GEOMETRY OF CHAOS - CARLO ZAULI AND TORBJØRN KVASBØ at Officine Saffi

An exhibition dedicated to the great artist from Faenza, Carlo Zauli (1926-2002), and the Norwegian Torbjørn Kvasbø (born1953) opens at Officine Saffi on December 14th.

Staged in collaboration with Museo Carlo Zauli and under the patronage of the General Royal Consulate of Norway, the intersection between Carlo Zauli's historic works and the wholly contemporary pieces by Torbjørn Kvasbø can be placed into relation with one of the most intense collections of poetry of the last few decades, Geometria del disordine by Maria Luisa Spaziani. "Zauli and Kvasbø are from different generations and different geographical areas, but they reveal certain similarities in their approach. Both start from a critically important aspect, the negation of pre-ordained form and the idea of the work not as the realization of a constructional process, but rather as the affirmation of the questions intrinsic to the process itself".

The focus for Carlo Zauli is the simple "lump" of clay, to which he gives shape enhancing its mysterious internal tensions. This was the genesis of works as Zolle (Clods), Aratura (Plowing) or Vasi Sconvolti (Distorted Vases). They prove the deep bond between the artist and the clay, and his search to capture: “the sign of and in the clay, of and in the nature which can transmit that vital and constructive sense that is always present around and in us".

Torbjørn Kvasbø celebrates this bond with clay by starting with the archetype of the form-container and examining its role in human history. His quest renews and rivivify this material in a colourful series called Stack, on show at the exhibition. This works have as reference the classic form of the vase destructured and given to a new plastic reference, through the multiplication of tubular segments assembled in a spiral. "A form which at the same time is a body in its own right, a three-dimensional torso with its own gestures and feelings". The work shows awareness of an innate resistance in the material, over which Kvasbø knows he has no control, and that through the sign it becomes interpreter of the inner emotional states of the artist.

"In both artists however, the break and the fracture, the laceration and the compression, the torsion and the collision, are not perpetrated as an ideological stance with respect to the horizon of an avant-garde approach which, today merely a repetitive mannerism, has a negative effect on value. These actions are rather extreme, intimately tortured acts, loving actions of the deepest liberation and comprehension, moments dedicated to the quest for a more radically decisive layer in the intellectual generation of form".

Carlo Zauli bio:
Carlo Zauli (Faenza, 1926-2002) is one of the great names in post-war Italian sculpture. Like other masters of previous generations, from Martini to Fontana and Leoncillo, his technical training was in the field of ceramic art. Zauli moved away from its formal principles in the 1960s, however, when his work moved towards a complex form of sculptural research of great expressive richness. The shift from informal territories towards a reasoning about geometrical forms as rhetorical structures brought him into the heart of the sculptural debate of those years. The solo exhibition in Milan at the Montenapoleone Gallery in 1957 fitted in perfectly with other works that were part of a trend towards an integration of the arts (frieze for the palace in Baghdad, 1958; frieze for the government printing office in Kuwait City, 1961; participation in the Milan Triennales in 1954, 1957, 1964 and 1968) and with his close friendship with artists like Fontana, Valentini, Pomodoro, and Spagnulo. In the late 1960s his sculpture started entering intricate, problematic areas in which the formative disposition of matter, the relationship between the substance and skin of the sculptural body, the dialectic between biomorphism and geometry, the structural behaviour of form and the relationship with the Earth and the Nature all came to the fore. Together with great solo exhibitions (Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire in Brussels and Hetjens-Museum in Düsseldorf, 1972; a travelling exhibition in Osaka, Tokyo, Nagoya, and Kyoto, 1974; and another in Fukuoka, Tokoname and Tokyo, 1981) and works of architectural integration, he also put on a number of solo exhibitions in galleries and public spaces. These gave his work truly international scope, as can be seen in the recent travelling retrospective held in Kyoto, Gifu, Tokyo, and Hagi, 2007-2008. Carlo Zauli died in 2002. His works are now in over forty museums around the world.

Torbjørn Kvasbø bio:
Torbjørn Kvasbø (1953) is one of the most fascinating and characteristic contemporary artists using ceramics as a chosen means of expression. Since the 1970s, his work has explored the possibilities and potential of clay, making use of both familiar and abstract forms. From the utilitarian objects of his early years, his research has moved its focus to more plastic forms. In recent years, colour has played an important role, together with the recurring theme of the tube. He taught in the School of #design and Crafts at the University of Gothenburg (1996-2000) and the University College of Arts, Crafts and #design in Stockholm (2000-2008). Torbjørn Kvasbø’s works are in the collections of leading museums around the world, including the National Museum in Stockholm, the Designmuseum Danmark in Copenhagen, the National Museum of Art, Architecture and #design in Oslo, the Auckland Museum Institute, Auckland, the Museum of Modern Ceramic Art in Gifu and the Icheon World Ceramic Centre.

Officine Saffi:
Officine Saffi is an experimental hub dedicated to contemporary ceramics. The project consists of the Art gallery, for exhibitions by international artists, the Workshop for courses, also used for the artists’ residencies and production by artists and designers, and the Publishing Company that produces art catalogues and the quarterly magazine La Ceramica in Italia e nel mondo (www.laceramicainitalia.com). Part of the Officine Saffi mission is Open to Art, international competition dedicated to Art and #design Ceramics. Through its operations, Officine Saffi represents a point of reference for international contemporary ceramics.

GEOMETRY OF CHAOS
Carlo Zauli and Torbjørn Kvasbø
Curated by Flaminio Gualdoni
Officine Saffi I via Aurelio Saffi, 7 I Milano

15 December – 10 February 2016
Opening reception: Wednesday, 14 December 2016, 6.30pm
Opening hours: from Monday to Friday, 10.00am – 6.30pm. Saturday 11.00am – 6.00pm. Sunday by appointment.
Admission free