At the Poggiali Gallery in Florence, Fabio Viale's solo exhibition, Acqua alta High tide

A solo exhibition Acqua alta High tide by Piedmontese artist Fabio Viale is on view at the Poggiali Gallery in Florence until October 11, 2020. On this occasion the latter is presenting two different installations, one for each venue.

The spaces on Via della Scala will display sculptures that Viale created specifically for the Venice Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale. Entitled Le bricole, these are twelve stone monoliths that reproduce to actual size the oak or chestnut poles three meters and more high that surface in the lagoon. These poles, called bricole precisely, serve as signals for navigation.

TheFlorentine set-up is reminiscent of the Venetian one: in the Pavilion at the Giardini, the original landscape was evoked by a multisensory installation that immersed visitors in a realistic environment, thanks to the floor immersed in a carpet of shallow water and the fog made of slightly opaque plastic sheets. In the Florentine spaces, Viale placed a layer of wet sand and stained the gallery walls with a muddy color that mimics the water line, as if the space were actually flooded.

In the space on Benedetta Street, the artist spilled quintals of crushed stone, marble debris directly taken from the ravines. Among the formless mass of debris emerged severed statues, shattered pieces of marble vases, limbs and heads of stone worked by time and fall. The Three Graces have been shredded; a picturesque figure, a turbaned Moor, appears restored to the crude stage of boulder; a graceful Apollo is without arms, legs and head; a molossus is returned to nature as a river stone.

The landscape may remind us of the tragedy of becoming that reduces everything to dust.

For info: www.galleriapoggiali.com

Hours: Daily 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 3 to 7 p.m. Sundays by appointment.

Free admission.

Pictured is the layout of the space on Via Benedetta.

At the Poggiali Gallery in Florence, Fabio Viale's solo exhibition, Acqua alta High tide

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