Contemporary mosaics at Villa de Claricini Dornpacher
As part of the events organized by the De Claricini Dornpacher Foundation for the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death, the exhibition curated by Scuola mosaicisti del Friuli and dedicated to contemporary mosaic opens on Sunday 16 May 2021 in the space of the nineteenth-century lemon house.
Investigating the figure of Dante does not only mean confirming the importance of his work for the birth and evolution of the Italian language: the knowledge transmitted by his writings embraces the history, traditions, values, expressive forms that make up the Italian culture, our heritage.
As the Italian language has its roots in Dante’s writings, mosaic art looks to the knowledge and techniques of the magister musivarius, which the Scuola mosaicisti del Friuli today, unique in Italy, collects and transmits, training capable professionals, able to achieve high levels of executive quality. So if the “language of Dante” has been transformed over the centuries to maintain its communicative function, mosaic art has also grown, opening up to proposals for innovative materials and technologies and, above all, responding to new expressive needs. The evolution and transformation, necessary to communicate and relate to the present, have led the mosaic to dialogue with three-dimensionality, furniture and design, to develop within the School a research on the possible declinations of mosaic in the contemporary world.
The large panels on show are the result of encounters between students and international artists: the different formal and expressive qualities are translated with the mosaic language. The installation of the Trunks and the furniture surface entitled the Tablecloth demonstrate the versatility of the mosaic in contemporary settings. The “illusionistic” Pareidolia plays on the concept of distance, which is decisive in mosaic art, and highlights the importance for a visitor to appreciate the composition of tiles up close and to grasp the harmony of colors and figuration from afar. An ecological reminder in Ambiente tessera which entrusts to the mosaic the values of reuse, recycling and sustainability, testimonies of our age
Leaving the bright lemon house and crossing the verdant parterre you enter the “foledor” where the monstrous Satan stands out on a stone wall, a character in the golden dome of the “beautiful San Giovanni”, the baptistery adjacent to the cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence where in 1266 Dante was baptized. The students of the second course of the academic year 2014-2015 have reproduced in the original measures a part of the scene of Hell, placed in the lowest register of the vast representation that sees a clear division between the blessed and the damned, as Dante also told in his canticles.
Dante and the mosaic art Exhibition of contemporary mosaic works
by Scuola Mosaicisti del Friuli
16 may – 7 november 2021
Villa de Claricini Dornpacher, Moimacco (UD)
15 may 2021
