International Art at the ‘Florence Biennale’

Until October 27:  FLORENCE BIENNALE.  Fortezza da Basso. Open daily 10 am – 8 pm, Wednesday 23rd and Friday 25th  until 10 pm.  Admission: €10.

Florence Biennale, an international exhibition of contemporary art and design, will take place with the presence of guest artists from over 70 countries around the world. All of them will be in competition against each other for the international prize “Lorenzo il Magnifico.” Accompanying the show will be events such as special projects, educational offers, workshops, and video projections.

This year’s theme, Leonardo’s multifaceted talents, commemorates the fifth centenary of his death. People still talk about him as a genius of Renaissance and his creativity and this is the reason the organizers aim to promote different disciplines to which he was connected. 

The Adoratorio studio will introduce its multimedia project “One World One Face” and give a chance to the visitors to contribute their own face in order to help create a perfect picture, which will be overlapped with the countenance of the Mona Lisa. Pey Chwen Lin, the Taiwanese artist will show the rotating projection of Leonardo’s Vitruvian Man, who creates the clone of Eve; The term “clone” represents a famous phrase of Leonardo “Where the heart does not work with the hand, there is no art.” 

German artist and professor Johanna Hoffman will exhibit a project that combines art, science and new technologies. Artificial intelligence will be presented by the artistic duo Fabin Rasheed and Paul Sleeba, who will be competing with a robot capable of writing poetry and generating images in a totally autonomous manner.

Every day from 6 pm, visitors can attend the Show Cooking events run by chefs and food specialists with an aperitif in the lounge area.  Visitors with children can participate in the workshop “Maris National Flag Project,” dedicated to creativity and dialogue between peoples, coordinated by the Japanese artist Liku Maria Takahashi. 

Besides the special projects, Florence Biennale will present MuDeTo, a selection of Tuscan companies (Wed., Oct. 23 at 4 pm). One of them is an Art of Toys, from the 20th century to the fantasy creations of the world of comics, cinematography and toy industry.  The goal is to define a cultural and artistic manifesto for the field in the future (Wed., Oct. 23 at 3 pm).

At the end of the Florence Biennale, there will be one winner from each of the 12 art categories (such as graphic design, painting, mixed media, sculpture, textiles, photography, digital art and video art);  each will receive the Lorenzo il Magnifico prize, created by Florentine artist Mario Pachioli. 

For the first time this year a ticket provides an access to the exhibition during the day, as usual, or in the evening with a ticket that includes happy hour. 

For more information visit www.florencebiennale.org, or call +39.055.3249173.  (mary filatova)