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The "First Italian Observatory on Artistic Craftsmanship". A tool for first-hand knowledge of the research and experimental aspects of creative work with materials, and with stone and marble in particular.
Most of the objects and other manufactures man have always created to satisfy his practical and esthetic needs were made from materials taken straight from nature. Stone and wood first of all. That is, materials that are neither plastic nor soluble and that, to be given the shapes desired, require work aimed at removing the material in excess of what the original idea required. Other types of materials, such as clay for ceramics, glass, metal (nowadays plastics), on the contrary necessitate work done by "subtraction" or by molding, casting or using other procedures and techniques based on the materials' plasticity and/or fluidity. This does not mean that hierarchies of importance should be created among materials, or that adjectives like "new" and "ancient" should be added. A material that can be used is neither old nor new. I believe we can be more tolerant towards the adjective "natural". In the sense that some materials, like stone and wood, are found in nature exactly "as is". The others, while not "unnatural", that is, not conceptually artificial, require procedures that are laborious and may also be highly complex (1). Also acceptable is the adjective "traditional", in the sense that only a few can be considered materials of local "tradition". Those with which, since long ago and for a long time, man has related, bending them to and using them within the various sectors of his work. And thus architecture, as least in the Western conception of it, is also symbolically identified with stone. And it is not by chance that, still today, a large segment of Italian craftsmanship is devoted to working numerous varieties of local marbles and stones. Probably certain neologisms have been introduced solely for clarity of message. So that many of the new "new materials" are frequently just materials unusually coupled together by means of (really) "new technologies" (2). In regard to artisanal workmanship using "traditional materials", Italy is currently going through a very interesting phase. A phase that can be viewed pessimistically and at the same time optimistically. In brief, a phase that has reached its lowest point but that, right for this reason, could be ready for an interesting as well as innovative upswing; the signs are there, and so are great skills. In Italy, the indiscriminant destruction of the land carried out in the name of a misunderstood "modernity" has been not only physical but first of all anthropological and cultural. In the field of traditional craftsmanship this has mainly led to a loss of know-how, by now uprooted from rural culture and also from the more recent pre-modern culture closer to the workshops of the 19th century industrial revolution. Nothing is as it was. But it is also true that, in spite of everything, something has survived the catastrophe. And in some fortunate cases, on to that "something" have been profitably grafted new as well as interesting languages.
These are encouraging signs. But, in the absence of valid support from public institutions, the current situation makes it obligatory to possess a tool able to comprehend and aid Italy's different artisanal activities.
Given these facts, what was undertaken during the Milan Furniture Fair, April 11th to 16th, 2000, by the Galleria Fatto ad Arte (run by Raffaella and Francesca Fossati) and by Ugo La Pietra-Studioinpiu, was very important. They presented an exhibit entitled "Ad Arte": Design, Art and Craftsmanship, and the "First Italian Observatory on Artistic Craftsmanship". The exhibit, held in the Minguzzi Museum, was devoted to a selection of sixteen objects designed by Ugo La Pietra and produced by as many artisanal workshops scattered throughout the country.
"For years we have seen industrial design grow and develop on the one hand, and, on the other, art. Recent exhibits, research and above all a renewed relationship between the design mentality and certain areas of homogeneous artisanal production, have put into circulation enough energy to contribute in a determinant way to developing artistic craftsmanship in Italy today. To this phenomenon must be added the fact that our society loves to experiment with new models of environmental behavior but also wants to preserve, re-evoke and re-enter into ancient rituals. And it is exactly this cohabitation of ancient and new rituals that has contributed to rediscovering the exceptional object, the prototype, the limited editions 'artfully done'". With these words spoken in the early eighties Ugo La Pietra revealed and presented - first in Area magazine and then in Abitare con Arte - the various changes, phenomena and innovations going on in a still-vital productive system. One that was beginning to find its own field of renewed exploration and production, as seen in the exhibits "Progetti e Territori" [Designs and Territories] and "Genius Loci" held at the "Abitare il Tempo" fair in Verona and in the "Abitare con Arte" show held in 1990 in the former church of S. Carpoforo in Milan. The latter exhibit presented interesting experiments with seating designed by various artists following the route of renewed experimentation with Pietra Leccese from Cursi. The Lazio region in central Italy was particularly well represented, with different works connected primarily to use of this stone.
