Mimetics. Ceramics: reflections and refractions is the title of the first exhibition in Spain of the Italian designer Andrea Anastasio, which can be visited at the Madrid headquarters of the Instituto Italiano de Cultura in Madrid until 2 March.
The exhibition brings together a selection of pieces created for Ceramica Gatti 1928, of which Anastasio is the creative director, and several designs conceived for Foscarini. Exceptionally, three lustre ceramics from the Persian Middle Ages from the collection of the Museum of Oriental Art in Turin will be on display.
The exhibition is organised by the Instituto Italiano in collaboration with Ceramica Gatti 1928, Foscarini and the Museum of Oriental Art in Turin, under the auspices of the Italian Embassy.
The pieces on display are the result of research carried out by Anastasio in the workshop’s archives, searching for a repertoire of forms and materials used over the decades. Taking this archive as a reference and questioning it in relation to our present, the designer has tried to find those moments in the history of the decorative arts that could be significant today, as an opportunity to reflect on and confront a series of themes that are increasingly central to his work: the relationship between tradition and modernity, the formal manifestation of trauma, fragility as a poetic resource and the exploration of the forms of the past as a way of existing in our own time.
Andrea Anastasio was born in Rome in 1961. After graduating in philosophy at Ca’ Foscarini University in Venice, he embarked on a cultural journey that led him to collaborate on projects to catalogue Islamic architecture in India, on research into the innovation of traditional craft techniques and on collaborations with architects, publishers and museums. Fascinated by the study of the poetics of conceptual art and its possible convergence with industrial design, he designs furniture and objects for leading Italian companies on the international scene. His research focuses on the manipulation of objects, consumer goods and domestic materials to generate contaminations of languages and meanings.
