Pompeii and Europe
Exhibit design by Francesco Venezia at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.
A great exhibition project to recount the evocative power exerted by the archaeological site of Pompeii over artists and the European imagination, from the beginning of the excavations in 1748 to the dramatic air raid in 1943. Pompeii and Europe. 1748 – 1943 is an exhibition curated by Massimo Osanna, Maria Teresa Caracciolo and Luigi Gallo which opens to the public on May 27 at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples and simultaneously at the Amphitheater in Pompeii, joining the program of events planned for Expo Milano 2015.
Promoted by the Special Superintendency for Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae and the General Direction of the Grand Project Pompeii, with The Naples National Archeological Museum and organized by Electa, this exhibition is devised as a true journey, in which Antiquity engages in a dialogue with Modernity, and nature with the arts and archeology.
Fundamental to the conception of the installation was the use of color. The choices were inspired by the colors present in fresco cycles in Pompeii. Colored walls create a dialogue with the exhibits, consisting largely of oils, watercolors and drawings.
The installation is in fact a veritable architectural system enclosed in its turn within another architectural space of gigantic dimensions: the Salone della Meridiana in the National Archaeological Museum. In terms of design, the problem was to give the installation a form that would not be overwhelmed by the setting: that would withstand being crushed by the space of the saloon, 20 meters high and with a floor space covering 1200 square meters. The focus was then placed on a geometry that would use effects of perspective to invert the balance of forces between the installation and the saloon with a special system of circulation following a meandering course, so enabling visitors to measure the relations between the two different architectures, the host and the hosted, from different locations. This concept is dear to Egyptian architecture, as a response to the eternal recurrence of things. The geometric form at the base of the installation is a trapezium, a figure also dear to Egypt.
The exhibition will be open until November 2, 2015.
