Federico Solmi's media work "The Great Farce" is now on display at Northwestern University's Block Museum of Art until December 1. This exhibition marks the first time the museum has presented Solmi’s full installation, which consists of nine video projections covering the largest gallery space.
The eight-minute installation combines traditional drawing and painting with modern technologies like 3D animation, motion capture, and video game software to offer a surreal perspective on American history. According to Janet Dees, curator of modern and contemporary art at The Block Museum, “‘The Great Farce’ is one of Solmi’s most ambitious works in terms of technical complexity, physical scale and scope of content.” She added that the work uses satire and grotesque representations to question relationships between nationalism, colonialism, and consumerism.
An in-person keynote conversation with Solmi is scheduled for October 23 at The Block Museum. The artwork features historical figures portrayed as time-traveling leaders who manipulate past events for entertainment. Solmi’s research questions the foundations of historical narratives he encountered growing up in Italy and later in the United States.
Solmi describes his narrative as an eternal amusement park where world leaders rewrite history. “They entertain, distract and misdirect the world's population through spectacle,” he wrote in the project description.
Lisa Corrin, executive director at The Block Museum, noted that exhibitions like “The Great Farce” encourage viewers to think critically about U.S. history and its future. Corrin emphasized that art can provoke dialogue and challenge assumptions.
"The Great Farce" was initially commissioned for the 2017 B3 Biennial of the Moving Image in Frankfurt, Germany. It was later adapted into a gallery installation for Open Spaces Kansas City (2018) and displayed on electronic billboards in New York’s Times Square in July 2019.
Federico Solmi was born in Bologna, Italy, but has lived in New York since 1999. His work has been featured internationally, including a major exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 2024. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in Video & Audio from the Guggenheim Foundation of New York in 2019.
The Block Museum offers free admission to all visitors and serves as a hub for questioning and experimentation across various fields of study with visual arts at its core.