The work was conceived in 2003, when Cabiati was invited to participate in the second Biennial of Contemporary Ceramics Art. Today it has a permanent home at the Savona Ceramics Museum. The artist was invited to the Museum in order to rethink the installation of the work, as a part of an ambitious project initiated by the new Museum director at the beginning of 2018: the goal is to stimulate an interplay between the Savona and Albisola crafting tradition and a contemporary and experimental vision of the ceramics.
Vincenzo Cabiati, Carbone, 2003/2008. Refractory clay, oxides, glazes. Manufactured by: Barbara Arto, Yilli Plaka for Attese Edizioni.
Carbone is an artwork steeped in multiple meanings, both ideological and emotive. Cabiati has chosen an element of continuity with his home town, Vado Ligure, whose very identity has been strictly tied in with coal for many years, for better or worse. The artwork has taken on even more value and more significance over time, given the developments that led, in 2014, to the interruption of the activities of the Vado Ligure coal-fired thermal power plant. But the artist transcends history and lets his work inspire those who watch it without necessarily influencing their perception. The new placement inside the Museum will not just be a simple repositioning, but will lend the work a new range of meanings, ideally allowing in to be read within its original context.
The cokeria of Vado Ligure, where coal was processed.
