Handmade in Albisola
Attese Edizioni
Roberto Costantino
During the course of the twentueth-century, in the territory of the Albisole, a land of ancient ceramic-making traditions, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti set up the Free Republic of the Arts, Bruno Munari brought to life imaginary majolica-coated animals, Lucio Fontana created space in the earth with holes and slashes, Piero Manzoni discovered and made use of kaolin, the white ceramic ingredient of his cold achrome, Asger Jorn agitated the collective actions of the Bauhaus Imaginiste, and Guy Debord put the spotlight of his Architecture Sauvage in a sophisticated text.
It is in this land that, ever since 2000, the “Attese” association has been promoting the hybriditation of local craft traditions and their encounter with the innovative culture of design, free artistic expression, business culture and high-tech, with the aim of introducing content worthy of our age into contemporary ceramics. To achieve this, the “Attese” association has been setting up a large and flexible network in the area of the Albisole. It recalls the historic model of italian manufacturing districts and is designed to start up and developed research, training, and local ceramic traditions, designers and artists of international fame, critics, art and design historians, high-tech business, universities, vocational training centres, and local and territorial authorities.
The results of the work being carried out by the Biennale di Ceramica nell'Arte Contemporanea take concrete form in the Attese Edizioni – the “long awaited editions” wich are being presented here in the form of limited editions numbered and signed by designers and artists like Alessandro Mendini and Andrea Branzi, Michelangelo Pistoletto and Corrado Levi.
Text published in the brochure of the “Handmade in Albisola” exhibition, La Triennale, Milan, 2007
Photography Fulvio Rosso
