In the fire, under the sun
Clay bottles from the international symposium
Musei Provinciali di Gorizia, Italy, Palazzo Attems-Petzenstein
From October 17th to November 9th 2014
Wine is »bottled poetry« – wrote Robert Luis Stevenson in 1883 – therefore »artistic bottles« are almost a necessary consequence. This is the concept on which stands the art symposium that has been regularly taking place in Plešivo near Medana since 2011. The art residence / Art embassy »Art House Klinec« hosts an international assortment of artists who test their painting skills on the coarse and curvy surface of the clay bottles. The Colors, climate and atmosphere of the natural environment of Goriška Brda provide the necessary inspiration. During the stay in Brda, the coexistence between the artists themselves and also between the artist and the winemaker hosting them, begins to mature. Everyone involved is conditioned by a common element during their work – the heat: on the one hand, the heat from the sun, under which the grapes mature, on the other hand, the high temperatures needed for the clay to become covered by a ceramic layer. This process is out of the painter’s control, as the firing of the clay bottles takes place at the very end of the symposium. The artists must embrace their hosts, the winemakers, who, in return, are just as helpless against nature, into whom they can only have faith, as they themselves represent its composing part. The art meeting »Symposium Ceramicum« is a component of the »Krog umetnosti / Art Circle« project, which unites art and art embassies from different European countries. Thanks to the sponsorship of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Slovenia, the first art embassy, the »Art Embassy – Republic of Poland«, was established. At the opening of the exhibition at the palace Attems-Petzenstein, the participants were joined by the Polish Institute in Rome, underlying the cross-border dimension of the project.
Saša Quinzi, curator
