A major set of ceramic works by Galileo Chini – mostly from the Vieri Chini di Borgo San Lorenzo Collection – opens the series of temporary exhibitions at the Museo Bertozzi & Casoni. In this case, like in those that follow, this is not so much of a monographic show but rather an attempt to highlight those protagonists and those moments that, in modernity and contemporaneity, either directly or indirectly, may evoke or relate to the expressive achievements and artistic aims of Bertozzi & Casoni.

Galileo Chini’s works, displayed in direct comparison with the works to be found in the Museum, thus hint at clear or hidden affinities with works to be produced a century later, demonstrating yet again, if ever it were necessary, that in art nothing is created and nothing is destroyed, and that the concept of the artistic tradition, to which Bertozzi & Casoni are particularly bound, has resisted and innovated in the face of the many potential crises of the 20th century and the present moment.

Just as they are brought together by their common use of a poor and often overlooked material such as ceramics. With ceramics, Chini (who was an all-round artist, working as a painter, a decorator, an illustrator, and scenographer) made one of the main contributions to European Art Nouveau and, likewise, in the very mimetic possibilities and potential of ceramics Bertozzi & Casoni came across the ideal expressive medium to bring their elliptic thought exercises to life.
Last but not least, their common exaltation of beauty. A beauty that Galileo Chini reinvented in the fleeting elements of the natural world, exalted by shimmering reverberations of lustre, and which Bertozzi & Casoni have led us to discover even in objects and subjects that are commonly overlooked, rejected or neglected.

For further information: www.museobertozziecasoni.com/events/dialoghi-darte/?lang=en