Bertozzi & Casoni in Dialogue with Morandi

AT GALLERIA D’ARTE MAGGIORE G.A.M. THE “FLOWERS” OF THE BOLOGNESE MASTER CONVERSE WITH “D’APRÈS MORANDI” WORKS BY THE FAMOUS DUO
Stefano Luppi, Il Giornale dell'Arte, February 11, 2022

Giampaolo Bertozzi (b. 1957) and Stefano Dal Monte Casoni (b. 1961), the Romagnol artist duo Bertozzi & Casoni, return to the scene of the crime—Galleria d’Arte Maggiore g.a.m.—which they first graced in the early 1980s. From February 12 to April 30, the exhibition Giorgio Morandi e Bertozzi & Casoni. Less is more places the artists—born shortly before Morandi’s death (1890–1964)—in dialogue via a series of the master’s Fiori and landscapes contrasted with full-fledged d’après Morandi works and other ceramic pieces by the duo.

Nontrivial juxtapositions emerge, not only in the choice of subjects—from Morandi’s flowers and bottles to the still lifes of the Romagnol artists—but also, for instance, in color palettes: in the younger artists, hues shift toward the pastel tones of the master.


Bertozzi & casoni, Per Morandi, 2020, ceramica policroma

Staying with the floral theme, and recalling a phrase by Cesare Brandi (Morandi “cut his roses before they bloomed and arranged them on the rim of the vase, dense like a bridal bouquet”), the ceramic works of Bertozzi & Casoni become—despite their differences—almost a keystone for seeing Morandi’s paintings in a new light. Nature becomes somewhat “false,” since Bertozzi & Casoni with ceramics do not mimic reality but re‑present it in hyperrealistic forms, whereas the Bolognese artist pursued the reproduction of the abstract essence of the real, using fake or dried specimens. The title Less is more, “less is better,” coined by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, refers precisely to “subtraction” both in terms of the (few) subjects in the works and in relation to ideas such as immediacy and suspension, mental image and the relation between aesthetics and state of mind.

34 
of 65