Broken. The Power of the Fragment
Organized in collaboration with the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the exhibition is an evocative journey across different places and periods —from the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Etruria, and the Greco-Roman world to the pre-modern cultures of present-day Mexico, Mali, Peru, and Cambodia.
A fragment may result from a deliberate artistic choice, or it may tell a story whose traces it still bears: ancient and modern iconoclasm, wars, revolutions, acts of vandalism and natural disasters, such as the 1966 Florence flood. The exhibition thus prompts a reflection on the artistic, political and symbolic value that a sculpture acquires following its breakage, and on the ability of the fragment to become an instrument of knowledge and imagination—a living presence that continues to engage with and question the present.
Works by many of the greatest masters of art history, including Giovanni Pisano, Michelangelo, and Auguste Rodin, are shown alongside sculptures by contemporary artists including Louise Bourgeois, Huma Bhabha, Robert Gober, Francesco Vezzoli, and Danh Vo, who have taken the fragment as a starting point for new expressive possibilities.
On display more than eighty works and artefacts from some of the world’s most important museums—including The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Louvre in Paris, the British Museum in London and the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City.
On the occasion of the exhibition, Palazzo Strozzi also presents a new installation by Dutch-Belgian artist Mark Manders, conceived for the Renaissance Courtyard.
A fragment may result from a deliberate artistic choice, or it may tell a story whose traces it still bears: ancient and modern iconoclasm, wars, revolutions, acts of vandalism and natural disasters, such as the 1966 Florence flood. The exhibition thus prompts a reflection on the artistic, political and symbolic value that a sculpture acquires following its breakage, and on the ability of the fragment to become an instrument of knowledge and imagination—a living presence that continues to engage with and question the present.
Works by many of the greatest masters of art history, including Giovanni Pisano, Michelangelo, and Auguste Rodin, are shown alongside sculptures by contemporary artists including Louise Bourgeois, Huma Bhabha, Robert Gober, Francesco Vezzoli, and Danh Vo, who have taken the fragment as a starting point for new expressive possibilities.
On display more than eighty works and artefacts from some of the world’s most important museums—including The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Louvre in Paris, the British Museum in London and the Museo Nacional de Antropología in Mexico City.
On the occasion of the exhibition, Palazzo Strozzi also presents a new installation by Dutch-Belgian artist Mark Manders, conceived for the Renaissance Courtyard.
Access notes:
Last admission one hour before closing.
Photo gallery
