Metamorphoelephant, 2023, stoneware, porcelain and bronze, 26 37/64 × 20 5/64 × 20 55/64 in.
©Foto Massimo Listri
Bertozzi & Casoni
Giampaolo Bertozzi (Borgo Tossignano 1957) and Stefano Dal Monte Casoni (Lugo di Romagna 1961 – Imola 2023) graduated from the State Institute of Art for Ceramics in Faenza and went on to attend the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna. During their formative years, they fought for the re-evaluation of ceramics, which at the time tended to be regarded as secondary to other artistic expressions. From 1985 to 1989, they collaborated with Cooperativa Ceramica d’Imola, and also made works in Tama New Town, Tokyo, and the work Ditelo con i fiori (Say It with Flowers) for Imola’s civil hospital. Between 1983 and 1994, they also began to focus on design, collaborating with Dilmos and Dino Gavina. The 1990s marked the emergence of the conceptual and radical side of their research and the development of their technical expertise in the creation of painted majolica works, allowing them to reach new levels in terms of size and realization—with Bosco sacro (Sacred Wood) in 1993, Evergreen in 1995 and Scegli il Paradiso (Choose Paradise) in 1997. At the turn of the new century, they created the famous series Contemplazioni del presente (Contemplations of the Present), in which the symbols of transience, trash and decay become metaphors of the human condition, and not just today’s. Since then, the artists’ international fame has increased, with one exhibition after another: in 2004 at the Tate Liverpool and at the Rome Quadriennale; in 2007 at Ca’ Pesaro in Venice; in 2008 at Castello Sforzesco in Milan and the MIC in Faenza; in 2009 and 2011 at the Venice Biennale; in 2010 at All Visual Arts in London and the Arnaldo Pomodoro Foundation in Milan. Their solo exhibitions include those at All Visual Arts in 2012, Museum Beelden aan Zee in The Hague in 2013, Palazzo Te in Mantua in 2014, MAMbo in Bologna and Expo Milan in 2015, Palazzo Larderel in Florence, the Gallery of Modern Art in Palermo, MACIST in Biella and Palazzo Ducale in Massa in 2016. In 2017, they exhibited at Palazzo Poggi Museum in Bologna and the Civic Art Gallery in Ascoli Piceno, and on December 16 they opened the Bertozzi & Casoni Museum at the Cavallerizza Ducale in Sassuolo. The latest solo shows: at MARCA in Catanzaro and Museo Morandi in Bologna in 2019, at Complesso di S. Agostino in Pietrasanta in 2020, at Sperone Westwater in New York and Galleria Poleschi in San Marino in 2021, at Galleria d’Arte Maggiore in Bologna, Galleria Civica in Trento and Galleria Caterina Tognon Arte Contemporanea in Venice in 2022, and at Carlocinque Gallery in Milan in 2023. From 2017 to 2023 a large selection of Bertozzi & Casoni’s work was exhibited at the Cavallerizza Ducale in Sassuolo. From October 2023, the San Domenico Museum in Imola will permanently exhibit a significant nucleus of works testifying to their artistic production.
As the artist duo has often stated, art is about surprise, spectacle, beauty: it is a vision that redeems reality. “Nothing is as it seems,” to quote the significant title of one of their exhibitions: here, the tasteful and comforting theme of the flower vase leads to the unexpected and disconcerting encounter of a beautiful bouquet of pink tulips, with their weightless, transparent petals, and of a gray, monolithic elephant head, which has metamorphosed into a vase. We are inevitably astounded by the contrast—which is also emphasized by the use of two antithetical materials, fragile porcelain and resistant stoneware—and by the invitation: looking at the work, we are almost certain that we must leave reality behind and enter a new world. The elephant head is heavy, strong, archaic and unsettling, because it is humanized by the gaze of its two eyes, with one blue-green pupil and the other dark brown: here, the artists refer to their different eye colors, participating in the metamorphosis. With originality and visionary power, this “beautiful flower vase” creates a hybrid of the human, the animal and the vegetable; daringly, it bewilders, provokes and evokes a sense of mystery. (Claudia Pedrini – Bertozzi & Casoni)