The MIC in Faenza dedicates an exhibition to Gio Ponti, among the major protagonists of Made in Italy ceramics

From March 17 to Oct. 13, 2024, the MIC International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza will dedicate its next exhibition to Gio Ponti, an architect, designer and intellectual, as well as one of the greatest exponents in the Italian decorative arts scene. And one of the greatest popularizers of Made in Italy already since the 1920s, when he became artistic director of Richard Ginori, initiating a renewal of production.

Curated by Stefania Cretella, the exhibition Gio Ponti. Ceramics 1922-1967 presents more than two hundred works by Ponti and is part of the program with which the museum intends to highlight the personalities and great manufactures that have built the Made in Italy ceramic industry.

In the course of his long career, Gio Ponti came into contact not only with Richard Ginori but also with several other Italian ceramics companies: the Cooperativa Ceramiche di Imola, Pietro Melandri and the Faenza context (the cartepeste made with the Dalmonte family are famous), and Ceramiche Pozzi, Joo and Gabbianelli. His acquaintances saw him at the center of the Italian cultural debate and the definition of Italian rationalism. Gio Ponti collaborated with critics Ugo Ojetti, Edoardo Persico, worked together with Luigi Fontana and Giovanni Gariboldi, his successor at Richard Ginori.

He was also among the protagonists of the Monza Biennials, where he presented in the halls of the Villa Reale the innovations he introduced in Richard Ginori’s repertoire and the results of the experiments he shared with the other architects from the Milanese area involved in the Labirinto and Domus Nova for the La Rinascente department store in Milan. He collaborated with the Milan Triennials and was the protagonist of events such as Italy at Work. Her Renaissance in Design Today, a traveling exhibition that took place in the United States between 1950 and 1951, and Italia ’61, an event organized in Turin to celebrate the first centenary of the Unification of Italy.

Finally, he is credited with the birth of two important magazines for design andhigh artistic craftsmanship, such as Domus and Stile, which contributed greatly to the promotion of the arts intended for home furnishings and the spread of modern language, ideas that were crowned by the design and construction from 1956-60 of the Pirelli Skyscraper in Milan, a masterpiece of Italian rationalism that became a symbol of “modernity” in postwar Italy.

The exhibition benefits from a partnership with the Fondazione Museo Archivio Richard Ginori della Manifattura di Doccia in Sesto Fiorentino and the Archivio Gio Ponti. Supported by the Directorate General, Education, Research and Cultural Institutes, Emilia Romagna Region, Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Ravenna, Municipality of Faenza, Union of Faenza Romagna, Caviro, Romagna Acque, Hera, Tagina, Cerdomus, Sacmi, Tema Sinergie.

For all info: www.micfaenza.org

The MIC in Faenza dedicates an exhibition to Gio Ponti, among the major protagonists of Made in Italy ceramics

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