The video shows some works from “12 at the Museum”, the temporary exhibition that features the selected works of the best pottery making companies in Montelupo.
Enjoy!
Highlights
Luigi Ontani – RossiniAria
July 23 – Sept. 25, 2011
Pesaro, Italy
Ontani’s solo exhibition is a tribute to Pesaro, the city of Gioacchino Rossini, the composer of The Barber of Seville, and the city that has become prominent within Italy for his long-established tradition of pottery making and the long list of ceramic artists who lived and worked here, like Ferruccio Mengaroni and Nanni Valentini.
Between the previous Chiesa del Suffragio and the Loggiato, eight large ceramic sculptures, the ErmEstEtiche, portrait relevant historical characters. Among them RossiniAria, the sculpture that the artist has made especially for this exhibition. As it often happens in Ontani’s works, the artist himself plays the role of Rossini, combining a number of symbolic, literary, artistic and historical elements.
In the middle of the previous Chiesa del Suffragio stands the ErmafroDito Mignolo, a large ceramic sculture. On the walls the Vizi Capitelli, a collection of eight ceramic capitals that represent the seven deadly sins or capital vices plus one, added by the artist. It’s the capital of the boastfulness that plays with the suggestions of romanesque sculpture.
Commenting his Vizi Capitelli the artist says that they are not the Stations of the Cross but the Stations of the Pleasure Seeking. The space of the exhibition is sacred to the artist, even though the Church is not so anymore.
The exhibition includes some photo-ceramics too: Saint Sebastian, NarciGiuda, Saint Paul, Ecce Homo and Tobiolo.
Centro Arti Visive Pescheria
Corso XI Settembre 184, Pesaro
Ph: +39 721 387651
Email: centroartivisive@comune.pesaro.pu.it
Meeting Italian Ceramic Artists: Toti Taormina
A hot morning in Sicily. The road ran along one of the most fascinating beaches of the island, Baia Santa Margherita. A colorful signpost convinced me to turn into a narrow dirt road that seemed to point straight to a steep red mountain facing the Mediterranean Sea. After a while I saw on my right a brick hut with a shadowy porch: Toti Taormina’s studio lost in the middle of the fragrance and the colors of the Sicilian landscape.
There were people crowding the tiny wood-paneled “showroom”, where ceramics stood all over the place: on the floor, on the shelves, on coffee tables, hanging from the walls and the doors, inside and outside. In the middle of everything Toti himself, chatting with everybody at the same time. Continue reading
Todi – Summer & Wiese
Sept. 4 – Oct. 30, 2011
Todi, Italy
I know, I know… it’s not Italian pottery … Still it’s most beautiful pottery and we feel it’s just right to promote the hard work of the Ab Ovo Gallery in bringing to us the works of Roland Summer and Christina Wiese, two well established Austrian artists with a wide International reputation.
Roland Summer is a master of technical perfection. He makes mostly vases slowly hand building his shapes adding layer after layer from the bottom up. This process, known as coil building, is the earliest pottery making method and it offers the highest degree of control over the size and shape of wares.
Antonella Ravagli and Alfredo Gioventu’ – Verba Manent
June 11 – July 3, 2011
Sestri Levante – Italy
The exhibition explores the relationship between ceramics and the world of written signs, that the two artists have been analyzing thru their works.
Antonella Ravagli, a ceramic artist from Faenza, has been using many kind of signs in her works, abstract forms of meaning that she paints, engraves, prints or shapes into clay.
Rosanna Minuto – Apology of the horn
June 12 – July 29, 2011
Montefalco, Italy
The subtitle of this exhibition is “From the faun up till now” and the key character is the Corno, the most popular Italian amulet.
There’s much irony in Rosanna Minuto’s works. They subtly play with one of our oldest beliefs that has been often scorned and snubbed, yet, miraculously, has survived pretty much intact up to the present time.
The Corno, our in(famous) lucky charm, is a gently twisted horn-shaped amulet that is worn as a protection against evil eye. It’s of ancient origins. About 3500 years b.C. it was hanged outside the huts as a symbol of fertility.
In Egypt the horns were offered to the goddess Isis who was the ideal mother and wife as well as the matron of nature and magic. Jupiter gave a magic horn to his wet nurse as a thank you gift.
