Photograph by Francesco Allegretto
T Fondaco dei Tedeschi
Greetings from Venice – Elisabetta
Di Maggio
On show in the DFS luxury lifestyle
department store, T Fondaco dei Tedeschi, Event’s Pavilion, until November
28, Elisabetta Di Maggio’s
exhibition Greetings from Venice,
curated by Chiara Bertola.
Appropriately in the building that used to house the old Post Office, the
artist inspired by the magnificent mosaics of the Basilica di San Marco created a site-specific project entirely made
with stamps.
Elisabetta Di Maggio
“Here the artist is turning
the concept of site-specific art upside down and, instead of removing layers to unveil the stratigraphy of time,
as she did at the Querini Stampalia, (in a previous exhibition), she is adding
a layer to the architectural structure to the building, in order to reconstruct
and restore the memory of the past. She is playing with time backwards creating
a fictitious archeological site where an imaginary floor has been discovered,
born in the interstices of the space.
The floor does not support anything but that, like all her work, is
troubling, disturbing, and bewildering while reawakening memories.”
Chiara Bertola
curator
“Keeping in mind the
designs on the floors of the Basilica di
San Marco, the artist has created a mosaic in the spaces at the Fondaco, where instead of traditional
glass or stone tesserae, 100,000 postage stamps have been used laid one next to
the other, outlining unexpected harmonies of color. The result is an endless
and unimaginable visionary design, which brings together ancient knowledge and
a reflection on the concept of contemporary time.”
Chiara Bertola
Greetings from Venice
– Elisabetta Di Maggio
"The stamps utilized by the artist
are all used, they have traveled and now they are recomposed in a different
geography, giving rise to a network made up of fragments of life and stories
conveyed by the letters to which they were attached. Furthermore, the tesserae
are finished objects in themselves, micro-worlds that represent the country to
which they belong, putting the very best on display to be shown-off around the
world."