At the end of the eighties much work was done by the Officina Romana del Disegno (whose series of catalogues this author directed), especially in travertine design. Its most important undertaking was the exhibit entitled "Marmi e progetti - Via Giulia e la Scuola Romana di Architettura" [Marble and Design - Via Giulia and the Roman School of Architecture] held in Rome in October of 2000. A number of shows devoted to materials traditionally used in Lazio were held in Rome in the monumental complex of S. Michele - Ministry of Cultural and Environmental Heritage. Among these was "Il Travertino, 'Marmo del Lazio'" [Travertine, Lazio Marble] (November, 1991) whose theme was designs for travertine and featured many works produced by the Officina Romana del Disegno. The same venue was also host to other exhibits devoted to crafts - mosaics, pottery, bronze-working, wood-working (curated by the author) - such as "Mosaici del Lazio" (October, 1992), "La Ceramica del Lazio" (November, 1992) "Dal Bronzo l'Artigianato nobile del Lazio" (November, 1993) and "L'industria del Legno nel Lazio" (November, 1993). Another important show, devoted specifically to stone craftsmanship was "La nuova eta della Pietra a Roma" [The New Stone Age in Rome] held in the former stables of Palazzo Ruspoli (1994).
Finally, on the southern Italian front, since the early nineties there has been ferment in the Puglia area, leading to important undertakings especially in the extraction basins for Pietra Luccese to the south and Pietra di Apricena to the north. In Cursi in 1994 the Architecture Faculty of the University of Bari engaged in work involving not only the question of design per se but also design using Leccese Stone; it also showed work site experience to be a central aspect in training students and architects. Working on paper while keeping an eye on the material's transformation was revealed to be an artisanal act before being an exercise in architecture (3). Due to the numerous initiatives recently carried out in the Cursi area, the zone has gradually become a national reference point. Finally, during the September, 2000 edition of "Territori di Pietra" a special seminar held in Cursi advanced a proposal for setting up a "National Stone and Marble Observatory". There had already been signs of gradual maturation in this direction and of a consequent need to set up nationwide "networking" between local stone and marble extraction basins (that is, between "homogenous areas"). For example, the successive editions of the show entitled "Arcipelago di Pietra" held during the International Marble Show in Verona (the 1998 and 1999 editions, generally coordinated by Vincenzo Pavan). In the Pietra di Apricena basin a lot of work has been done in terms of cultural promotion as well as design, in connection with boards such as the Verona Fair. Involved in this work were the City of Apricena, the consortium for promoting and valorizing marble and Apricena Stone (Conpietra) and the Laboratorio Progetto Cultura.
"New decoration", "artistic design", "artfully made objects": these and other definitions have connoted the various experiences, avoiding use of the now forgotten term of "applied arts". Quite some time (nearly two decades) has passed since the initial ferment that now seems to be so present and diffused within our system as to require an adequate response. Through the magazine "Artigianato tra arte e design" Ugo La Pietra has for some years been recording the products, collections, prizes, competitions and national and international shows that are making this field of discipline grow, and has taken direct and active part in organizing exhibits and collections in various artisanal areas. Raffaella and Francesca Fossati's Galleria Fatto ad Arte (see box) has lately been developing work that perfects the passages leading to the right exchanges between exploration and production.
Its "Genius Loci" shows devoted to various areas of artisanal production that constantly strive to renew tradition through design, and its "Edizioni Fatto ad Arte" are concrete examples of this gallery's great commitment.
Ugo La Pietra, owner of Studioinpiu, and Raffaella and Francesca Fossati, owners of the Fatto ad Arte gallery, are thus actively committed to the growth of a disciplinary area that in any case is hard to give a definition or limits to, either culturally or as a system able to find its own disciplinary field. To meet these aims the First Italian Observatory on Artistic Craftsmanship was instituted. It is an organization created to gain knowledge about and give a meaning and significance to a field of discipline lacking in institutions (museums, research centers, workshops). A sort of mark of quality defining the area of artistic craftsmanship, increasingly prone to false interpretations and vulgarization.
The Observatory's attention is directed towards understanding (4):
1) the work of the artist/artisan who in his works overcomes the false separations between craftsmanship and design, putting into action certain factors like
research and design in relation to the environment and to history;
defining the use objects that can be put into production while maintaining the virtues proper to works of art;
exploring the conflicts and overlaps between the two disciplines, Art and Design;
references to tradition and at the same time attitudes loaded with new formal indications and content;
2) the artisan working traditionally;
3) the artisan working to design, a person who, working jointly with a creative (artist, designer, architect) would soon play an important role within the artistic craftsmanship system;
4) the artisan who works for industry;
5) the artisan who works with a new conception of the small concern;
6) the creative (designer, architect) who works with and for artistic craftsmanship with a project, hence differently from the logic of industrial design.
