The event dedicated to ceramics is back in one of Italy's most significant districts, Montelupo Fiorentino. Appointment from June 16 to 18 with the 30th edition of the Cèramica festival, which offers the best of traditional and contemporary production.
Animating the streets of the town and the most important exhibition and production centers will be an articulated program related to ceramics, redesigned through exhibitions, site-specific installations, events, international residencies and exchanges, workshops and laboratories, open workshops, and performance activities. A central element of the event will be the market exhibition, with the presence of artists and artisans from all over Italy and some presences from abroad.
Cèramica returns, with the artistic direction of the Montelupo Museum Foundation, to its pre-pandemic format, with the aim of transforming the village for a weekend into a real creative workshop spread throughout urban spaces, but in direct connection with peripheral spaces, allowing an audience of both insiders and generalists to have a glimpse of the best of ceramic expressiveness.
The leitmotif of Cèramica 2023 is "The Time Machine": the idea of the theme starts from a physical element, the "Pozzo dei Lavatoi," an iconic place and epicenter of Montelupese ceramics, which, thanks to an archaeological excavation that lasted decades, has made it possible, layer after layer, to reconstruct the history of one of Italy's most prized manufactures: that of the potters whose creativity made Montelupo "The Factory of Florence" at the time of the Medici.
In fact, the manufacture of Montelupo has characterized the life of the community from the 1200s to the present, and time becomes the lever for the enhancement of all the components that make up the "Montelupo ceramics system," which includes the Museum of Ceramics that houses museum itinerary and collections; the Palazzo Podestarile with temporary exhibitions, warehouses, open storage; the Museum's Furnace home to didactics, workshops, artist residencies; the Workshops and artist studios that count about 40 production sites; the Bitossi Archive Museum, a well-known business museum; the Marco Bagnoli Atelier, home of his studio and collections; the Site Specific Urban Art Route with contemporary ceramic works and contemporary collections; the School of Ceramics with the Experimental Ceramics Center for specialized training; the Museum and archaeological sites; and finally the Artistic Research Routes for international residency exchanges.
All these elements at Cèramica 2023 will host exhibitions and activities. Here are some highlights.
Montelupo Ceramics and the Uffizi. A Gallery of Comparisons, at the Museum of Ceramics. The exhibition is promoted and organized by the City of Montelupo Fiorentino and Fondazione Museo Montelupo and is part of the Terre degli Uffizi project, conceived and implemented by Le Gallerie degli Uffizi and Fondazione CR Firenze within their respective initiatives Uffizi Diffusi and Piccoli e Grandi Musei. The exhibition is on view until Oct. 1.
It's not all gold, contemporary variations on metallic luster and its imitations - exhibition curated by Benedetta Falteri and Alessio Ferrari in the Gallery on Via XX Settembre. Nineteen artists are called upon to give their own interpretation in a contemporary key of one of the most peculiar processes of traditional Montelupo ceramics: metallic lustre. Works, installations, performances, and workshops by Ivana Antonini, Patrizio Bartoloni, Stefano Bartoloni, Giulia Cantarutti, Giulia Alba Chiara Bono, Shilha Cintelli, Veronica Fabozzo, Carlotta Fantozzi, Andrea Susanne Heinisch, Sergio Pilastri, Karin Putsch - Grassi, Riccardo Rinaldi, Paola Ramondini, Paola Staccioli, Paolo Staccioli, Beatriz Irene Scotti, Eugenio Taccini, Serena Tani, and Marco Ulivieri. The exhibition is on view through July 30.
Rosso di Montelupo deconstructed - curated by the Museum of Ceramics, on display is the work of artist Eloisa Gobbo, winner of the Montelupo Museum Foundation residency prize awarded by the Manises Biennial of Contemporary Ceramics.
The site-specific installation is inspired by Rosso di Montelupo and is in dialogue with the masterpiece of Renaissance majolica in the Hall of Masterpieces, becoming part of the permanent collection of the Ceramics Museum.
