Intervallo: light is a material, in dialogue with ceramics — Design: Andrea Anastasio
17/04/2023
A luminous sculpture in which light, utilised as a material, cases shadows and emphasises forms. Part of the Battiti research project, INTERVALLO draws on memory, reinterpreting a familiar icon in a delicate new spirit.
An independent, free company in the world of lighting, Foscarini blazes new trails in the field of decorative lamps, transforming a section of a figurative ceramic panel from the historical archives of Bottega Gatti in Faenza into a luminous sculpture. A project in which the artist and the workshop, the materials and LED technology, join forces in remarkable harmony.
Intervallo is a creation that stems from the research project Battiti, presented by Foscarini at the Fuorisalone 2022: a workshop of pure experimentation on light and ceramics, based on collaboration with Andrea Anastasio and Davide Servadei of Ceramica Gatti 1928, in which Anastasio has delved into the works conserved in the Gatti archives, dissecting and reassembling the pieces with light, in a logic that overturns tradition to offer novel forms and original meanings.
“The production of decorative bas relief ceramic panels, which for centuries have adorned the interiors and exteriors of houses, churches and palaces, has all but vanished today. I have a great passion for collections of materials – like herbaria, or libraries – and I am fascinated by the possibility of working on archives”, says Andrea Anastasio.
“It is not a matter of adding contents, but of generating new ones through a gesture that alters the compositional nature of something that already exists in the world. I have searched for a balance between the intention of confusing the gaze, sabotaging the image, and of guiding it into a reconstruction. The operation implies bringing a sign back into the world, a sign that had lost its visibility”.
A project whose function is represented by the decoration itself, INTERVALLO is a case of love at first sight: an artwork in which light is used as a material to build forms and volumes. In keeping with the Italian ceramic tradition, the piece comes in a single colour, a shiny berrettino glaze. A familiar icon, belonging to the European figurative tradition, reinterpreted in an original new guise.
