terra-cotta

MANUELA CIRINO, ANNALISA GUERRI, EMILIANO MAGGI, DAVIDE MONALDI, BENEDETTO PIETRO MARCHI, DAVIDE RIVALTA

OPENING Thursday JUNE 7TH 2018
UNTIL SEPTEMBER 14TH 2018

terra-cotta

The group show terra-cotta presents a reflection about the recovery of a material as old as man, but still capitally important in contemporary artistic production.

The six invited artists, different by education and background, show, through their works, a variety of ways to treat clay first, then terracotta or ceramic, being bound by a common fascination for molding the material, impressing a mark which can be either primitive, playful or conceptual.

The work of Benedetto Pietromarchi (Rome, 1972) – a zoo-anthropomorphic container that contains himself, terracotta that encloses raw soil (terra cruda), to mold itself in the polychrome ceramics of the vases – conceptually introduces the theme of the exhibition. The artist has personally dealt with the entire production process, from the extraction of clay to its cooking, focusing on the relation with the territory and the physical origin of the work, whose exact coordinates are imprinted on the surface of the container. The roots branching from hung vases seem to yearn for a return to the same soil that originated them, blurring the lines between nature and artifact. This intimate, almost carnal, relation with the material animates Annalisa Guerri’s works (Rome, 1979); clay is transformed into paper-thin porcelain which becomes delicate and fragile and her sculptures gradually acquire body and volume, yet maintaining unprecedented preciousness and chromatic brilliance.

The juxtaposition and the shaping by instinctive additions is shared by the small figures of Emiliano Maggi (Rome, 1977), who inhabit a symbolic and mythological universe fostered by the same energy of prehistoric fictile Venuses. In a sort of theater of ancient characters, sculptures seem to be developing a silent dialogue among them. The head by Davide Rivalta (Bologna, 1974) looks equally ancient and ancestral, yet being an hyper-contemporary, sinthetic and agile female portrait: pure clay molded witha few touches, eternalizing the features of a dear face.

Expanding on the idea of the game, and developing the most playful potential of this material, Davide Monaldi’s pop sculptures (San Benedetto del Tronto, 1983) are indistinguishable from everyday objects, but actually hide a great technical complexity. Concluding the exhibition, the small ‘sitting donkey’ by Manuela Cirino (Milan, 1962) – whose terracotta fur disintegrate into tiny bits of paper – seems to whisper a story to be completed, an echo of a fairytale that every visitor can recall in his personal journey.

RASSEGNA STAMPA: CONTEMPORARY ITALIAN CERAMICS , EXIBART