Contemporary Mosaic Biennial in Ravenna: a look at the present of a technique with centuries of history

The8th Edition of the Contemporary Mosaic Biennial, curated by Daniele Torcellini, opened in Ravenna on October 14, and will run until January 14, 2024, involving the entire city. An event that aims to invite the public to immerse themselves in a technique with a centuries-old history that still does not cease to fascinate. The Biennial of Contemporary Mosaic is promoted, organized and supported by the Municipality of Ravenna, Department of Culture and Mosaic and Department of Tourism, coordinated by the MAR - Art Museum of the City of Ravenna and realized thanks to the support of the Ministry of Tourism’s Project for the Enhancement of Ravenna as a City of Mosaic, the Emilia Romagna Region, the Raul Gardini Foundation, the Fondazione del Monte di Bologna e Ravenna and Romagna Acque Società delle Fonti. The aim is to propose a look at the present of mosaics against the backdrop of the evidence of the early Christian and Byzantine periods in which the city is rich.

The Biennale’s rich exhibition itinerary starts at the MAR - Art Museum of the City of Ravenna, which hosts the exhibition BURRIRAVENNAORO, curated by Bruno Corà and dedicated to Alberto Burri. The exhibition aims to trace the history of Burri’s intense relationship with Ravenna since the late 1980s. Conceiving several cycles of works inspired by the history and artistic culture of the city, Burri, in one of his last series, embodies and transfigures in the contrast of black and gold, darkness and light, the dialogue with the historical mosaic of Ravenna in the actuality of a city in which the vestiges of the past have progressively intertwined with the economic, industrial, political and social developments of the present.

With the idea of highlighting how an area strongly marked by the historical legacy of its past has confronted both the early Christian and Byzantine mosaic and the innovative thrusts of contemporary art, the MAR hosts The Physical Memory of Matter, curated by Linda Kniffitz and Daniele Torcellini. Through a selection of artists from different generations, the aim is to highlight the experimental practices of mosaic in the Ravenna area, from the 1970s to the present, in which the materials that characterized the technique in antiquity are explored in their presence and concreteness, in search of forms, spaces, balances and contrasts, beyond any figurative intention. The exhibition presents works by Paolo Racagni, Marco De Luca, Marco Santi, Valentino Montanari, Almuth Schöps, Felice Nittolo, Sergio Policicchio, Toyoharu Kii, Daniele Strada, Marco Bravura, Verdiano Marzi, Stefano Mazzotti, Takako Hirai, CaCO3, and Sara Vasini.

In the MAR spaces, alongside the two temporary exhibitions, the Contemporary Mosaic Collection can be visited. Recently rearranged, this traces the development that mosaic technique has seen in Ravenna from the second decade of the 20th century to the present. The exhibition is divided into three sections: Modern Mosaics Exhibition 1959, Mosaic & Design and Contemporary Declinations. The Collection is developed by chronologically paced nuclei that highlight the different souls that mosaic can embody: the relationship with artists of wide renown in the creation of works that make use of the skills of those who master the technique, but also the relationship with interior design in the creation of exclusive furnishing objects, up to the use of the technique as an autonomous artistic language, by artists who make it their own means of expression. With works by international artists such as Marc Chagall, Giuseppe Capogrossi, Georges Mathieu, Mirko, Renato Guttuso and Emilio Vedova, born under the vision of Palma Bucarelli and Carlo Giulio Argan and created with the collaboration of Ravenna mosaicists, up to contemporary ones by Luigi Ontani, Mimmo Paladino, Piero Gilardi and the new experiments in mosaic language such as those of Giuliano Babini, Luca Barberini, Marco Bravura, Marco De Luca, CaCO3, Silvia Naddeo, Paolo Racagni, among others, up to those more distant from tradition as with Francesca Pasquali and Omar Hassan.

In Palazzo Rasponi dalle Teste, the exhibition Episodes of Contemporary Mosaic sees the dialogue between design and mosaic and the interaction in the production of new objects intended for interior decoration. The project, curated by Maria Cristina Didero, the first Italian curator to lead Design Miami, was created by involving six designers and creatives in the conception of objects intended to be worked in mosaic.

The Classense Library offers two events: the Sala Mosaico hosts the project Palianytsia by Ukrainian artist Zhanna Kadyrova, curated by Maria Rita Bentini. Palianytsia is a project, first presented on the occasion of the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022, featuring works in stone and a documentary curated by Ivan Sautkin, made by Kiev-based filmmakers Olena Zashko and Ganna Yeresko. Zhanna Kadyrova, in her work, brings out the contradictions that characterize contemporary societies, starting from her home territories, employing salvaged and everyday materials associated with construction and architecture and, on numerous occasions, the mosaic technique.

