For the first time in the history of the Faenza Prize, Chinese artist Wei Bao, winner under 35 of the 62nd edition of the Faenza Prize 2023 with the work “Courtyard Twilight Series IV,” has been given the opportunity to carry out a residency at the MIC in Faenza to produce new pieces in dialogue with the museum’s collections and the Faenza tradition.
After two months spent in MIC Faenza’s ceramic workshop, the new works will be displayed in an exhibition in MIC Faenza’s Project Room opening Sept. 23, 5 p.m.
Artist Wei Bao in his works focuses on the relationship between man and nature from a study of ancient civilizations and their living cores. After a cue and reflection proposed by MIC Faenza director Claudia Casali, Wei Bao wanted to recount the difficult historical moment in our post-flood area by initiating a special dialogue with the Zauli Museum, recovering clays and materials from the basement that suffered extensive flood damage.
“In residence for two months in Faenza Wei Bao, a young talent active in Jingdezhen,” says Matteo Zauli, director of the Carlo Zauli Museum, “has declined the identity of his artistic research to the Faenza of today and the places he has visited, giving life to an engaging installation that interweaves his own culture of origin and the city in which he usually works, the ancient origin of relations between Italy and China, through the Silk Road, the materials of our city and the workshop that hosts it, the clay gullies from which Faenza ceramics draw life, and the alluvial mixtures created in the Carlo Zauli Museum’s cellars.”
During the opening, Matteo Zauli, director of the Carlo Zauli Museum, and Wei Bao will dialogue about the achievements of this long residency period.
A catalog will be published with a long interview conducted by the curator, Matteo Zauli, with artist Wei Bao.
In the photo Wei Bao at work during the art residency
