Mosaico&Mosaici 2024 opens and it’s a big party

05/08/2024

Mosaico&Mosaici 2024 opens and it’s a big party

The Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli opened the doors of its flagship event this evening, 26 July 2024: the Mosaico&Mosaici exhibition. He did it with an inauguration that was a party, with many guests, music, toasts and the usual success of the public who came to see the new mosaic works.
An exhibition that is the fruit of the commitment made during the entire 2023/2024 training year, a moment of satisfaction and joy where you can exhibit and share the best of the activity carried out: mosaics, projects, drawings, technical tests and experiments, academic copies in the wake of tradition or innovative and functional solutions where the resources are creativity and knowledge of materials.

The ceremony began with institutional greetings which took place in the external courtyard of the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli. Doing the honors were the president of the School, Stefano Lovison, and the director Gian Piero Brovedani; with them on stage were the mayor of Spilimbergo Enrico Sarcinelli, the president of the regional council of Friuli Venezia Giulia Mauro Bordin, the regional councilor for infrastructure and territory Cristina Amirante, the senator Marco Dreosto and the deputy minister of the environment and energy security Vannia Gava. Numerous military and civil authorities wanted to participate in the inauguration, including Natalino Domenico Manno, prefect of Pordenone and the police commissioner Giuseppe Solimene, as well as professionals, students and former students, teachers, entrepreneurs, artisans and traders in the area, curious and enthusiasts of mosaic art, from the region as well as from abroad.

In welcoming him, President Lovison wanted to underline the centrality of the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli, established to provide training and a job to young Friulians forced to emigrate and which in more than a hundred years of existence has become an international reality for the art of mosaic , tourist attraction, driving force for the economy of a territory in which today there is the greatest density of artisanal companies in the mosaic field, a place capable of attracting young people from all over the world. It was director Brovedani who, in coordinating the interventions, wanted to cite some numbers: first of all the thirteen nationalities represented by the students enrolled in the School and which make it a center of integration and cultural exchange, where distances and differences are canceled out from the common goal of learning; the sixty-six entities that make up the Consortium for the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli, a number that has been growing and which in the last year alone has seen the entry of six new entities, an expression of consolidated recognition of the School at a regional level; the annual Mosaico&Mosaici exhibition which turns thirty and which saw the light in the mid-nineties as the School’s desire to engage with the outside world; the conclusion of the one hundred and second training year, 2023/204, with the vision already projected at the start of the new courses in September.
Mayor Sarcinelli highlighted the ability of the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli to innovate and renew itself, where the relationship between local institutions becomes fundamental, thus managing to incorporate different purposes such as training, tourism and culture. For Senator Dreosto, the growth in quality is the demonstration of the constant work carried out by the School which was responsible for the vast mosaic surfaces of the Foro Italico in Rome in the 1930s and which now, thanks also to the support of the municipal administration and the Friuli Venezia Region, Giulia is preparing to create a 1,300 mq flooring in front of the School which is probably the largest mosaic surface in Italy. The Friuli Venezia Giulia Region which with a law wanted to assign the educational, productive and promotional role of the art of mosaic to the School and which is now preparing, as announced by the President of the Regional Council Bordin, to support an expansion of the training offer to allow master mosaic artists qualified at the School to also obtain the title of restoration technicians in the mosaic sector.

Councilor Amirante mentioned the School in another key moment in regional history when, once the border with Slovenia had fallen, the School was called upon to design the mosaic in Piazzale della Transalpina, a symbolic place of the European Union and now at the center of Nova Gorica-Gorizia European Capital of Culture 2025. Applause for the School was also expressed by Deputy Minister Gava who reiterated the Government’s closeness to an institution that communicates with the international language of art which safeguards tradition by grafting renewal and modernity so as to be able to move positively towards the future.

