In Venice, Palazzo Cini's art leaves the museum, takes to the streets and meets the citizens with a special exhibition

While museums are still closed due to ministerial regulations and the web is filled with virtual tours, in Venice art “goes out in the streets” and meets the citizens, with the special project Palazzo Cini per le calli di Venezia conceived by Luca Massimo Barbero, director of theGiorgio Cini Foundation’s Institute of Art History.

From May 12 to June 12, 2020, the walls of the lagoon city (also unique for its pedestrianism and now back at the disposal of Venetians given the absence of tourists) will host, thanks to public posting, the dialogue between Giambattista Piranesi ’s engraving work and Gabriele Basilico’s contemporary photography. The project anticipates the theme that will also be at the center of the Piranesi Roma Basilico exhibition, soon to open at Palazzo Cini in San Vio, in partnership with Assicurazioni Generali, which supports this initiative that applies the principle of accessibility and usability of artistic assets to which the company has always been committed.

Inspired by the celebrations of the 300th anniversary of the birth of Giambattista Piranesi (Venice, 1720 - Rome, 1778), the exhibition is, according to Barbero, “a tribute to Venice, the city of culture par excellence, and to the Venetians. At a time in history when art venues are still physically inaccessible due to restrictions to combat the pandemic, art that was born to be printed such as Piranesi’s etchings and the photos of a contemporary master like Basilico, as is their natural, give themselves to the gaze of those who walk by and stop for a moment. Art again is a traveling without moving and transcends the barriers of museums to meet and inspire people even in this moment. And the labyrinthine walls of the city become an atlas for this possible journey.”

Palazzo Cini for the calli of Venice will show passers-by, until the reopening of the house-museum that was once the home of Vittorio Cini, reproductions of some of the most symbolic places in the Eternal City, represented by the combination of original prints made in the ’700 by the Venetian engraver and preserved by the Cini Foundation and views of Rome by the great Milanese photographer Gabriele Basilico, made with the same angles as the Piranesian engravings commissioned by Cini in 2010.

The same comparisons will then be on view at San Vio on the occasion of the Piranesi Roma Basilico exhibition, curated by Luca Massimo Barbero and realized thanks to the collaboration of the Gabriele Basilico Archive, along with a wider selection, of which Palazzo Cini for the calli of Venice represents a special preview. Indeed, the most important Venetian tribute to Giambattista Piranesi will show 25 original prints and 26 views of Rome by the Milanese photographer, 12 of which have never been exhibited before. Piranesi’s etchings, the subject of the dialogue with Basilico, have been selected from the integral corpus part of the graphic collections of the Cini Foundation: the Piranesi corpus constitutes one of the most relevant graphic collections preserved by a private institution, which on this occasion is offered to the gaze of the City.

For all information you can visit the official website of Palazzo Cini.

In Venice, Palazzo Cini's art leaves the museum, takes to the streets and meets the citizens with a special exhibition

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