Ceramics: Neverending Artworks exhibition at the Iris Ceramica Group’s flagship store in Milan

In its flagship store at Via Santa Margherita 4 in Milan, the Iris Ceramica Group presents the exhibition "Ceramics: Neverending Artworks” from January 10 through February 18, 2022.
Organised in partnership with the gallery Antonia Jannone Disegni di Architettura, the exhibition consists of a selection of twenty-three ceramic works by twelve prominent artists and designers.
The installation in the Group’s flagship store puts the objects on display directly in contact with ceramic surfaces for architecture from a number of collections of all the Iris Ceramica Group’s brands: Ariostea, FMG Fabbrica Marmi e Graniti, Fiandre Architectural Surfaces, Iris Ceramica, Porcelaingres, SapienStone, and the new bathroom furnishings brand Seventyonepercent.

A material used in architecture, art and design, ceramic has been used by human beings since prehistory, and in fact archaeologists speak of the “pre-pottery” and “pottery” neolithic. Indispensable for cooking and storing food in everyday life, for building homes and for celebrating religious rites or honouring the gods, ceramic has with time come to be used in art and design, and is now a high-tech engineered product.
In the exhibition "Ceramics: Neverending Artworks”, the Iris Ceramica Group and Antonia Jannone Disegni di Architettura present a selection of twenty-three ceramic items made by designers Aldo Cibic, Alessandro Mendini, Andrea Branzi, Ettore Sottsass, George Sowden, Luigi Serafini, Marco Zanini, Martine Bedin, Matteo Thun, Michele De Lucchi, Nathalie Du Pasquier, and Peter Shire. The selected works by the twelve artists and designers reveal the eclectic nature of ceramic, a “living” material that has responded to the needs and desires of human beings since the dawn of time.

The works on exhibit range from art to design, representing the aesthetic, artistic and craftsmanship dimensions of ceramic. These are objects that are not made simply for their own sake, but to underline the qualities of the material of which they are made, offering testimony and examples of the constant search for beauty and uniqueness, catalysing visitors’ attention and inviting people to participate actively. They are metaphors for the vision and thought of artists whose bold, sometimes irreverent spirit challenges modernity. And in fact the selection includes works by numerous representatives of the Memphis Group, a collective of Italian designers and architects founded by Ettore Sottsass and operative between 1981 and 1987, whose ironic approach to life marked the successful return of kitsch and made use of bright colours and geometric shapes to create objects revealing a preference for the emotional and sensory dimensions.
Through this selection, the Iris Ceramica Group presents the public with works arising out of combinations of patterns and symbols, vibrant colours and asymmetric shapes, decorations and curves. Arranged in the spaces of the flagship store, the works stand out against a background of ceramic surfaces made by various Group brands. Like the artworks on exhibit, surfaces for architecture produced by the Iris Ceramica Group make the most of the aesthetic and technical properties of ceramic to go beyond the ordinary, aware that the new demands of design give rise to new technical challenges and therefore reveal new possibilities unimaginable in the past.

Images courtesy of Iris Ceramica Group photo by Giulia Virgara

Title: Ceramics: Neverending Artworks
Date: January 10th - February 18th 2022
Location: Iris Ceramica Group Flagship Store via Santa Margherita 4, Milano Italia
Artists and designers: Aldo Cibic, Alessandro Mendini, Andrea Branzi, Ettore Sottsass, George Sowden, Luigi Serafini, Marco Zanini, Martine Bedin, Matteo Thun, Michele De Lucchi, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Peter Shire.
Photos: Giulia Virgara

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