At the conclusion of the inaugural speeches, before the official opening of the exhibition with the exclusive visit conducted by president Lovison, two students of the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli were awarded: the master mosaicist Dalila Loiacono who brilliantly concluded the specialization course and precisely for the dedication, availability and enthusiasm demonstrated obtained the “Mario Donà” Award of Merit offered by Nicoletta and Marco Donà, owners of the kiln of the same name in Spilimbergo, and Erika Fantin who was the winner, with the mosaic portrait of the actor Johnny Depp, of the Mosaic Young Talent Award, a project aimed at all students of the School, promoted by the Naonis cultural association and directed by Guglielmo Zanette.
The collateral exhibition set up in the nearby building on Viale Barbacane, the Gallery of the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli, is dedicated to this award. It hosts Volti musivi: Icons of art (Mosaic Faces: Icons of art), a review of portraits of well-known people created in mosaic by students and former students, which are combined with high-resolution blow-ups that allow for a greater appreciation of details, all rendered with tiles, such as the ”complexion, the physiognomic features, the intensity and character of the gaze.

Inaugural ceremony MosaicoeMosaici 2024

Inaugural ceremony, institutional greetings. The director Gian Piero Brovedani, the mayor of Spilimbergo Enrico Sarcinelli, the regional councilor Cristina Amirante, the president of the regional council Mauro Bordin, the deputy minister Vannia Gava, the president Stefano Lovison, the senator Marco Dreosto.

The exhibition
Now in its thirtieth edition, the Mosaico&Mosaici exhibition transforms the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli into a large exhibition space: in the laboratories, rearranged for the occasion, they can therefore be admired throughout the month of August (every day, including the holiday of 15 August, until Sunday 25 August) the works developed and created in class in the three courses that make up the professional path to becoming a Master Mosaicist. Four forms of expression are addressed and for each there is a dedicated room: that of the Greco-Roman mosaic, that of the Byzantine, that of the modern and that of the contemporary. The visitor thus retraces the history of mosaics through the mosaics that were created during the past training year. We understand the evolution of the mosaic in ancient times: a mosaic that covers the floors and which at the beginning was exclusively functional. From pebble or cocciopesto specimens, we move on to the use of tiles and at the same time to the design of decorative motifs and figures. In the following centuries the mosaic covers large wall surfaces, represents characters and tells stories, is able to last over time and with the introduction of enamels shines with light: it is the so-called Byzantine mosaic. This is demonstrated by the panel, the result of group work, of the Archangel Gabriel who welcomes the visitor in the room dedicated to the Byzantine mosaic.

For the coordinated image of the Mosaico&Mosaici 2024 exhibition, a modern mosaic was chosen, created with the reverse technique on paper, which interprets a design with floral motifs signed by the artist Angiolo D’Andrea, originally from Rauscedo, who moved at the beginning of Novecento in Milan, where he made his fortune.
The exhibition continues with the research conducted in the field of contemporary mosaic which is expressed in furniture, design and also leather goods with a project shared with the Pordenone company DuDu Bags. Here there are several creative challenges whose results will be seen: from the interpretation of lace and embroidery to almost photographic shots of complex bookcases mirroring the culture of today, from black and white portraits to the covering projects of iconic benches to be placed in public places.

While starting from the skills of artisanal knowledge inherited from tradition, the Mosaico&Mosaici exhibition is a showcase of the ability of the teachers and students of the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli to innovate, to keep up with the times, to satisfy the tastes and needs of the present, to respond to market needs with forms and materials borrowed from other artistic fields.

The Mosaico&Mosaici exhibition offers the opportunity to learn about what the Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli as a production, as well as promotional and training center for mosaic art, has achieved in the area: the various construction sites carried out between 2023 and 2024 are listed. of large mosaics, commissioned by external parties, which the students of the specialization course (a fourth year of specialization for those who have already qualified as Master Mosaic Artist) followed in the design, execution and installation, such as the monumental wall for the Civic Library of Corno of Rosazzo or the mosaic “tangram” The tree of knowledge for the G. Narvesa Primary School of Pordenone, until discovering, as a preview, the large mosaic panel which will be located in the autumn in San Giorgio della Richinvelda.

Inaugural ceremony 2024