Grand Tourismo

30/07/2018 - 13/10/2018, extended until 14/09/2019

Located exactly halfway along the visitors' route, Grand Tourismo is meant to be a kind of pause/short circuit in the public's visit, where each visitor is asked to reconsider the experience he or she has just had, in the city and in the museum itself. The goal is to stimulate even unexpected reflections and reactions in people of different ages, cultures and backgrounds, surprising visitors who see reflected as in a mirror not only their own image but also their own behavior.

Composed of three videos: Uffizi Oggi (2018), Illusion (2017) and Everywhere but Nowhere (2017), the exhibition solicits a reflection on the identity of today's tourism, particularly on the habit of looking at works of art (and not only) through smartphones, video cameras and similar devices. 

Grand Tourismo represents the first time ever that a solo exhibition by a contemporary artist is set up along the museum route. 

Uffizi Oggi

single channel video, colour, sound; 4'02”; Italy 2018

The video - commissioned by the Gallerie degli Uffizi exclusively for the exhibition Giacomo Zaganelli Grand Tourismo – stimulates a reflection on the contemporary habit of filtering our observation of the world, and of works of art, through the lens of a smartphone, a camera or a camcorder. Uffizi Oggi, which the artist symbolically chose to film using a smartphone, can be seen in particular as an unconventional observatory looking at what happens in front of Botticelli’s masterpieces every single day, and taking its cue from that to examine the plethora of reproduced images all around us – a phenomenon which, inside the museum itself, is changing the relationship between the exhibit and the observer, a relationship hitherto sealed within an unmediated dialogue.

Illusion

Single-channel video, colour, sound; 6’29”; Italy 2017

Illusion is a realistic depiction of the daily scene in Florence, overwhelmed by tourists, all intent on taking pictures, selfies and shooting videos.

Everywhere but nowhere

single-channel video, colour, sound, 3’52”, Italy, 2017

Filmed in Florence, Everywhere but Nowhere documents a boy sitting along a historic building. Absorbed in his smartphone, the boy seems to ignore everything but the screen, even as he stands in the midst of crowds and busy streets. 

Grand Tourismo
solo show at Gallerie degli Uffizi, Florence

curated by director Eike D. Schmidt and Chiara Toti
commissioned by Gallerie degli Uffizi