This year's winter exhibition at the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen will surprise visitors with optical illusion and manipulation: the skilled architect and tricky artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-78) will dominate the exhibition spaces of Denmark's National Gallery from November 4. The aim of the exhibition Piranesi - Vision and Veracity is to experience his fluid boundaries between vision and veracity on the one hand, and to learn about his way of manipulation on the other. What he created as early as the 18th century are scenarios that are all too familiar today from the cinematic and fiction world of fantasy. With his labyrinthine corridors and floating bridges, Piranesi served as a source of inspiration for professions such as architecture, film, and game development, as well as for other artists. Today, he is best known for his prints, in which he knows how to manipulate the viewer's perception - for example, by adding dramatic elements and changing perspectives.
Perception is also the subject of the exhibition's complementary project by the Danish artist duo AVPD. Their artistic intervention is inspired by Piranesi's ideas: A mirrored corridor that can be entered interactively explores human perception and design of space. Upon entering, nothing remains as it seems, of course, and so here too visitors are introduced to the boundary between vision and veracity. The exhibition can be visited until February 27, 2022.
