There is no better way to honor the 50th anniversary of the passing of the great ceramicist, Guido Gambone than to have this important collection of his ceramic works find a temporary home at the Italian Cultural Institute. This exhibition has been a very gratifying fruit of our collaboration with the Cultural Institute as it is so pertinent to the missions of both of our institutions: the objects on display are both visual representations of Italy’s artistic diversity and amazing historical records of the country’s contribution to the birth of contemporary art and historical status as a cultural crossroads. These works powerfully encompass both the local and the global, creating an experience that is both intimate and universal, through which the viewer is transported to the small town and early home of Gambone, Vietri sul Mare, and simultaneously to that of the European avant-garde of the '50s and '60s.
The work of Guido Gambone and his European counterparts continues to be interesting as visual evidence of a transitional period in the development of post-war artistic movements, namely one that was sparked by a renewed interest in craft and the utilitarian object. The period of reconstruction after the war gave way to values emphasizing concepts of work and necessity that were later swept up by these emerging artists. As Italy was absorbed by the wider European avant-garde, it carried with it a personal identity rooted in an artistic past shaped deeply by craft. The various regional styles and signature techniques were particularly awe-inspiring for artists of the Arte Povera movement, who esteemed pre-industry manufacturing and elevated everyday objects to the realm of high art. They were convinced of the omnipresence of art and thus regarded ceramics as a highly powerful material, as derivative of the earth itself. Situated within this historical context, these works become key to a fuller analysis and admiration for the broader spectrum of Italian art of the post-war era as well as the body of other works that make up the Olnick Spanu Collection.
It is through the work of artists like Gambone’s son Bruno along with his other successors that Guido’s contribution to the medium is most evident. It was the nature of Gambone’s reaction to his own political moment that influenced subsequent developments in the art form: combining post-war appeal for the utilitarian object with applied decorative and technical innovation, Gambone revealed that ceramic arts could so aptly reflect the feeling of his time in their being unanimous with values of function and practicality, while simultaneously reaching his audience with a signature playful and humorous aesthetic. Gambone’s zoological motifs resound throughout much of the work of his son, Bruno, who so gracefully mingled traditional ceramic forms with the corporeal angles and curvatures of bulls, lions, giraffes and horses. Guido laid the groundwork on a technical level as well, and his son Bruno continued to thoroughly make use of the grès technique his father had popularized.
Having thinned the division between his own world of ceramics and the artistic schools of Cubism and Spatialism that it paralleled, Gambone invited ceramicists in his wake to further redefine the art form and to question the division between utilitarian object and art object. The blurring of these two categories would eventually transform the field into much freer terrain for the artists working within it, and the absorption of ceramics into the more general contemporary artistic sphere would allow the artist freedoms that Luca Massimo Barbero so articulately recounts in his book Italian Contemporary Ceramics: Fontana, Garelli, Leoncillo, Melotti, referencing critics of the time: “...the role of ‘necessity,’ of ‘work’ made the working with ceramics necessary: its facility, the economy, the possibility of a great distribution. It is in this not always easy relationship with the market and the usefulness of the object that can be found the really great capacity of the artists/sculptors. The capacity of knowing how to deal with a theme, a shape, a utensil or a figure, without sliding into banality, into didactics...”
Through his dynamic and lively style, Gambone demonstrated this evasion of “banality” and “didactics” identified by Barbero, and in so doing, bestowed an artistic freedom upon his successors working in the craft, while analogously allowing the modern fine artist the choice to embrace traditional technique. Gambone was a shaper of the contemporary art world we see today and throughout his career, never ceased to grace us with his uplifting and exuberant personal craft and innovation. Beyond such complex historical contributions, Gambone gave us the gift of his wonderful works of art and we could not be more delighted to share them with the public through this exhibition.