When in the mid-eighties, Ettore Sottsass met Alessio Sarri – a young master ceramist from Sesto Fiorentino – he decided to put him to the test by asking him to translate a project from the seventies into ceramics. From this meeting are born the
The Indian Memory ceramics, the beginning of an intense collaborative relationship made of experimentation and ceramics.
The Indian Memory are a group of eight ceramics – Cardamon, Pepper, Cinnamon, Basil, Cherry, Lapis Lazuli, Camomilla and Sugar.
Their first release at the Galleria Antonia Jannone in 1987, was accompanied by drawings, now part of the
MoMA collection in New York.
Thirty years later, Alessio Sarri takes back the production of ceramics by retracing the thoughts and gestures that accompanied the shaping of a project that would have marked a decisive encounter and the start of an experimentation with forms at the limit of possibilities techniques, uncertain between architecture, sculpture and landscape.
From here new encounters and new projects begin, with Matteo Thun, George Sowden, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Jasper Morrison, Alessandro Mendini, Dan Friedman, James Irvine, Daniela Puppa. Thirty years of experience waiting to build new stories and new challenges, because as Sarri himself says: “Ceramics is a beautiful metaphor.
After all, it is just dust: dust with infinite possibilities”.
An ideal itinerary, from the Antonia Jannone Gallery to the Carla Sozzani Gallery, pays homage to the figure of Ettore Sottsass (Innsbruck 1917- Milan 2007), to recall the profound relationship between Sottsass and the city in which he worked and lived.
The Indian Memory. Handcrafting Ettore Sottsass by Alessio Sarri, ceramist Studio Irvine, Art Direction
Carla Sozzani Gallery, Corso Como 10, Milan
from 4 April to 1 May 2017, 10.30-19.00
Wednesday and Thursday, 10.30-21.00
4 – 9 April 2017, 19.00-21.00
Ettore Sottsass | The Indian Memory
edited by Francesca Picchi
Galleria Antonia Jannone, Corso Garibaldi 125, Milan
From 4 to 13 April 2017, 11.00 - 20.00
