The historic majolica signed by Gio Ponti, reissued by Ceramica Francesco De Maio, has been selected among the historical icons of the Italian design and will be on sale from August 7th to September 29th in the first fashion PopUp Store of the American museum
The colors of the sky and the sea, the geometric traits and infinitely combinable like the profiles of nature, the light touch of the hand guided by the heart. Hence the Blu Ponti Collection, conceived in the 1960s by Gio Ponti, father of Italian industrial design, and reissued by Ceramica Francesco De Maio. The special 20×20 majolica, rigorously hand-decorated, has been selected by the New York Musem of Modern Art to represent the made in Italy in the exclusive international showcase.
The “Blu Ponti” will be exhibited at MoMa’s first fashion Pop-up store in New York from August 7th to September 29th. The store (also online at store.moma.org) is the result of the Fattobene project, the platform designed by Anna Lagorio and Alex Carnevali, with the aim of celebrating all those everyday objects, born from the inspiration of Italian designers Italian and that there are timeless signs of the country’s history.
There are 150 carefully selected “iconic” objects, which will be featured in the respectable pop-up window at the MoMa Design Store in Soho, NY. From the cherries in the Fabbri jar, to the Paolo Pigna notebooks, to the spaghetti arm chair by Fiam, up to the Modiano playing cards. All milestones of the Italian style of the 1960s, which served as a natural frame for the birth of the made in Italy brand. Eighteen companies were called to represent historic Italian design in the United States, with their products – explain the curators of Merchandising at the Museum of Modern Art – «that have existed for generations, with a timeless design».
“It is a great joy to bring these masterpieces of our material culture to a place like the MoMA Design Store – says Anna Lagorio, co-founder of Fattobene – It is a tribute to timeless design and to all those Italian companies that have created objects capable of pass the test of time”.
Next to the majolica, in the special store of the New York museum, also the first book on Blu Ponti majolica, “Gio Ponti: L’infinito blu”, curated by Aldo Colonetti and Patrizia Famiglietti, with texts by Gillo Dorfles, Fulvio Irace, Lisa Ponti and Salvatore Licitra entirely dedicated to the polyhedral Milanese designer and to the creation of Blu Ponti decorations. A veritable treasure chest of Gio Ponti’s drawings, of his unpublished photographs, of the colors that dictated the Italian style of the ’60s, and, above all, of his 27 “white and blue” decorations used to pave the Parco dei Principi in Sorrento and of the other 6 remained till today only drawings, but which are now all produced by the master decorators of Ceramica Francesco De Maio.
“Is an important recognition for us to have been selected by the MoMA of NY – says Patrizia Famiglietti, Art Director of Ceramica Francesco De Maio – which makes this majolica even more precious. We are proud to be able to faithfully re-edit these majolica, which is now a historic icon of the Italian design, and this thanks to the co-founders of Fattobene who have proposed us and, in particular, to our decorators who help us to preserve, over the centuries, the ancient Vietri art of the maiolica, decorated entirely by hand”.
