June 16 – June 30, 2007
Inauguration: Saturday 16 June from 19.00 – 24.00
Hours: Wednesday to Saturday from 5pm to 7.30pm. Visit also by appointment
The exhibition spaces of the Sincresis Association host the creative works of Gianni Veneziano in conjunction with the project “The state of the art” promoted by the Municipality of Montelupo Fiorentino and the Montelupo Culture & Promotion Institution, presented on the occasion of the Ceramics Festival, with the ‘intervention of the degree course in Industrial Design of the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Florence, to achieve a contamination between art, craftsmanship and design, with the aim of enhancing and renewing local artisanal productions and directing them towards design.
Gianni Veneziano, architect and designer engaged in the design course at the aforementioned degree course, was involved as a teacher for the execution of a workshop that lasted two months in order to develop design objects by the students, with the collaboration of the ceramic and glass factories present in the area, which will be presented in a special exhibition from 16 to 24 June next at the Ex Tolmino Bellucci factory in Montelupo Fiorentino to participate in the next award ceremony next September.
Veneziano, who trained at the Florentine University, despite being born in Molfetta (Bari), has developed his studies over the years and continued his research, becoming interested in designed architecture, especially in the early 1980s, when he lived in Chicago, later in the same decade in Milan with Prospero Rasulo, “Oxido”, the Galleria del Progetto arte, which later became a trademark of “Oxido Zoo”
He has designed for various companies in the sector such as Sisal, Ortolan, RSVP, Demetra, Masterly, Lumi and has been invited to numerous design reviews, presenting his objects in galleries and museums.
“All of Veneziano’s work – writes Maurizio Vitta in a book dedicated to him (Edizioni L’Archivolto, Milan, 1998) – has up to now been an exploration of the universe, which has become mysterious again, of objects and spaces. […] He lived – the period of the Eighties – with commitment and fervor, but with the detachment of the disenchanted observer. His achievements – spanned over time according to a slow and steady pace – have been careful surveys carried out in a territory that he has always tried to study, rather than exploit. Depth interested him much more than diffusion: each piece, each space, were the result of a calculation aimed at synthesizing not a design opportunity, but a methodological assumption or, with greater risk, a theorem. In his work, he made his own the antinomy on which the history of architecture and design in the twentieth century was built – that between aesthetic function and function of use, but he tried to overcome it by reversing its approach. Rather than considering it the result of an irremediable antithesis between the two distinct concepts, he revealed its substantially unitary nature and transformed the opposition into constitutive duplicity.
[…] Instead of letting himself be seduced by the masking with which the concept of “form” was, despite the best initial intentions, most of the time covered – artistry, craftsmanship, aesthetics – which left it substantially as it was, he preferred working on the most difficult and least practiced terrain, that of the metamorphosis of the object, or on the ability of things to transform themselves into something else while always remaining the same. But this metamorphosis, to really take place, had to involve the whole object, and not just its formal configuration; and in fact in its most meaningful results […] the functional structure has been rethought just as radically ”.
In the exhibition Veneziano presents his latest works in terracotta, from the Piattimacchiati series to that of the vases with The walking man which denote his ability, as specified in the critical text, to metamorphose not only the formal configuration of the object, but also its functional structure and propose the recent developments of the design landscape through the experimentation of a geometric minimalism, defining a new relationship between object and architectural space.
Information: Tel. And Fax 0571/73619; e-mail: a.scappini@virgilio.it to arrive: S.G.C. FI. PI.LI. Empoli Ovest exit; FS: FI – PI; FI – YES; Empoli station
Creating art with design
Curated by the Degree Course in Industrial Design
Faculty of Architecture University of Florence
In collaboration with
Municipality of Montelupo Fiorentino
Montelupo Culture & Promotion Institution
Organization: SINCRESIS Cultural association for contemporary arts of EMPOLI
Exhibition venue: Galleria of the Cooperative Credit Bank of Cambiano
Montelupo Fiorentino
June 16 – June 30, 2007
Hours: Monday to Saturday
The exhibition spaces of the Galleria della Banca di Credito Cooperativo di Cambiano present in Montelupo Fiorentino welcome the free creations of the students of the Degree Course in Industrial Design of the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Florence during the period of the Ceramics Festival. collaboration with the Sincresis Association, the project “The state of the art” promoted by the Municipality of Montelupo Fiorentino and the Montelupo Culture & Promotion Institution, presented on the occasion of the Festival to achieve a contamination between art, craftsmanship and design, with the aim of enhance and renew local artisanal productions and direct them towards design.
On this occasion the bank branch, having contributed to the realization of the project, opens itself to the ideas of young people, some of whom have been involved, with the guidance of the course director Gianpiero Alfarano and the teacher Gianni Veneziano, for the realization of a workshop that lasted two months with the aim of developing design objects by the students, with the collaboration of the ceramic and glass manufacturers present in the area, which will be presented in a special exhibition from 16 to 24 June next at the Ex Tolmino Bellucci factory in Montelupo Fiorentino to participate in the next award ceremony next September.
The idea is to create a single installation in the bank’s gallery consisting of found elements, poor materials, the earth primarily, to renew energy and become fertile soil within the architectural structure. By freely indulging in the execution of terracotta flowers of all types, the students created particular and imaginative shapes, as if they fertilized the world. In fact, the flowers protrude into space from an accumulation of vases that find a playful and dialectical relationship with the objects already present, always large painted vases, placed at the time in the highest parts of the internal environment of the structure below the ceiling by the architect Mariani who designed the entire building, stimulating a dialogical confrontation through a work that can approach even the most recent aspects of environmental art.
