The Happy Face of Globalization:Biennial of Ceramics in Contemporary Art
Daniela Conradi
The Inspiration
of the Attese, Biennale of Ceramics in Contemporary Art, lies in the 20th century
avant-garde tradition that, in its most significant phases, found an outlet for
expression in this area of Western Liguria well known for its long-established
ceramics manufactures.
Departing from the numerous noteworthy traces left in this area in the course
of the last century, by artists such as Asger Jorn, Lucio Fontana, Wifredo Lam,
Piero Manzoni and Pinot Gallizio, main goal of the Biennale is that of, once
again, bringing contemporary artists, curators, art historians and critics into
contact with this local and multicultural tradition in order to develop a process
of reciprocal metamorphosis.
Invited by founders and artistic directors Tiziana Casapietra and Roberto Costantino
and a team of 8 international curators, 44 contemporary artists coming from Europe,
Africa, Asia, South and North America, have been asked to abandon their customary
media, in order to make works in ceramics in together with 14 manufactures of
this area of the Ligurian Riviera.
The Biennale is
in fact mainly meant as a work-in-progress lasting 2 years, during which, all
the invited artists do follow one another in the local ceramics factories. The
result of this collaboration will be presented during the second edition of the
Biennale due to open on September 27th this year.
This co-operation between the international artists and the local craftsmen,
is of major importance to the Biennale and represents fertile terrain that feeds
a sense of affectionate hospitality and openness with respects to that which
is different and distant.
Is the mobility of the participating artists, coming from various international
countries towards the tiny dot on the map which is Albisola, what has made this
project possible.
It might be this
very aspect that is so appealing to the invited artists. Accustomed as they are
to working in the world1s largest, most chaotic cities, they arrive in this little
spot on the Mediterranean coast and lay themselves open to the people and the
culture of the place in which they find themselves and engage in a fruitful exchange
of ideas; but most of all, they lay themselves open to a new material, putting
their artistic identities at risk.
The various protagonists from the new extraterritorial and multicultural global
art scene who have temporarily descended upon Albisola find themselves in a position
whereby they have to filter their own identities through the possibilities and
the limitations of an ancient medium (ceramics), all the while throwing themselves
into a process of affirmation and translation of their own cultural singularity.
In turn, the local
area is welcoming hitherto unseen contributions which sees the material worked
in a key of metamorphosis. The final effect is that each and every component
is transformed and enriched, the transforming reciprocity being a founding factor
in the manufacture of these works.
In the age of “globalization”, an unpalatable word that points to an
overridingly uniform culture at a planetary level, and to the disappearance of
local cultural traditions, this exhibition hypothesizes a proliferation of the
antibodies needed to resist just such a threat.
This involves flying in the face of the overriding homologating culture that
quashes all differences ‹ in order to promote multicultural exchanges
in a spirit of hospitality as offered by a local tradition such asAlbisola1s
ceramic history.
In an attempt to
allow the local reality becoming a space of flux and connection between cultures,
the Attese, Biennale of Ceramics in Contemporary Art has spawned a community
in the formation phase, the unpredictable identity of which is either confirmed
or modified by every
last participating artist.
One is tempted to define this as a “community of passion” that has
broughttogether all its protagonists in Albisola for the duration of a
2-years-lasting-project which gives form to this Biennale.
For further Info on the upcoming Bienale, see:
Attese: Biennale of Ceramics in Contemporary Art (2nd edition)
International Exhibition: September 27/November 9th, 2003
