Donata Paruccini
Donata Paruccini, Pluvio. Photography: Italo Perna
Donata Paruccini’s project studies how a vase relates to water. The water seems to be about to spill out of the vase, but the vase has double walls creating inner bags for holding the excess water. Donata Paruccini’s project takes this relation to its extreme focusing on the surface tension of water - whose central part is higher than the part touching the receptacle - through a convex meniscus, which take up the design space along with floating lotus flowers.
Michelangelo Pistoletto
Michelangelo Pistoletto, Vasi Specchio del Terzo Paradiso
Vasi Specchio del Terzo Paradiso
To create this array of vases forming the Nuovo Segno d'Infinito - composed of three rings instead of the conventional two - Michelangelo Pistoletto has organised a collective design process to give shape to his great sculptural work. In actual fact, this design process resulted in the production of sixty vases moulded on rotating lathes, so that they were all different from each other but based on the same physical gestures. Each vase actually embodies the anonymous design of the lathe operators - the kind of design implicit in local craftsmanship - and young computer model-makers.
Adrien Rovero
Adrien Rovero, Borderline
Adrien Rovero’s project reflects on how vases relate to the settings in which they are usually displayed. This project revives the technical effectiveness of détournement (derailing) to set the vase in a fresh context and hence give it a new form. Adrien Rover’s borderline vase is rather amusingly fitted with a workshop bracket, so that can be attached along the edges of tables.
Denis Santachiara
Denis Santachiara, Qualc'uno
Denis Santachiara, Qualc'uno
Denis Santachiara, Qualc'uno
Denis Santachiara has tackled the archetype of a humble red earthenware vase, which has been redesigned and turned on its head to hold flowers in a world which we can see upside down.
Paolo Ulian
Paolo Ulian, Emersi 1, 2
Paolo Ulian, Emersi 3, 4
Paolo Ulian, Emersi 5, 6
Paolo Ulian, Emersi 7, 8
Paolo Ulian, Emersi 9, 10
Paolo Ulian, Emersi 11, 12
Paolo Ulian’s small but abundant range of very fancy-looking Emersi vases are most interesting for the way they have been made. In actual fact, these vases have been constructed by overlapping layers of pigmented earth, which the designer has handled using various different work tools, such as sandpaper, trimmer blades, metallic brushes, kitchen knives, iron saws, razor blades, polishing sponges, various types of stones, toothbrushes, cobbler’s tools, electric grindstones and brushes for shaping clay. The most interesting aesthetic effect are the (at times) violent scratches, scrapes, incisions, rips and abrasions on the ceramic surfaces, handled using tools generally associated with other trades and which here create unusual vase decorations based on a rather unexpected grappling with the layered earth.
Paolo Ulian, Vaso Rosae 1
Paolo Ulian, Vaso Rosae
Paolo Ulian, Vaso Rosae 2
Paolo Ulian, Vaso Rosae
Paolo Ulian’s Vasi Rosae wrap sheets of terracotta around themselves following a spiral pattern to divide the vase into various sections. The rough red terracotta is a miniaturisation of monumental minimalist sculptural tradition, leaving enough room on any table to hold a small and virtuous vase, which also embodies what the avant-gardes have to teach us.
Vedovamazzei
Vedovamazzei, Reset
Vedovamazzei’s sculpture looks at the relationship between bodies - the body of the vase and body of the flower. The vase is actually fitted with two holes along its diagonal axis, which a flower passes through as if puncturing the vase, just like an arrow through the heart. As the most symbolic object of all, the vase violated by the flower turns into an irreverent and comical corpus delicti.
Alberto Viola
Alberto Viola, Scarabia
Alberto Viola, Scarabia
Alberto Viola’s sculptural bodies evoke organic and primeval forms such as stones. The artist has shaped these formless terracotta bodies using infinitesimal bits of pigmented earth diluted in water. This mush - dirty water more than anything else - is combined with the natural organic decomposition of weeds growing on artificial stones in a wild and abandoned Zen Garden atmosphere.
Luca Vitone
Luca Vitone, Eppur si muove
Luca Vitone, Eppur si muove
Luca Vitone looks to those minority cultures which still refuse to copy the dominant style, giving shape to the identifying symbol of Gypsy communities - the wagon wheel - which is transformed into an undulating vase like a flag bearing the colours of the 19th century anarchist movement.
