“And could do much more. Gradually the soul of a sector that gave work and made people dream has been lost ». Spread your arms Nella Falletti, for 10 years, until 2016, Councilor for Culture of the Municipality of Castellamonte, home of the Piedmontese red earth, of potters linked to manufacturing and stoves which, even today, are exported all over the world, France and United States in the lead. Even the Mostra della Ceramica, which brought artists of the caliber of Arnaldo Pomodoro or Ugo Nespolo to these parts (just to mention the two who left tangible testimonies to the city)The.
Castellamonte, the golden age
«There were not a few factories – explains Falletti – thousands of people worked, but then it all ended ». Here the old furnaces that produced gress for the German blast furnaces no longer smoke. The artifacts used for pipes and aqueducts have been supplanted by the arrival of plastic, the hills behind the city excavated to provide the land necessary for the production of tiles, but in the North East and in Emilia. There are workshops and little else. A school, the “Faccio” Art Institute, was created to give young people work also in the world of ceramics. But where, if today this sector is practically over here?
Yet it would be enough to look around. Point your eyes, as we tried many years ago in these parts, to the Monregalese, to the Ceramiche di Albisola, but also beyond the borders of the North West. With Vittorio Sacco, art critic, for years curator of the Exhibition of Ceramics in Castellamonte, Castellamonte products were hosted on the Amalfi Coast, a cultural exchange developed between different areas of Italy and then of international scope. Those were the years of Nicola Mileti, so loved and yet so envied and in fact, despite his foresight, he was put aside. “What do you want to do?” Too ambitious, ”they said around here.
“Today the artistic movement has definitely reduced – explains Sacco, who for Confindustria Ceramica wrote and published the book entitled” Ceramics over time “- in Piedmont, but not only, also in Liguria, there is very little left».
Liguria, everyone is for themselves
Plet’s make Albisola, where Futurism was born in ceramic art. Why was there no take-off like in other parts of Italy? «Because everyone has thought for themselves, because no one has created a network and because the connection with the past and traditions has been lost – explains Ugo Nespolo -. Look, I have traveled and worked in many parts of the world. I exhibited in China, Japan. There is still great respect for the past there, but there was vision. What we lacked ». However, Albisola tries to invest once again in ceramics, the restyling artistic plan was launched, the result of the collaboration between Lions Club Alba Docilia and the municipal councilorship for Culture. A program created by involving local manufacturers who will thus be able to create ceramic tiles to be placed in various points of the city, in specific spaces already identified. Creativity, art, but not only. The idea is to relaunch. Will they succeed? The future will tell us about it.
IThere are many spot initiatives. Let’s take Savona and its Ceramics museum. In the four floors of history and an innovative setting inside a fascinating building we travel a real journey from Baroque to contemporary art, passing through the Renaissance. “It is a work that brings together multiple collections and multiple styles – tell the museum – and which are evidence of the strong link between land, art and craftsmanship”. Today the old factories that worked the ceramics here in Savona are no longer there. Disappear, as happened in the other areas that work the earth and clay. “The shops remain, some craftsmen and a lot of good will.” The museum is a real witness: “Now we also have 3D printers that reproduce works of art in ceramics, as in Faenza”.
The example of Faenza
Fbut like the North East and Central Italy (in the Viterbo area) in general it has done more, it has dictated a turning point in Italy in a sector that, in general in Italy, has billions of euros (despite falling data due to Covid as in the latest report by Confindustria Ceramica which marks a minus 350 million in 2020) and employs thousands of people. In the most diverse sectors: construction (with tiles and sanitary ware), refractories, crockery and bricks.
The collapse of 2020
Bauction look at the data of 2019, the pre-pandemic year to understand how this sector is flourishing in Italy: the total turnover was 6, 5 billion euros, of which 4, 8 billion of exports. Today, with the pandemic and the health crisis, the sector has taken a hard hit. “Our sector has lost over 350 million euros in turnover in two months of lockdown,” said Giovanni Savorani, president of Confindustria Ceramica during the last meeting. The backlash on companies in the sector which employs almost 28,000 people in Italy (there are 279 ceramic companies, including manufacturers of tiles, sanitary ware, tableware, refractory materials and bricks) was important. Now, however, we look to the future and the recovery with optimism and confidence.
And it also applies to the North West, an area of the country that has somewhat forgotten, over the decades, how important and strategic this sector was. Here, the ideal would be to rewind that old invisible thread that unites cities and places so distant but at the same time so close. For a look that is no longer just aimed at the past but that points to the future.