19/10/2010 by Tiziana Manzetti

Ceramic Art Galleries at the Museum

Until November 4, 2010
Faenza – Italy

The International Museum of Ceramics (MIC) in Faenza is hosting an original art event. Eight Art Galleries have been invited to display their collections of modern ceramic works in the new 20th century building.

The list of the artists is impressive: James Brown, Walter Cascio, Giacinto Cerone, Giosetta Fioroni, Mirella Guasti, Luca Lanzi, Leoncillo, Luigi Mainolfi, Renato Meneghetti, Aldo Mondino, Antonello Santè P., Germano Sartelli, Nanni Valentini, Antonio Violetta, Sergio Zanni.

Some of the artists are already represented in the permanent collections of the Museum, while others are featured for the first time.

MIC is the largest and most representative museum of Ceramics in Italy. Its mission is to establish Ceramics as a primary form of Art and one of its key strategies is an active support for contemporary International and Italian Ceramic Art, especially since the expansion of the original buildings. Continue reading →

14/08/2010 by Tiziana Manzetti

Ceramics – History of Women

Until September 5, 2010
Faenza –Italy

A small exhibition, with little advertising, if any. It’s held in a city where the evolution of pottery has taken the direction of Art, leaving to other Italian towns the role of keeping traditional artistic ceramics alive. It’s featured in a Museum which has not been championing women so far.

All the artists presenting their works are women making their pottery in Faenza. Today.

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14/08/2010 by Tiziana Manzetti

Lucia Angeloni – Stitching Past and Present

Last year strolling in the main street in Gubbio, Manuela and I were attracted by some contemporary ceramic works on display in the window of a gallery. We visited the gallery and asked some info about one of the artists, named Lucia Angeloni.

Actually, the name rang a bell, as well as the style. We gave the matter some thought and we remembered that a few years before Giampietro Rampini had shown us a very interesting Brocca dei Ceri made by Lucia. He had told us: “If you’re looking for some good ceramic art you girls should meet her because she definitely is one of the best artists I know of and I can introduce you to her”. At the time we were still working hard on setting up thatsArte.com and we did not have any time for our personal collection.

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20/05/2009 by Manuela

2009 International Ceramic Festival in Montelupo – Tuscany

June 20-28, 2009
Montelupo – Italy

Hard to believe… the 2009 edition of the International Ceramic Festival seems even more interesting than the 2008 one, when the Regional Museum of Ceramics had just been re-opened and the city blew the candles on the 25th birthday of its School of Ceramics.

This year the focus will be on modern ceramic art with the grand opening of the first department of the Museum of Contemporary Ceramic Art and Nanni Valentini’s retrospective exhibition – separate articles will soon be published on these key events.

Together with Nanni Valentini, other established artists will be honored with solo or collective exhibitions. As an encouragement to the younger generations and their experimental vision of ceramic art, the municipality has sponsored the production of many installations made by young artists and placed all over the town.

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08/02/2009 by Manuela

Lucerna Circus – A Ceramic Oil Lamp Exhibition

February 7-17, 2009
Perugia – Italy

Each year the Lungarotti Foundation harnesses the creative forces of important Italian artists to offer a new, creative vision of the oil lamp and its flickering light that accompanied the life of people for many centuries. Oil lamps have been used in Italy until the end of World War 1. They were usually made of clay and burned olive oil, that neither smells nor smokes.

This year the project was assigned to Stelio Zaganelli e Cristina Frezzini, two young designers from Umbria, assisted in the making of their works by the School of Ceramic Art Romano Ranieri in Deruta.
In a brilliantly creative association of ideas, they have jumped from the magic of the olive tree and oil – almost sacred in Italy – to the magic of the Circus.

Inspired by the atmosphere of poetry surrounding the 19th century Circus, so close to human virtues and vices, their large ceramic oil lamps/sculptures represent the key characters of the Lucerna Circus:

Sissi, the slender and elegant dancer, always in the limelight, desperate for a loving soul to share her destiny with;

Filo, the slim funambulist, continuously challenging his records but depending on drugs to keep his pace steady;

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25/12/2008 by Tiziana Manzetti

New Clays – Languages of the Young Italian Art Pottery

Dec. 19, 2008 – Jan. 30, 2009
Baronissi – Italy

An extraordinary exhibition has just been opened at the FRAC Baronissi – Regional Fund of Contemporary Art – that will feature the works of a new generation of artists who’ve chosen clay to express their Art.

Born in the Seventies and the Eighties, they represent what’s new in the technical and visual language of Italian ceramics. A unique initiative, indeed, since it builds on the differing Italian traditions – Deruta, Savona, Padova, Vietri, Faenza, Lucca, Urbino and Salerno among the others – and techniques, which include a number of experiments with contemporary images and materials.

In his introduction to the event the director of the FRAC Baronissi says that the exhibition features a carefully selected sample of the languages and the practices used in modern Italian ceramic art. These languages preserve the lively cells of the valuable Italian heritage while participating in the contemporary art experiences and blending clay with other materials and creative processes. Italian pottery is therefore a language among other languages, all of them having in common imagination, creativity and a contemporary spirit.

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11/11/2008 by Tiziana Manzetti

An Italian Ceramic Artist: Alfredo Santarelli

Oct. 25, 2008 – February 28, 2009
Gualdo Tadino, Italy

Alfredo Santarelli is one of the most important Italian Ceramic Artists of the 20th century. His talent in drawing and his mastery in the tin glazing technique (lusterware) won him a large number of golden medals in International and Italian ceramic exhibitions. His excellent portraits and classic subjects are prized collectors’ items but he also interpreted Islamic, Liberty and Art Deco designs and shapes with great originality.

The curators of the exhibition, Prof. Enzo Storelli and Prof. Mario Becchetti, have selected for this very special event the best works made by Santarelli, ranging from his “historical” pottery to the modern 20th century pieces.

Santarelli was very much intrigued by the Visual Arts of the Past. The pieces he owes his fame to were inspired by Egyptian, Etruscan, Classic, Gothic, Hispano-Moresque, Renaissance, Neoclassic and Pre-Raphaelite models. They stand out in the modern Ceramic Art for their remarkably elegant execution and creativity, their philological exactitude and the sumptuous iridescence of their ruby and golden lustre.

In the second half of the 20’s his art evolved in line with the contemporary trends. His Art Deco and Liberty pieces are a tribute to Santarelli’s talented versatility.

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06/08/2008 by Tiziana Manzetti

Ceramic Art Exhibition & Workshop in Rome

Sept 5th – 21st, 2008
Palazzo Venezia, Rome

Palazzo Venezia in Rome is about to open its doors to a usual and exciting event: an exhibition of experimental ceramic art and a ceramic workshop open to pottery lovers experienced potters and absolute beginners.

The event will complement the Agostino Tassi exhibition, currently on in the same building.
Tassi (1578 1644) was a very talented Italian painter, whose reputation was equally influenced by the beauty of his landscapes and seascapes and the rape of Artemisia Gentileschi.

Close-ups of Tassi’s works will be the subject of the workshop on majolica painting held by the School of Ceramic Art Romano Ranieri from Deruta. The participants will discover the secrets that make Italian ceramics famous worldwide. For the workshop details, please read below.

The exhibition of experimental ceramic art will feature the works of David Roberts, Nino Caruso, Nicola Boccini, Marino Ficola, Malgosia Turlo, Giuseppe Agamennone and Pierluigi Pompei, a group of artists belonging to the CLS – Ceramica Libera Sperimentale (Free Experimental Ceramics). Continue reading →