Massimiliano Pipolo | WATERS

SWING Design Gallery
ROME | Via di Monserrato, 100

SWING Design Gallery is pleased to present WATERS, a solo exhibition by Massimiliano Pipolo. The WATERS collection sprang from the investigation and observation of forms of water and the fascination with how it interacts with light and movement. The collection catalogues the names given to the multitude of forms that nature creates and shapes: the whirlpool, the cascade, the droplet, the rivulet, the wave. “I have been studying and taking in these forms for four years. I obsessively recreated them in ceramics, which let me form a kind of tactile, visual memory, which led to developing a material language. From then on, I watched an expressive handwriting come to life.”It can be perceived as a writing exercise, a long session of writing that is as automatic as it is intimate, in which the sculptures are shaped on the spot, built from what the sculpture itself dictates as it evolves. The exhibition shows his body of works in ceramic, including sculptures and vases made exclusively for SWING Design Gallery, in which traditional techniques come together with a dual syncretism of materiality and abstraction. Pipolo gives expression to a sophisticated vocabulary of aesthetics, evoking the biomorphic plasticity of Lucio Fontana and Leoncillo Leonardi’s ceramic works. Pigments and oxides are applied by hand in three separate stages to adhere to the stoneware’s varied porosity with hues ranging from nude to snow white. Next, several layers of white majolica are applied by brush, highlighting the material’s ripples and each sculpture’s light points. The fifth layer is applied by an airbrush and consists of a transparent glaze. These processes give the stoneware a translucent effect verging on subtle transparency. The organic forms take on an abstract, otherworldly quality, ethereal yet sensual and vibrant. Interior decorator Monica Branchetti designed the walls of the architectural interiors.

Massimiliano Pipolo
Born in Naples in 1977. He lives and works in Milan.
In 2005 he graduated in architecture from L’Ecole d ‘Architecture de Paris La Villette in Paris. He immediately went on to develop visual identities, architectural concepts, and sets for brands the likes of Maison Martin Margiela, Prada, Versace, and Kenzo. In 2015 he moved to Lisbon where he was selected for the degree program in ceramics at the Center for Art and Visual Communication in Lisbon (ARCO). In 2016, he founded his brand Fornace Ceramics, for which he is artistic director. From 2020 Massimiliano Pipolo becomes the supplier of ceramics for all Maison Valentino sales points around the world.
Exhibitions: 2023 WATERS, Swing Design Gallery, Rome 2022Black Forest/White Forest, La Casaforte, Naples 2021 Fuori Salone, Milan2019Feira Feita, Lisbon2018Maison et Object, Paris2018Festival Cumplicidades, Contemporary Art and Dance Festival, Lisbon.