Sherrie Levine in Reaching for the Stars
4 March—18 June 2023
Group exhibition at Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy
In the spring of 2023, the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi is proud to present Reaching for the Stars. From Maurizio Cattelan to Lynette Yiadom Boakye, an exhibition exploring the luminaries of contemporary art today in over 70 works selected from the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Collection by leading Italian and international contemporary artists including Maurizio Cattelan, Cindy Sherman, Damien Hirst, William Kentridge, Sherrie Levine, Berlinde De Bruyckere and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.
Promoted and organised by the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi and the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Reaching for the Stars explores some of the most important shifts and developments in art over the past decades through a constellation of artworks on display in every space in Palazzo Strozzi from the Piano Nobile to the Strozzina, and with a special new installation for the palazzo’s Renaissance courtyard.
With its perfectly smooth, polished surface, Sherrie Levine’s bronze entitled Body Mask (2007), the cast of a ritual wooden African mask, reflects on the alteration of original cultural significance. In transforming a mask used in initiation rituals into a luxury item for the consumer society, she strips the item of its original significance and, in changing the context, she imparts a completely different meaning to her replica.