300 years since the birth of Piranesi - exhibition at the Berlin Kunstbibliothek

On the occasion of the three-hundredth anniversary of the birth of the Italian architect and graphic designer Giovanni Battista Piranesi, the Art Library of the Berlin State Museum organized an exhibition The Piranesi Principle (Das Piranesi-Prinzip), where from October 4, 2020, to February 7, 2021, the most significant engravings, books, satirical images, and hand drawings from the Berlin museum's archive, which have never been publicly presented before, will be on display. Although Piranesi is best known as a master graphic artist, he also worked as an archaeologist, collector, designer, and book publisher. In the exhibition section named Piranesi's Rome, artifacts collected by Piranesi and his insights into the history of architecture are displayed. The other part, Piranesi's Laboratory, provides a glimpse into his experimental development of new imaging techniques. The curators of the exhibition are Georg Schelbert from Humboldt University and Moritz Wullen, the director of the art library. Their aim was to offer new perspectives on Piranesi, as he has been perceived since the early 20th century as the author of the masterwork Carceri (Imaginary Prisons) and a precursor to surrealism, which current research increasingly questions. The exhibition places Piranesi in contemporary contexts, as this Venetian architect came to baroque Rome, a city full of ancient ruins and overgrown monuments, which not only awakened his imagination for drawing imaginary worlds but also prompted serious archaeological work and scientific research subsequently published in the monumental works Antichità Romane (1756). In addition to the exhibition, a discussion panel (Debates by the Fireplace / Kamingespräch) will take place for free every month. The first discussion will be held next Wednesday, October 14, at 6:00 PM.

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