Giovanni Battista Piranesi
Pulp Fictions: The Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi
19 October – 21 December 2007
Pulp Fictions: The Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi was an exhibition curated jointly by David Maskill, Senior Lecturer in Art History at Victoria University, and his honours-year postgraduate students. Its title refers both to the paper-based medium in which Piranesi excelled, and to the popular nature and sensationalism of his work. The etched works in this show were loaned from the excellent collection of the Alexander Turnbull Library.
Piranesi (1720-1778) was arguably the greatest Italian printmaker/publisher of the eighteenth century. His views of Rome, both ancient and modern, defined the age of the Grand Tour. His fantastical descriptions of ancient buildings inspired artists, writers and architects both to image and lament the grandeur that was Rome. His famous series of imaginary prisons, the Carceri, appealed to the Romantic sensibility of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
This exhibition was staged concurrently with Andrew McLeod: Interior Life.
Installation view, Pulp Fictions: The Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi, Victoria University of Wellington, 2007
G.B. Piranesi, Carceri d'invenzione, Title plate, c. 1760-1770, etching, 547 x 413mm (Alexander Turnbull Library, reference C-091-031)
G.B. Piranesi, Veduta della Basilica, e Piazza di S. Pietro in Vaticano, etching, 1748, 400 x 534mm (Alexander Turnbull Library, reference C-091-06)
Installation view, Pulp Fictions: The Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi, Victoria University of Wellington, 2007
Felice Polanzani, Portrait of G.B. Piranesi, etching, 1750, 285 x 285mm (Alexander Turnbull library, reference C-091-01)
G.B Piranesi, Galleria grande di statue, c. 1750, etching, 377 x 252mm (Alexander Turnbull Library, reference C-091-057)
Installation view, Pulp Fictions: The Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Adam Art Gallery Te Pātaka Toi, Victoria University of Wellington, 2007
G.B. Piranesi, Carceri d'invenzione, plate 2 (the man on the rack), c. 1761, etching 547 x 413mm (Alexander Turnbull Library, reference C-091-026)