In the Manica Lunga of the Classense Library, on the other hand, works from the sixth edition of the GAeM Prize - Young Artists and Mosaic, curated by Sabina Ghinassi and Paolo Trioschi, are on display. With the idea that mosaic can be a key to interpreting a complex and fragmented contemporaneity in search of meaning and cohesion, the competition was created with the intention of promoting, supporting and exploring the approach to mosaic of the younger generations, both in its more identity-based forms and in its more experimental and eccentric ones. The prize, in collaboration with the historic mosaic glaze kiln, Orsoni Venezia 1988 and the Cingoli Foundation, is divided into three sections. The first two are devoted respectively to works made with traditional materials and techniques and to works that deploy unconventional materials and techniques. From the collaboration with the Emilia-Romagna Region and GA/ER Young Artists Emilia-Romagna, both partners and funders of the “Constellation - Young Creative Connections” project, comes the third section of the prize, a novelty of this edition. The Mosaic Residencies section is dedicated to artistic residencies in which to develop projects related to the city of Ravenna and its relationship with mosaic, in collaboration with workshops and mosaic production studios in the city, Marco Santi’s Gruppo Mosaicisti and Arianna Gallo’s Koko Mosaico.

The National Museum hosts A for ACCADEMIA, O for OROBURRI, curated by Maria Rita Bentini and Paola Babini. The exhibition, around a work by Alberto Burri from a private collection, brings together the mosaic works of young artistsdel Biennio di Mosaico dell’Accademia who, over the past year, have looked at gold in relation to different individual poetics, but all touched by the fascination of a dominant element in the city’s mosaic heritage, linked to its late antique and Byzantine past.

Stations of Art. The Mosaics of the Naples Underground is the photographic exhibition, curated by Giovanna Cassese, Maria Corbi and the Academy of Fine Arts, at PR2 Spazio Espositivo that testifies to how mosaic still today, as in the past, dialogues with the urban spaces of our cities. Other exhibition opportunities organized by the Academy include: Infinitely Small. Micromosaic and the Jewel curated by Emanuela Bergonzoni, in the spaces of the Polo delle Arti; the XII Rotary Club Ravenna District 2072 Prize; the Paolina Brugnatell Artistic Prize; and the PAS Competition - AIMC Student Prize, organized with the International Association of Contemporary Mosaicists.

The Classis Museum, on the occasion of the Biennale is enriched with two new sections: Inhabiting and Praying in Ravenna, which, through the magnificence of the mosaics on display, explore two crucial aspects of the history of the city and the territory, namely ecclesiastical and residential building in late antiquity. The Domus dei Tappeti di Pietra presents four initiatives related to the multiple sensory and meaning suggestions that connote one of the most important archaeological pavement finds in the city. The descent below the Church of St. Euphemia leads to an underground environment where the Four Seasons Mosaic of the Dance of the Genes and the Mosaic of the Good Shepherd, as well as decorative geometric and floral mosaics, are on display.

MARTE, in collaboration with Molino Spadoni and MAR - Museo d’Arte della Città, presents Porta Futurista, the first exhibition in Italy by the anonymous collective Pomme de Boue. The exhibition, curated by Eleonora Savorelli and set up in the spaces of the striking Molino Lovatelli aims to show the group’s most recent works, giving voice to the historical value of the place for the city of Ravenna.

Further enriching the offer is also the participation in the Biennial of art galleries, temporary exhibition spaces and mosaic workshops in Ravenna, protagonists of other numerous events, solo and group exhibitions, presentations, and meetings, thus contributing to spread mosaic throughout the city.

The Contemporary Mosaic Biennial also extends beyond the city walls, with initiatives reaching out to Bologna, Faenza, Riccione, and the nearest Fusignano and Sant’Alberto.

Particularly significant, in this Biennial year that sees Alberto Burri as the protagonist of the exhibition at the MAR - Art Museum of the City of Ravenna, is the presence of three of the artist’s works preserved precisely between Bologna, Faenza, and Riccione: the Great Cretto in Ceramics, from 1993, at the MIC International Ceramics Museum in Faenza; Tapestry no. 1 and Tapestry No. 2, from 1986, at the Emilia-Romagna Region, Fiera District, Tower 30 and the sketches of the tapestries kept at the Villa Franceschi Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Riccione.

For all information visit http://ravennamosaico.it/ita/Home

Image: Ancient Franciscan Cloisters, exhibition Works from the World - The Light of Black and Gold. Qiqi Wen, Relative (detail), 2023

Contemporary Mosaic Biennial in Ravenna: a look at the present of a technique with centuries of history

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.