busted bonds
and broken bones
Palazzo Baccin
Nove/ITALY
2020
Video documentation of: no no no… catzo (swearwords of the ceramist), 2020 | site-specific audio installation for the solo project “busted bonds and broken bones” at Palazzo Baccin
exhibition view
turret of hammers, 2020 | old hammer, low temperature earthenware with acrylics, earthenware glazed with third firing gold, bricks, glazed earthenware, iron, led bulb, mixed media | 196 x 50,5 x 47,5 cm
exhibition view
promo video for: busted bonds and broken bones | music by Andrea Nonni
not so well, 2020 | 41″ | color, sound | music by Andrea Nonni
magic stick, 2020 | 1’37” | color, sound | music by Andrea Nonni
remember to breathe, 2020 | glazed earthenware, bricks, led lights, mixed materials | 185 x 740 x 213 cm
detail from: remember to breathe, 2020 | glazed earthenware, bricks, led lights, mixed materials | 185 x 740 x 213 cm
detail from: remember to breathe, 2020 | glazed earthenware, bricks, led lights, mixed materials | 185 x 740 x 213 cm
detail from: remember to breathe, 2020 | glazed earthenware, bricks, led lights, mixed materials | 185 x 740 x 213 cm
SLOTH, 2020 | glazed earthenware (anonymous author, object trouvé), plexiglass, bricks, neon light | 150 x 120 x 62 cm
detail from: SLOTH, 2020 | glazed earthenware (anonymous author, object trouvé), plexiglass, bricks, neon light | 150 x 120 x 62 cm
I feel so bad, 2020 | glazed earthenware with third firing gold, bricks, led lights | 60 x 43 x 33 cm
detail from: I feel so bad, 2020 | glazed earthenware with third firing gold, bricks, led lights | 60 x 43 x 33 cm
disaster on demand, 2020 | glazed earthenware with third firing gold | 14 x 46 x 34 cm
detail from: disaster on demand, 2020 | glazed earthenware with third firing gold | 14 x 46 x 34 cm
Tension and poetry
By Aldo Nasser
Noise, plates and vases breaking, ceramic breaking into pieces…repeatedly!
The auditory installation is blasted from Palazzo Baccin, no no no…catzo (swear word of the ceramist), and it “hits you like a slap” (quote from Nicola Samorì). The sound propagates from one of the palace’s windows and travels exclusively towards the outside, running through boulevards and parks, reaching Nove’s town square; here, simultaneously, is inaugurated the annual festival of ceramics, Portoni Aperti. This disruptive sound is in contrast with the general atmosphere, it generates a dichotomy between what’s real and what’s artificial, it gives notice of the artist’s presence and of his unique vision of the world (of ceramics).
(Failure is just a step).
Entering the room, we are greeted by two clay turrets.
On the first one we can see three hammers: one made of iron, one wooden hammer (a gift from the artist’s father for his First Communion), one made of earthenware, glazed with gold the third time it was fired (both were copies of the before mentioned gift and protagonists of the later mentioned video).
The second turret has the function to project inside the stairwell, a series of videos shot during lockdown. Some of these were specifically realized for the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza (Not so well, 2020) and Santa Maria della Scale in Siena (Magic stick, 2020).
In the video we see three breakable ceramic hammers that shatter, telling about the breakage with origins, the awareness of the separation achieved with effort and persistence. These are roots that, in the good and the bad, they never leave you, you are born with them and you carry them along, under the sole of your feet, forever. They come back, again and again, to remember you who you were and who you will be, resurfacing and transforming into tension and poetry every second.
(They told us “Everything is going to be ok”, Nero is not so sure about it).
In the room next door, there’s a radical change; the installation remember to breathe comes fast and it’s flooring. There’s a change in lighting, in register, in narration… and just like that – like a recent piece from Sturgill Simpson – this installation, thought and realized during a residency at Ceramiche Maroso, it destabilizes and takes your breath away.
Nine wooden legs (an homage to the city of Nove) were salvaged and kept by the artist. He then reproduced them in ceramics and transformed them.
The message is clear, to force a return to the origins, to the table, to the tradition that, more than the others (ceramics, textiles, glass, etc…) raised us up, fed us, loved us. The lucky ones will keep a feeling inside, that lasting taste tied to a special dish that we ate when we were kids, that extraordinary dinner, that indescribable flavour… LOVE.
So, now that we have everything, we risk forgetting the basis, the fundamentals, the raw material, we risk forgetting that seventy years ago, in Italy, there was still nothing much to eat…
(We have so much bullshit complicating our lives and we believe that’s gold, but we are wrong).
SLOTH, a clay monolith displays Nero’s personal tribute to the territory and its tradition. On it, it sits enthroned the figure of a dog (object found in Nove), of which neither the author nor the manufacturing is known. The artist, that for more than ten years has been handling and assembling big ceramic animals (like the famous artworks, awarded in Italy and Japan), this time he executes a gesture of sloth. He doesn’t elaborate the manufact, he simply puts together the selected materials (thanks to the plexiglas made with Fusina) and he exhibits them, dragging the entire conceptual and philosophical load as well.
Monument to the unknown plastic manufacturer from Nove.
(Work less to work all. Sloth isn’t a capital sin)
I feel so bad, the title inspired by a Harold “Chuck” Willis’ song from 1954 (made even more famous by Elvis Presley in 1961) that describes that moment of indecision when we don’t know what to do, whether to stay or to embark on a journey…“Sometimes I think I want… Then again I think I don’t”.
Symptomatology of which the artist is deeply affected, that could without a doubt be a sort of contemporary antisocial behaviour.
(Such as when, after the lockdown, they told us to go back to our lives, but we still had a lot of worries).
The last artwork showed, in complete contrast with the first one (which inevitably strikes, not only the exhibition’s beneficiary, but also the passer-by), its located inside the only space that was not part of Manifattura Baccin: the lift, built during the renovation that began a few years ago, it’s the only place “unrelated” to the original architecture.
In this way, it being intimate and focused, disaster on demand can be seen exclusively by calling the lift at the ground floor. It appears inside its black box for a few seconds, just to disappear again.
(We should take notice of details, outside the path as well).
A few days away from my visit to Nove, I still find myself with a series of reasonings going round in my head; Nero proves himself to be punctual and with a maniacal attention to details: starting from the QR code with a map and all the necessary informations for the fruition of the exhibition, through the material’s choice, to the windows’ glasses covered with cardboard, in order to avoid the sun’s glare and the lumbering reflections of light. Everything to cancel every interaction with his clean and dry vision of a difficult expository space.
This project comes and tells us about relationships and tensions, starting from a personal feeling and throwing itself at the speed of light against the public sphere, smashing it up.
