Ceramics and painting: two seemingly distant worlds establish a tense yet fascinating dialogue at the Galleria d’Arte Maggiore g.a.m. in Bologna, thanks to one of the leading figures of Italy's Transavanguardia movement, Sandro Chia (Florence, April 20, 1946). With large canvases, enigmatic titles, and almost never-before-seen ceramics, the exhibition, titled "Sandro Chia. Through Fire, Into the Sign" and open from May 29 to July 25, 2025, stands as both a celebration and a deep investigation of the artist’s poetics. Chia orchestrates a bold and skillful contamination between the earthy solidity of ceramics and the flowing vibrancy of oil painting, composing a dialectical interplay that bridges two media so different in nature, technique, and symbolic stature.
For in their apparent contrast, these languages complement each other: painting exalts the expressiveness of gesture, while ceramics conveys the physical weight of the sign—an alternation of clashes and encounters that impose pauses, detours, and visual relaunches. Chia thus demonstrates a rare technical versatility, paired with an extraordinary mastery of materials, capable of transforming every surface into an extension of his inner world.
As Franco Bertoni notes in the catalogue for the 2011 exhibition "Sandro Chia. Ceramics vs Drawing 1:0" at the MIC - International Museum of Ceramics in Faenza, "it is a state of grace that Chia seeks, because when 'astonished and perplexed, one sees more things'." The work is further complicated by the titles of the pieces, which, rather than clarifying, "must transmit the same sense of bewilderment the artist feels while working."
The result is an exhibition that does more than simply display artworks: it stages a vital confrontation between languages that helps to illuminate Chia’s position within the Italian Transavanguardia. A movement theorized by Achille Bonito Oliva and emerging in the early 1980s, the Transavanguardia marked both a rupture and a return within a historical context dominated by conceptual abstraction and minimalism. It heralded a return to painting, to figuration, to visual storytelling—an invitation to rediscover the pleasure of the gaze, to reconcile with art through form, bodies, colors, and layered cultural references.
Chia embraced this spirit in a highly original way, with an openness to the contamination of different languages, able to blend tradition and experimentation, "high" and "low" culture, material and thought. The works selected for this exhibition powerfully narrate this approach: Chia does not choose a single language — he inhabits them all, moving fluidly from one medium to another without ever sacrificing visual or conceptual intensity.
The ceramic works, many created at the historic Bottega Gatti in Faenza — a true artistic crucible for generations of masters—play a central role in this dialogue between worlds. Among the most emblematic are the Cornici (Frames), a series that best synthesizes the union (and conflict) between the lightness of drawing and the sculptural force of ceramics. Here, the artwork doubles and merges: it is not only the ceramic frame that takes center stage, but also the drawing on paper encased within. Two techniques, two materials, two worlds—apparently in contrast—face each other and fuse.
"A disturbing, explosive combination," is how Chia himself described it in an interview with Franco Bertoni published in the Faenza exhibition catalogue (Umberto Allemandi & C.E.), followed by a reflection rich in meaning: "Ceramics resists fire, it is virtually indestructible. Drawing is paper—it fears even light, it dissolves in water, fire incinerates it. Given its fragility, drawing must have earned its lofty reputation by other means […]".
This dialectic between resilience and fragility reappears in other series on display, such as the Globes: solid bronze bases—eternal and classical—support ceramic hemispheres poised between form and deformation. A poetic gesture that crystallizes the contrast between what endures and what dissolves, between the weight of time and the lightness of the imagination. In the gallery space, alongside these dialoguing pieces, stand gorilla heads and sorrowful Babbi — creating a visual fresco that draws equally from high culture and popular imagery. Chia does not shy away from overlapping registers, mixing symbols and signs in a semantic layering that defies any univocal classification. Each piece is an open riddle, a visual narrative fueled by ambiguity, irony, and pathos.
Even the titles of the works take part in this game of reflections. Some describe, others confuse, many suspend meaning—leaving the viewer with the burden and the privilege of a deeper second reading. "The title or the text accompanying the painting serves to suggest a mood, to create a suspension, a doubt." At its core, there is a subtle yet powerful invitation to the viewer: do not stop at the surface, enter the work, accept the challenge of meaning. Because nothing in Chia’s world is "merely" representational: everything is tension, short circuit, incomplete story. This is art that questions, that builds bridges between distant worlds — like ceramics and painting — and that, through its visual language, reflects the complexity and beauty of contemporary thought.
