works that best represent the presence of classicism in today's modernism.
Strategica Group’s activity, thanks to the Private and Fine Art division revolves around the leading artists, as well as corporate and private collectioners, goes form the analysis of the possible risk scenarios and application of mitigation solutions, to defining and managing a tailored coverage plan. “This case concerns a particullary complex project – explains Rosa Alba Acquaviva, director of the Private and Fine Art division of Strategica Group – are piece of arts of an immense value. They are imponent, of grand dimensions, and require a particular transportation mode. Furthermore, they are located on two different websites, one of which, Piazza della Signoria, which by its opened air culture and gathering point character, presents diverse criticalities and major risks with respect to other more protected venues, like museums and galleries”.
The complexity of the project, together with the renounced professionalism and confidentiality of the Private and Fine Art team, are the factors which have pushed the organizers into choosing Strategica Group as a partner in the artists’ new initiative.
As the curator Sergio Risallti explains, In Florence, Vezzolis arts make him the protagonist in the dialogue between the contemporary art and the historical artistic heritage. “During the last years, Vezzoli has ventured into sculpturing, contrasting antic and modern words, accompanying classical fragmented figures like the heads “stolen” from Chirico, restoring them and giving us new unsettling muses. In the daily operations, Vezzoli reserves for himself, as well as for the contemporary artist, the task of recomposing the fragments of a diminished civilization, of a unity lost. In this way he reminds us that art is always a mental element, that ready-made is now an outdated thing and that these subliminal assemblages, between the modern and the antic, hold very important testimonies.
