Exhibitions
11 May 08 Jun 2018
Plasticaia
Victoria DeBlassie
You and your friends are cordially invited to the opening
of the exhibition on Friday, 11 May at 7.30 pm.
Opening hours: Tuesday to Friday 2 to 6 pm and on appointment
exhibition view
exhibition view
exhibition view
detail
photos: Eva Sauer (1 - 3), Agnes Stillger (4)
Glasshouse 01: Victoria DeBlassie's exhibition is the first of a new series of artistic interventions, which deal with the new and transparent pavillon architure in the garden of Villa Romana.
"Plasticaia is a neologism to reference plastic and the limonaia. Plastic is both a noun, referring to this material, and an adjective, referring to the ability of any material to be molded into a particular shape, just as Italian Renaissance gardens shaped nature into specific orderly designs. The limonaia was a common feature in these Renaissance gardens that allowed citrus trees to grow inside a greenhouse, enabling them to exist in regions where they should not have been able to. In a similar way, plastic is a material that is man-made from natural materials, making something exist that is not occurring naturally.
A symmetrical garden will be constructed inside Villa Romana's glass-house limonaia, creating a parterre whose hedges are made from colorful plastic-crates that are exaggeratedly tall. Edged into these architectural hedges are small tubes filled with the sand-like plastic off-cuts from the plastic crates, wherein lies seedlings from citrus crops from seeds bought from supermarkets as well as gathered from the historical Villa Castello and Petraia. The tension between man-made materials derived from nature combined with seedlings creates a sense of hope as well one of bleakness: Nature always finds a way to persevere and yet the human impact on the environment has comprised the health of the environment so much so that more and more, the impact is noticeable and seemingly uncontrollable.
In Plasticaia — part of the Gestalt of a Crate installation series — crates are also reactivated, as they were once containers for products, and since they are recycled, there is also an intrinsic connection to ecological responsibility."
(Victoria DeBlassie)
Victoria DeBlassie is an artist who was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She received her BFA from the University of New Mexico in 2009 and MFA at the California College of the Arts in 2011. She was awarded a Fulbright Grant for Italy for the 2012 /2013 academic year and has participated in numerous artist residencies in Europe. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally at numerous venues, including the de Young Museum and Make Hang Gallery in San Francisco, [AC]2 Gallery in Albuquerque, the Diocesan Museum in Pienza and Fondazione Biagiotti Progetto Arte in Florence.
