1908-1952 In memory of a dream company

Name: 1908-1952 In memory of a dream company
Start: 2022-11-11 00:00:00
End: 2023-01-08 00:00:00
Location: MIC - International Museum of Ceramics

MIC - International Museum of Ceramics

Faenza, Emilia-Romagna, Italy

The show

Past and present intersect and refer to each other in a dual exhibition project dedicated to memory which opens at the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza on 11 and 12 November 2022 .

The first is “ 1908-1952. In memory of a dream company "is the setting up of a new permanent section of the museum, curated by Valentina Mazzotti, which wants to retrace the events that led to the foundation of the museum and its rapid development up to the dramatic destruction of the second war and the rapid post-war reconstruction with the reopening of the Museum in 1952.

“1908-1952. In memory of a dream enterprise” opens on Friday 11 November, at 5pm . On the mezzanine, above the hall of classical ceramics, through restored works, ceramic fragments, archival materials and photographs, the almost titanic enterprise of the founder and then director of the International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza is reconstructed, Gaetano Ballardini who, in less than fifty years, he found himself building the collection of a museum twice.

The milestones in this story are: the birth of the museum in 1908, the founding of the magazine "Faenza" in 1913 which still represents today a point of reference for ceramic studies, the establishment of the school in 1916 which later became state-owned in 1919, the exhibition of modern Italian art ceramics in 1926, the acquisition of important collections such as the donation of Islamic fragments belonging to Fredrik Robert Martin in 1930, the definitive establishment of the library and photo library in 1935 and the institution of the national competition for the ceramic art in 1938. Another fundamental passage in the history of the Museum is represented by the war devastation, above all following the dramatic bombing of May 13, 1944, which was followed by a rapid reaction and reconstruction. The legacy of the pre-war Museum is still perpetuated today through the recovery of ceramics from the bottom of the fragments found among the rubble of the war, thanks to the patient work of our restoration laboratory. The most recent example is the sculpture of Adam and Eve by Jean René Gauguin at the Danish Bing&Grondahl, the restoration of which was the subject of the degree thesis of the student Simona Lombardi, with the coordination of the teacher Ana Cecilia Hillar, within the course degree in Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage of the University of Bologna - Ravenna Campus, who has been collaborating with the MIC for several years.