THE SPIRIT OF PIETRASANTA: WHERE MARBLE BECOMES LEGEND AND CRAFTSMANSHIP BECOMES UNIVERSAL
At the The Project Space gallery, “Made in Pietrasanta. Local hands, universal beauty” celebrates, through May 31, the dialogue between the legacy of Igor Mitoraj and the new frontiers of international design.
Pietrasanta is not just a geographical location. It is a state of mind, an open-air workshop where the sound of the chisel has marked the passage of time for centuries. The Project Space gallery is hosting an event that aims to redefine this visceral connection between the local area and global art: “Made in Pietrasanta. Local hands, universal beauty”.
Curated by Annalisa Bugliani, the exhibition presents itself as an intimate sensory journey, starting from the marble dust of Versilian workshops and reaching the heights of contemporary aesthetics. A collective narrative dedicated to a city deeply rooted in the value of craftsmanship, the starting point of a universal story. The beating heart of the exhibition is dedicated to the figure of Igor Mitoraj (1944–2014), the Polish artist who chose Pietrasanta as his adopted home.
In this exhibition, his monumental work is reinterpreted through two diametrically opposed photographic perspectives, creating a visually captivating short circuit. Maurizio Galimberti, a master of the Polaroid, breaks down the static nature of marble. Through his famous “mosaic,” he shatters the image to reassemble it in a rhythmic dance, giving movement to what was born to be eternal and immobile. Giovanni Ricci Novara, on the other hand, approaches the sculpture with an almost liturgical perspective.
His photography is an act of preservation, a luminous visual silence that envelops Mitoraj’s forms, highlighting their sacredness and pure materiality. Rounding out this tribute are the scenic designs created by the master for Manon Lescaut. These drawings reveal a lesser-known yet fundamental aspect of the artist: his ability to project his sculptural vision into the theatrical space, transforming the stage into an architecture of emotions.
The exhibition continues with the creations of those who, even today, choose the workshops of Pietrasanta to give shape to their visions. The exhibition offers an overview of the expressive power of bronze, with the spherical and ancestral forms of Jiménez Deredia, which evoke fertility and the cosmos, offering a sense of protection. In contrast, the archaic power of Gustavo Aceves’ fragmented horses, emblems of a tragic journey through history.
Contemporary art then becomes a voice for ecological and symbolic concerns. The bronze bear by Rachel Lee Hovnanian and the penguin by Aki Mimura become expressions of environmental fragility and lost innocence, reminding us that beauty is a treasure as precious as it is precarious.
A particularly evocative section is dedicated to ceramics and design workshops, fields in which technique ceases to be a mere artisanal exercise and becomes a pure vehicle for emotion. Here, three names stand out as representing the vanguard of material manipulation. David Paolinetti shapes creatures that seem to emerge from a dreamlike and sometimes unsettling past, where fire and clay retain nature’s unpredictability. Stefano Russo, with his sculptural vases titled Ascension, elevates everyday objects to metaphysical symbols, seeking a connection between the concrete and the spiritual.
Arthur Vallin brings, on the other hand, a rigorous minimalism. His works serve as a bridge between the utilitarian and the contemplative, where technical detail is so perfect that it becomes an object of pure aesthetics.
“Made in Pietrasanta” evokes a sense of absolute beauty, born from the manual skill of those who jealously guard an ancient art, making it available to the world. As Mitoraj himself often explained, in this land the stone speaks, and that voice continues to tell stories of creations that aspire to the infinite. An unmissable event for anyone who wants to understand why, even today, art finds its most sincere form in marble and bronze.