Fattore C - ceramics in urban spaces, curated by Benedetta Falteri, Lorenza Camin, Alessio Ferrari. Through a call, interventions on the theme of the event were selected, made by contemporary artists who intervene in the spaces of the village. The neighborhood of the Palazzo Podestarile, the Fornace and the MMAB (Montelupo Museo Archivio Biblioteca) will host the project rooms of Mirko Marcolin with Chiara Zanellato, Giacomo Scapin and Giulia Gasparotto (Ceramiscopio: good vision! ), Rachel Morellet (En forme), Halima Murgia with Pauline Hosse - Hartmann and Joanna Marshall Cook (A thing that holds something else), Associazione Séte under the artistic direction of Andrea Maestrelli in collaboration with the Academy of Fine Arts, Prof. Anna Luppi and Prof. Michele Guido (Montelupo si Mostra), Alessandro Musumeci with Clara Camille J Chasse, Mariapaola Diversi and Beatrice Giovannini (Scritto ignoto), Simona Ragazzi (99 love bricks), Anna Zocchi with Chris Barbara Barnini, Lisa Cappellini, Lucrezia Evola, Matilda Corsi, Margherita Marrani, Sandra Favilli (Scrabble, word games and relationship practices), Elisa Zadi (Mondi Possibili, Satus - Tempora), Shilha Cintelli (Come vuoti a perdere, studies on lack, 2020/2023), AdMa, artistic duo of Adriana Giannini and Mariano Luigi Paternoster (Rewind).
Us & Them, Generations and Styles of Montelupo Ceramics - an exhibition curated by Christian Caliandro, at the Palazzo Podestarile, which has the task of investigating the different generations of Montelupo ceramics, with a comparison between the artists who have focused their production on strongly figurative elements and the generations of new ceramists who, on the contrary, have rarefied their stylistic code toward synthesis and design. Works by Eugenio Taccini, Lelio Rossi, Marino Pallanti, Beatriz Irene Scotti, Carlotta Fantozzi, Ivana Antonini, Stefano Bartoloni, Dario Vignozzi, Patrizio Bartoloni, Vittorio Cavallini, Valentina Batini, and Marco Ulivieri. Also on display are the outcomes of the workshop conducted by the research group of the Department of Architecture of the University of Florence (DIDA) coordinated by Prof. Francesco Collotti and architect Giada Cerri on the cultural-based urban regeneration of the village of Montelupo.
The Time Machine, a Made in Montelupo work for the steps of Piazza Gelasio Centi. On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the event, a public work, produced by the Montelupo Museum Foundation with local companies, will be inaugurated for the steps of Piazza Gelasio Centi, which will be entirely covered with tiles decorated with the traditional stylistic repertoire of the Museum of Ceramics.
International exhibition market. More than 30 ceramic producers will participate in the market exhibition in the central streets of Montelupo. A snapshot of the contemporary Italian and international craft and artistic scene, it will also host ceramists from Montelupo Fiorentino's twin cities (Moustiers Saint Marie and Manises) and from the cities in the AICC network (Vietri sul mare, Cava de' Tirreni, San Lorenzello and Cerreto Sannita), with the collaboration of the Montelupo Fiorentino Ceramic Road Association and the Union of Samminiatello Terracotta Kilns. Among the potters' stalls will be traditional demonstrations by master terracotta makers, master glassmakers and the Montelupo School of Ceramics.
Ceramics and bridges of culture - artist residency at the Experimental Ceramics Center in Montelupo by ceramic artists Eti Goren and Raya Stern, lecturers at the Benyamini Contemporary Ceramics Center in Tel Aviv, in collaboration with the Italian Cultural Institute and the Italian Association of Ceramic Cities (AICC), part of the international art residency program.
Cantieri Montelupo - curated by Christian Caliandro, a contemporary art project that aims to bring different disciplines into dialogue, entrusted to visual artists who can relate to the territory to give life to collective works during programs of workshops, talks, and residencies in manufacturing. The artists involved in 2023 are photographer Maria Palmieri, pop artist Roxy in The Box and painter Alessandro Scarabello.
The Santa Rosa School in Montelupo - curated by Luigi Presicce and Francesco Lauretta; the spontaneous movement and free drawing circle moves to Montelupo during the days of Cèramica with three exclusive afternoon sessions of the school of painting on ceramics in the premises of the historic center, where you can participate in the workshop during a snack or aperitif.
Workshops with artists Maria Palmieri, AdMa duo of Adriana Giannini and Mariano Luigi Paternoster and with Veronica Fabozzo.
Educational activities aimed at younger children (recommended age 5-12): three afternoons dedicated to workshops, every evening opportunity to watch the workings of the terracotta masters in Piazza della Libertà; in Piazza Salvo D'Acquisto instead, the magic of glass is back.
Three days of guided tours hiking trails and activities that also involve MAIB - Museo Artistico Bitossi, the Experimental Ceramics Center with workshops and meetings and the atelier of Artist Marco Bagnoli.
Cèramica 2023 is an event organized by the Municipality of Montelupo Fiorentino with the artistic direction of the Montelupo Museum Foundation Onlus, in collaboration with the association Strada della Ceramica di Montelupo.
Hours: June 16 6 p.m.-24 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday 10 a.m.-1 p.m./6 p.m.-2 p.m.; free admission www.montelupoeventi.it www.museomontelupo.it
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