Perennial Topicality

It is a virtual exhibition, connected to the main exhibition, which involved students from some of the major design schools in Florence, produced with the aim of encouraging a creative dialogue between national and international students using art as a stimulus for research.

The initiative involved forty young artists, invited to produce new works, as well as a group of nine young curators responsible for the online exhibition.

The project took place from March to June, coordinated by Prof. Walter Conti and Prof. Franco Fiesoli for the Accademia Italiana.

The professors worked with the students on the Master of Arts Graphic Design program organising the delivery of the teaching courses in parallel to the intense training activities offered by Palazzo Strozzi: thematic meetings on the main exhibition, targeted talks with artists such as Francesco Arena and Danilo Correale but also ad hoc appointments for the construction of an online platform to exhibit the works.

At the end of the project, the curatorial team together with the Education Department selected the projects for the virtual exhibition. The works of Davide Tavini and Stefano Labate were chosen for the Accademia Italiana.

The first created a digital sculpture entitled Utopian Scale, symbolic of the crystallization of the perennial flow that immortalizes a second in time.

The structure created by Davide is formed by a cylinder poised on two spherical elements representing youth and old age, respectively facing upwards and downwards. The scale does not lean on any side: not even for just a second, it maintains the balance of the interrupted time flow.

The second dealt with the theme of identity crisis of humanity in “late modernity”: the constant feeling that consists in the perpetual sensation of crisis and precariousness from the point of view of identity.

Stefano presented a series of post-produced self portraits in such a way that the colors of the images would reinforce the concept of “identity crisis” truly evocative of the feelings felt by him towards the uncertainty of life.

Visit the website https://www.perenneattualita.palazzostrozzi.org/ to see their projects and the full exhibition.