For information:
Tel. 0571/911285
0571/9174
Veneziano, who trained at the Florentine University, despite being born in Molfetta (Bari), has developed his studies over the years and continued his research, becoming interested in designed architecture, especially in the early 1980s, when he lived in Chicago, later in the same decade in Milan with Prospero Rasulo, “Oxido”, the Galleria del Progetto arte, which later became a trademark of “Oxido Zoo”
He has designed for various companies in the sector such as Sisal, Ortolan, RSVP, Demetra, Masterly, Lumi and has been invited to numerous design reviews, presenting his objects in galleries and museums.
“All of Veneziano’s work – writes Maurizio Vitta in a book dedicated to him (Edizioni L’Archivolto, Milan, 1998) – has up to now been an exploration of the universe, which has become mysterious again, of objects and spaces. […] He lived – the period of the Eighties – with commitment and fervor, but with the detachment of the disenchanted observer. His achievements – spanned over time according to a slow and steady pace – have been careful surveys carried out in a territory that he has always tried to study, rather than exploit. Depth interested him much more than diffusion: each piece, each space, were the result of a calculation aimed at synthesizing not a design opportunity, but a methodological assumption or, with greater risk, a theorem. In his work, he made his own the antinomy on which the history of architecture and design in the twentieth century was built – that between aesthetic function and function of use, but he tried to overcome it by reversing its approach. Rather than considering it the result of an irremediable antithesis between the two distinct concepts, he revealed its substantially unitary nature and transformed the opposition into constitutive duplicity.
[…] Instead of being seduced by the masking with which the concept of “form” was, despite the best initial intentions, most of the time covered – artistry, craftsmanship, aesthetics – which left it substantially, as it was, he preferred to work on the most difficult and least practiced terrain, that of the metamorphosis of the object, or on the ability of things to transform into something else while always remaining the same. But this metamorphosis, to really take place, had to involve the whole object, and not just its formal configuration; and in fact in its most meaningful results […] the functional structure has been rethought just as radically ”.
In the exhibition Veneziano presents his latest works in terracotta, from the Piattimacchiati series to that of the vases with The walking man which denote his ability, as specified in the critical text, to metamorphose not only the formal configuration of the object, but also its functional structure and propose the recent developments of the design landscape through the experimentation of a geometric minimalism, defining a new relationship between object and architectural space.
The Sincresis association collaborated in the realization of the project The state of the art promoted by the Department of Culture and the Cesare Baccetti Ceramics Project of the Municipality of Montelupo Fiorentino, by the Montelupo Culture & Promotion Institution with the general coordination of Benedetta Falteri and the tutor Alice Pistoleri and the Montelupo museum system directed by Fausto Berti, with the support of the Banca di Credito Cooperativo di Cambiano.
The intent was to find a meeting point between the design of design according to innovative methods and trends and the traditional ceramic and glass manufacturing production in the area.
Enhance the processing of materials typical of our geographical area based on a commendable artistic craftsmanship, still active today, and project it towards current experimentation in the visual arts and design, to gather stimuli and energies, in order to promote and guarantee new perspectives for qualification of creative products was the founding goal. The course lasted two months, involving the students of the design course for the degree in Industrial Design of the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Florence and their teachers Gianpiero Alfarano, who dealt with, as director, of the specific management of the course, and Gianni Veneziano, in direct contact with the students, in the conception of a design object that could bring together the two materials, ceramic and glass, on the theme of lighting, so as to design it and realize it with the workers of local manufactures, in turn oriented to interact for an exchange of skills and to activate new research itineraries.
Trying, therefore, to create a synergy between young and future designers and business personnel, a training workshop was activated which is characterized as an “open construction site”, in which on the one hand the proposals of the new generations have been directed towards originality, trying not to fall into easy revivals, remakes and imitations, on the other hand the specific professionalism of the companies, which welcomed the project and which also participated in the training session to acquire knowledge in the design sector, also placed in light the technical peculiarities of processing, and sometimes the need to adapt the conception, and therefore the design imagination to the possibility of making the object, to ensure its functionality.
Two artists proposed by the Sincresis Association, Paolo Fabiani and Francesco Landucci, also took part in the workshop, who presented the students with their creative itinerary to capture the possible contaminations between art and design. Both exhibited a work in Montelupo Fiorentino on the occasion of the Ceramics Festival, respectively Pulcinella’s kitchen in porcelain in the outdoor spaces near the Manufacture adjacent to the Museum and The Tree of Life in crystal in the Church of San Lorenzo, made specifically for this purpose.
Thus, days of study and design alternated at the headquarters of the Industrial Design Course in Calenzano conducted by the aforementioned teachers, with the support also of the Empolese Valdelsa Development Agency, which dealt with the attribution of training credits. , and moments of project verification in the company, to arrive at a presentation and awarding of the projects considered best, having formed a jury commission, based on certain characteristics, from novelty, to the close link between aesthetics and functionality, from referentiality to sign connotation .
Energy, thoughts, skills, knowledge involved in a project in a nutshell to be prepared, improve if necessary with appropriate measures, gathered around an idea that can foresee future prospects, which can mean the beginning of a collaboration, a dialogue, a comparison, a concrete experimentation for tomorrow.