This reading and interpretation can finally make a contribution to comprehending the vast area of Italian artistic craftsmanship in order for it to measure up to, and locate itself within, the vaster international system.
It could also be a teaching support in art institutes and academies. This could be achieved by creating a network of artisans able to communicate their experiences to the various schools involved and to all those commercial organizations that have trouble in defining the added value of a work included in this panorama.
In the sector of stones, marbles and their work processes there are a great many "homogeneous areas" of tradition that can still be found in Italy and that should be given due attention.
However, in its initial phase, the Observatory includes only the main ones. As it takes root, others will be taken into consideration. Currently, the Observatory has pinpointed the homogeneous sectors in the sector of stones, marbles and their working as the following:
Volterra alabaster
Carrara marble
Trapani marbles and stones
Verona marble
Monreale mosaics
Ravenna mosaics
Spilimbergo mosaics
Peperino
Pietra di Apricena
Pietra di Fontanarosa
Pietra di Lavagna
Lava stone
Pietra Leccese
Pietra Serena
Pietra Vicentina
Roman travertine
The Observatory is thus a tool of direct nationwide knowledge in a continuous process of experience that in fact goes beyond the numerous exhibits (too often random) in this area, with a continuous work program open to welcoming all the instances that have lately grown in the sector. From the meaning of the tools regulating artistic craftsmanship to problems connected with teaching in the art institutes and academies to museums of applied arts. But above all it gives its attention to the problems of research and experimentation, finding tools and methods to spread and motivate creative work and hence commercialize production.
The Galleria Fatto ad Arte was founded in Monza in a former textiles factory (weaving as a craft is traditional to this area). Not far from Villa Reale - once site of the Applied Arts Biennial and now of the State Art Institute - the gallery aims at being a reference point for everyone working towards design that is full of meaning and significance. And this in a place like Monza that is strongly influenced by a nearby metropolis, Milan. The gallery's work is closely connected to studying (and in many case recouping) typical crafts to produce objects and complementary furnishings tied to the places and materials in which Italy is so rich.
These traditions are not blindly taken up again to reproduce the works of the past. Instead, the artisanal work tied to certain places and materials goes hand in hand with a design mentality that is typically Italian.
We are dealing here with traditional work processes and materials used by contemporary artisans, artists and designers to produce modern objects of use.
In spite of everything, standardization has not yet swept away those who still believe in differences (cultural, first of all), or rather, what has been spared and what, laboriously and with originality, the remaining artisans on the fringe are trying to build up. It is possible and believable that right here in Italy, the country of infinite differences, an unusual (as well as ancient) craftsmanship can make headway, whose products are directed at emerging markets and are channeled through increasingly selective vehicles able to fulfill the most varied requests for the most varied (quality) products. Attesting to this are the new merchandising areas in museums and the huge, close-knit world of Internet.
Today the repeatability of identical, mass-produced objects connoted by the industrial revolution is being gradually replaced by increasingly diversified production aware of the particular requirements of final users.
Because the meaning of the latest technological revolution, the electronic (which is also cultural and social) is that it is possible - and by now necessary - to create products which, while ascribable to recognizable wholes, are different from one another, personalized. These are the characteristics that distinguish most of the crafts by now ready to occupy new and unusual areas. A final but no less important aspect of artisanal stone products is that they constitute (and could lead to) considerable enrichment (economic as well as cultural) of the local social weave otherwise dissipated into simply producing and exporting blocks to Italian and foreign markets.
This is a very important "added value" for a long time ignored and, unfortunately, practically absent in many important Italian stone basins.
The Edizioni Fatto ad Arte published by the Fatto ad Arte gallery are limited, numbered series of works by artists, designers and craftspeople working in the field of certain specific materials or special kinds of workmanship. Sometimes this is called "artistic design" or even "new craftsmanship".
According to the gallery's founders, Raffaella and Francesca Fossati, these objects are defined as "fatti ad arte" (artfully made, and from whence the gallery's name) to cite their high executive and cultural value.
The Edizioni Fatto ad Arte collection is made from materials and processes belonging to Italy and its traditions. Among the natural stone materials and ways of working it the collection includes: Volterra alabaster, slate, Spilimbergo mosaics, Pietra Leccese, etc.
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