Bertozzi & Casoni. Dove Come Quando

Opened on June, 7 the exhibition Bertozzi & Casoni. Dove Come Quando (Bertozzi & Casoni. Where How When) by the artists Bertozzi & Casoni in the monumental Palazzo Te in Mantua will remain open until 20 August 2014.

Started from the Istituto Statale d’Arte per la ceramica di Faenza (Italy) Giampaolo Bertozzi and Stefano Dal Monte Casoni, since 1980 in partnership as Bertozzi & Casoni, have been conquering critics and gallery owners from around the world already since 90s succeeding in the “mission impossible” for an Italian artist to win an international recognition, especially in a competitive place as New York from time the nerve center of international contemporary art. The exhibition, curated by Marco Tonelli comprises 19 artworks that document Bertozzi & Casoni’s artistic path: from the salamander, an explicit reference to the emblems of Gonzaga, to the monumental Composizione in bianco (a polar bear imprisoned by a net that contains the remains of his horrid meal and the waste of a polar expedition) installed in the Sala dei Cavalli, from Waiting (2013) mounted in the Sala dei Venti to Sedia elettrica con farfalle (2011), Madonna scheletrita (2008), Scegli il Paradiso (1997), Cuccia Brillo (2003), Ossobello (2007) and many others.

Truly courageous the choice of their artistic practice especially if we think about the climate in which they begin to move and create, a climate certainly post-informal, in search of simplicity and even color rigor. Faced with the new possibilities offered by the media, the photography and its realistic ability, the video and performance and their relational ability I believe that nobody in the world would have bet on ceramics as devoid of any characteristic that expresses the contemporary striving longer to artistic forms essentially "participatory" being precisely the participation a keyword in our society. Yet they have believed in this and as Goethe's Faust were not satisfied with their condition continually going toward new goals, aiming to overcome with their technical virtuosity the human limits rivaling so with the infinite possibilities of the computer, with the precision of photographic yield and with the reactions and reports of video and performance. But beware this is not just a virtuous exercise of technical expertise because their practice is in my opinion also an anthropological matrix reflecting on the transience and fragility of the human condition (porcelain), the search of Eternity (waste that become artworks) and the overcoming human limitations (a surgical and almost manic precision). All this with a fair dose of irony.

Ours is a society that consumes, that celebrates the transient and momentary, that generates organic, human and cultural waste but also that feeds continuously with the beauty. This is also said by the French sociologist Yves Michaud in the book L'Art à l'état gazeux: essai sur le triomphe de l'esthétique, 2003 in which he states that the interest in the beauty in all its forms (aesthetic) permeates all aspects of our lives dozing off our social responsibility and civic engagement (ethics). The beauty thus ennobles even the wastes making them attractive, pleasant, charming. But the beauty in the artworks of Bertozzi & Casoni also becomes the key that opens our consciousness, our feelings, our being. It is from this that stats our discovery. It is from this that starts our rebirth. Goodness knows if the beauty will save us. But certainly it helps us to understand ourselves better and to understand better where we are going and where we want to go.