Sean Scully’s exhibition ‘HUMAN’ on view at the Abbazia di San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice
29 May 2019
Sean Scully’s exhibition ‘HUMAN’ is currently on view at the Abbazia di San Giorgio Maggiore in Venice. Comprised of around forty new and recent paintings, sculptures, works on paper and stained glass windows, and presented throughout the entire space of famed Venetian architect Andrea Palladio’s 16th-century abbey, the exhibition explores the relationship between the human body and the soul.Each space within the abbey is dedicated to a different artistic approach employed by Scully, with works that make reference to the building's history. The Sacrestia, for example, which traditionally houses sacred objects, is here devoted to a display of precise and intimate figurative drawings which explore the initial artistic impulses that influence Scully’s well known larger-scale works. In the Basilica, the towering stacked frame of Opulent Ascension, the tallest work ever created by the artist, directs the viewer’s gaze upward toward the building’s cupola. The abbey’s corridors are lined with eight works in oil on aluminium from Scully’s renowned ‘Landline’ series. On the exhibition, Scully states: "I want to make available the journey from the spiritual to the physical, and from the physical to the spiritual."