During the Middle Ages the horn worked as a lucky charm only if red and hand made because red was the symbol of the victory over the enemies and its luck came from the very hands that made it.
From then on the horn have kept evil away from their owners and they still do an excellent job!
Apologia del Cornuto
Bontadosi ArtGallery
Piazza del Comune 19, Montefalco (Perugia)
Ph: +39 0742 379357
Caltagirone – Lee Babel and Alessio Tasca
Apr. 20 – July 30, 2011
Caltagirone, Italy
This exhibition is special in many ways. First. Tasca and Babel are internationally reputed artists, who are constantly adding new meanings to contemporary ceramic art.
Second. It’s hosted in a very cool place. The building that is now the Museum “Fornace Hoffmann” was a former brick plant, where huge kilns baked the clay that was dug in the nearby mines, changing it into building bricks and tiles. The plant closed in the Seventies and it has been recently converted into a modern and spacious exhibition center.
Last, but not at all least, the exhibition puts together two pottery making traditions, Caltagirone and Nove, both representing a landmark in the history of Italian ceramic art.
Gubbio – Brocche d’Autore 2011
May 12 – June 2, 2011
Gubbio, Italy
Every year, on May 15th, Gubbio honors its Patron Saint, Sant’Ubaldo, with the spectacular “Corsa dei Ceri” or Race of the Saints.
Since 2002, the city celebrates the event with the exhibition “Brocche d’Autore”, that highlights the strong relationship existing among the Race of the Saints with its traditional ceramic pitchers called Brocche dei Ceri, Gubbio pottery and contemporary ceramic art.
This is how it works: every year the Cultural Association “Maggio Eugubino” selects three artists, one of them from Gubbio, and invites them to create their Brocche. The artists, informed about the traditional function and symbolic value of the artifacts, are free to re-interpret them. Their Brocche are displayed during the celebrations for Sant’Ubaldo.
Ferdinando Vassallo – Fornaci Chiaroscuro and International Artists
May 20 – Sept. 25, 2011
Ogliara, Italy
Not many info are available on this exhibition, but we decided to mention it even though we can only provide the top lines. Indeed, Ferdinando Vassallo is a very interesting ceramic artist who explores the realm of experimentalism with surprising results and we were very keen on spending a few words on his work.
The majolicas featured in this exhibition have been designed by Italian and International artists – among them Bernard Zimmer, Luigi Ontani, Michel Haindorf and Achille Perilli – and made into actual works by Vassallo. On the last day the program includes a “Cravon Fire” show, a demonstration of a fast firing technique invented by the artist.
Ferdinando Vassallo was born and still lives near Salerno, not far from Vietri sul mare, an area where pottery making is not only heritage but a part of life.
He was born in 1952 and he was only 18 years old when he built his first kiln “Ottomattoni”, made of 8 bricks and a small gas burner. It worked amazingly well and it filled the artist with an astonished surprise that were to fuel his enthusiasm for pottery making for the rest of his life…
Montelupo Museum of Ceramics – Spring Program
The Museum of Ceramics is offering Italian ceramics lovers the chance to learn more about Montelupo pottery through a number of guided visits.
On April 10th, in the morning, an experienced guide will introduce visitors to the Museum’s collection of apothecary jars and other objects made for old pharmacies.
Montelupo apothecary pottery was an important element in the proliferation of pharmacies in the Grand Duchy of Tuscany during the Renaissance. Placed in the monasteries’ infirmaries at first, then popular as private businesses, 
the pharmacies flourished also thanks to the availability of safe storage vessels for the herbs.
Ceramic was an excellent material because it can hold and preserve both liquids and dried herbs and it’s easy to clean. The apothecary jars and vases from Montelupo had an additional benefit: they impressed the customers with their beauty and perfectly fit the monumental style of the rooms that were open to the public.
Soon after the visit to the Musem, the visitors will go to Florence to visit one of the oldest pharmacies in the world: Farmacia di Santa Maria Novella. Established by the Dominican fathers shortly after 1221, the pharmacy was meant to prepare and store medications, balms and creams for the monastery’s little infirmary. In 1612 the Dominicans were granted permission to open their little store to the public. Visiting the Farmacia is per se a great opportunity. Even more so, if the focus is on its awesome collection of antique apothecary pottery.