Image: Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow
The Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts in Moscow has opened ‘Fabrizio Plessi. Vertical Seas’, an exhibition centred on a work created specifically for the museum and being shown to the public for the first time. The exhibition runs from 18 August through 15 November 2026 in the museum’s Main Building, where it marks the 10th anniversary of the institution’s work with media art.
The installation, titled ‘Vertical Seas’, consists of four vertical screens and focuses on water, a recurring subject in Fabrizio Plessi’s practice. The museum says the work was the starting point of its media-art collection, making its first public presentation a significant moment in the history of the collection as well as the exhibition programme.
According to the museum, its media-art holdings are the first systematic collection of media art established as an independent direction within a Russian federal museum. The collection follows a transhistorical principle, bringing contemporary works into dialogue with the museum’s classical holdings and addressing enduring themes through current artistic languages. Plessi’s ‘Vertical Seas’ provided the foundation for that approach.
Plessi, born in Venice in 1940, has frequently explored the elements, particularly water. The museum describes water in his work as more than a natural force: it is treated as a mythological substance, primordial matter and a primary symbol, repeatedly reconsidered through digital technologies. At the same time, the artist does not place technology above other materials. The exhibition’s curatorial text notes that, for Plessi, a panel screen can function like paper for an experienced draughtsman.
The museum identifies Plessi as one of the pioneers of media art. He turned to video technologies as an artistic tool in the 1970s and has worked as an artist, teacher and scenographer. His biography on the museum’s website lists participation in the Venice Biennale, the São Paulo Biennial and documenta in Kassel, as well as solo exhibitions at institutions including the Guggenheim Museum in New York and Bilbao, Rome’s Scuderie del Quirinale, Madrid’s Reina Sofía, Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, the Fundació Joan Miró in Barcelona and the Ludwig Museum in Budapest. A large-scale project titled ‘Vertical Seas’ was presented at the Venice Pavilion during the 2011 Venice Biennale.
The Moscow exhibition is curated by Alina Stulikova, curator of the Pushkin Museum’s media-art collection, and Maria Kuzmina, the collection’s custodian. Stulikova also leads planned guided visits connected with the exhibition. The accompanying educational programme is set to include tours with Stulikova and participants in the museum’s ‘Open Laboratory’, screenings of works from the media-art collection, and discussions about collecting media art and current practices in the field.
The museum’s calendar lists collection tours on 20 August, 27 August, 5 September and 10 September 2026. The exhibition is presented in Room 31 of the Main Building at 12 Volkhonka Street and is available through Russia’s Pushkin Card programme.
