Arturo Martini. La trama dei sogni. Fabrics, ceramics, paintings features six never-before-seen textile works by the artist from Treviso, who chose Vado Ligure and Savona as his heartland. Known until now only as drawings mentioned in critical literature, whose actual execution was unknown, the carpets were designed at the end of the 1920s by Martini and made by MITA – Manifattura italiana tappeti artistici of Genoa Nervi for the newly founded furniture company DIANA – Decorazioni Industrie Artistiche Nuovi Arredamenti of architect Mario Labò.
The exhibition, scheduled from 22nd March to 15th July 2024 at the Savona Ceramics Museum, with an in-depth examination also in the spaces of the city’s Pinacoteca Civica, is conceived and promoted by the Associazione Lino Berzoini, Centro per lo studio e lo sviluppo dell’arte, and the Fondazione Museo della Ceramica di Savona. The exhibition is curated by Carla Bracco, Magda Tassinari and Donatella Ventura, with the scientific contribution of Wolfsoniana – Palazzo Ducale Fondazione per la Cultura in Genoa and the Museo Luigi Bailo in Treviso. The exhibition has the support of the Fondazione De Mari and the Municipality of Savona and is included among the events promoting Savona’s candidature as Italian Capital of Culture 2027.
As unexpected as it is exceptional, this incredible find will be the starting point of a new narrative around Martini’s artistic oeuvre, with more than 40 works on display, including plastic, pictorial, graphic, textile and, of course, ceramic works.
The exhibition starts from the exceptional discovery and documents the relationship between Martini and textile art, cultivated between Albisola, Genoa and Vado Ligure, where the artist from Treviso lived between 1920 and 1932, creating many of his best-known masterpieces. Thanks to the collaboration with the Wolfsoniana – Palazzo Ducale Fondazione per la Cultura in Genoa, the Bailo Museum in Treviso and the Museo del Paesaggio in Verbania, the executive sketches of the carpets on display will be shown. Arturo Martini. La trama dei sogni (The weft of dreams) will trace the entire process of the artist’s and the Ligurian manufacture’s elaboration of textile works: from the drawing, sometimes taken up in printed executions and then developed in the ‘messa in carta’ (putting on paper), the graphic basis for the weaving, to the technical analysis of the materials, from the knotting process of the wool thread to the formal outcome of the work.
For the duration of the exhibition, the first floor of the Ceramics Museum will also host Essere uno. Tessuti e ceramiche di Alessandro Teoldi (Being One. Fabrics and ceramics by Alessandro Teoldi), an installation of Martini-inspired works by the artist from Milan.
This is Teoldi’s first Italian museum exhibition: born in 1987, the artist has lived in New York since 2011 and is certainly one of the original and consistent voices on the emerging art scene.
His graphic and sculptural work has gained visibility on the international scene thanks to collaborations with the galleries Capsule Shanghai e Marinaro New York, which have made his qualities known and appreciated in the Eastern and Western markets.
Among the peculiarities of Teoldi’s expressive language is the privileged use of different coloured fabrics, cut and sewn together, to create compositions based on the juxtaposition of essential human forms and figures, with synthetic and archaic profiles. A sort of figurative primitivism that does not, however, trace or directly cite the modernist examples of the historical avant-gardes (from Matisse to Picasso and Sironi, to name but a few), because in Teoldi’s figures it is always possible to glimpse and sense the freshness of the contemporary gaze, a tension between form and concept that is absolutely in keeping with the echoes of the current context.
Arturo Martini. La trama dei sogni
Tessuti, ceramiche, dipinti
22nd March – 15th July 2024
Project and conception Associazione Lino Berzoini, Carla Bracco, Magda Tassinari, Donatella Ventura
Curated by Carla Bracco, Magda Tassinari, Donatella Ventura
Exhibition venues Museo della Ceramica di Savona, Pinacoteca Civica di Savona
Graphic and exhibition project gaggeroservente
Catalogue Sagep
Produced by Associazione Lino Berzoini and Museo della Ceramica di Savona, with the scientific collaboration of Wolfsoniana-Palazzo Ducale di Genova, Museo Luigi Bailo di Treviso, with the support of Fondazione A. De Mari, Municipality of Savona and Lino Berzoini Association.
Info & Timetables
Museo della Ceramica di Savona | Pinacoteca Civica
Via Ambrogio Aonzo 9 | piazza Chabrol 2 | Savona
Monday 9.30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Friday 9.30 a.m. – 1 p.m. / 3.30 – 6.30 p.m.
Saturday 9.30 a.m. – 1 p.m. / 3.30 – 6.30 p.m.
Sunday 9.30 a.m. – 5 p.m.
ESSERE UNO
Ceramiche e tessuti di Alessandro Teoldi
22nd March – 15th July 2024
Curated by Luca Bochicchio e Daniele Panucci
Graphic and exhibition gaggeroservente
Catalogue Museo della Ceramica di Savona
Realised by Ceramics Museum of Savona, with the collaboration of Galleria Marinaro in New York and Galleria Capsule in Shanghai, with the support of Fondazione De Mari and the patronage of the Municipality of Savona.
Info & Timetables
Museo della Ceramica di Savona
Via Ambrogio Aonzo 9, Savona
Monday 9.30 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Friday 9.30 a.m. – 1 p.m. / 3.30 – 6.30 p.m.
Saturday 9.30 a.m. – 1 p.m. / 3.30 – 6.30 p.m.
Sunday 9.30 a.m. – 5 p.m.
