The exhibit 'Electronic Renaissance' on the work of New York-based international video artist Bill Viola opened this week at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence.
The show, which runs through July 23, is curated by his wife Kira Perov and the director of the foundation Arturo Galansino.
Viola's videos are showcased on huge screens hung on Palazzo Strozzi's walls and ceilings or at the center of darkened rooms to focus on the human body and life as it is symbolically cancelled by fire or submerged by water.
In the video The Crossing opening the show, a man is slowly burnt by flames on part of a giant screen while on the other he is destroyed by a storm.
In Catherine's Room, five small screens show the symbolic division in rooms of someone's life while Inverted Birth focuses on the immersion of a human being in the 'basic' elements of existence before recovering an 'original purity'.
The exhibit includes many video works inspired by great Renaissance classics showcased in the same room to establish some sort of physical contact.
The Greeting re-enacts Pontormo's Visitation, while Emergence establishes a dialogue with Masolino's Christ in his Pietà.
The Deluge, a long video that portrays passersby in front of a house before they are swept away, together with their surroundings, by a massive flood, is inspired by Paolo Uccello's The Deluge.
The two screens portraying a naked elderly woman and man called 'Man searching for immortality/Woman searching for eternity 'is preceded by Lucas Cranach's Adam and Eve.
Viola, now 66, lived in Florence when he was 23 and worked at one of the first Italian centers dedicated to experimental video art, Art/Tapes 22, in Via Ricasoli.
Two videos that are part of the 'Electronic Renaissance' exhibit will also be showcased outside Palazzo Strozzi.
Observance (2002) and Acceptance (2008) will be on display at the Museo dell'Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore, Florence Cathedral, next to two symbols of the Florentine museum like Donatello's Penitent Magdalene and Michelangelo's Pietà Bandini.
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