World mosaics with Dante’s Themes

Palazzo Rasponi dalle Teste in Ravenna, Italy

October 05 – November, 30 – 2019

Mosaic exhibition Dante

Mosaic exhibition “World mosaics with Dante’s Themes” opened on Saturday, October 5 at the Palazzo Rasponi dalle Teste in Ravenna, Italy and runs until the end of November. The exhibition is one of the key events of the Biennale of contemporary mosaic RavennaMosaico.

Among the many eminent residences in the city of Ravenna, Palazzo Rasponi dallé Teste stands out for its grandeur and rich facade decoration. Conceived for construction in the last decade of the 17th century, the building was thought to be by the will of Giovanni Rasponi, Bishop Forlì, and his brother Giuseppe, emphasizing the importance of his own dynasty: the Rasponi family, one of the most powerful in the province of Romagna and the protagonist of political and economic Panoramas of Ravenna between the 16th and 19th centuries.

The mosaic exhibition is organized by the International Association of Contemporary Mosaics (AIMC). Created in 1980 by Isotta Fiorentini Roncuzzi and Peter Fischer in Ravenna, AIMC currently includes 201 artists from 43 countries.

Starting from the first RavennaMosaico festival (2009), mosaic artists from Ravenna, as well as from all corners of the planet, constantly take part in exhibitions organized by the association within the as part of the Mosaic Biennale under the general name “Mosaics of the World”.

The exhibition of contemporary mosaic is one of the significant international events in the world of mosaics. Its main goal is to illustrate the diversity and uniqueness of the contemporary mosaic by artists from different countries and cultures.

This year, in the 700th year since the death of Dante Alighieri, AIMC contributes by setting the theme of the contest to a verse from the Purgatory section of the Divine Comedy.

The task of the organizers of the exhibition was to reflect as objectively as possible how artists from different countries will be able to interpret the Divine Comedy. 75 authors took part in the competition, 35 works from 17 countries of the world were selected for the exposition.

exh opening

The fact that the selection of works for the exhibition reflected various aspects of the development of contemporary mosaics was obvious. Mosaic works quite traditional in terms of methods and materials coexisted with art objects, not very reminiscent of the tesser combinations familiar to the look and historically defined stone, smalt and glass.

The exhibition definitely turned out to be bright and rich in numerous interpretations and readings of previously known mosaic materials and their combinations with new, searches for literal and allegorical ways of breaking away from statics.

Certainly, the theme of the exhibition imposed serious restrictions and responsibility on the artists participating in the competition. But, in our opinion, the problem was solved, and the courage of the artists was completely justified and accepted by the viewer.

It is a great success that the organizers of the exhibition were not afraid to include these audacious mosaics so distant in their way of displaying reality from the familiar world of the medieval of Dante’s coeval among exhibited works.

After all, Italy is a country fed for centuries by the ideas of a refined Renaissance and imperishable creations of classicism. Perception and competent judgment of harmony in blood among Italians. And the higher the price of their approval for artists who consider mosaics to be part of contemporary art.

The mosaic exhibition was originally supposed to end on November 23, but, based on the popularity among citizens and tourists, it was decided to extend it until December. The next biennale of contemporary mosaics is planned, as always, in two years, in 2021.

World mosaics with Dante’s Themes

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