L’arte di Simone Crespi (The art of Simone Crespi)

The retrospective exhibits ceramic and terracotta works by the artist, who unfortunately passed away prematurely. Simone Crespi (1961 – 2021) of Roman origin, completed his training in Faenza. In the year 1982-83 he attended the two-year advanced course in Grès and Porcelain with an artistic orientation at the Faenza Art Institute, where he graduated in June 1984. He then attended the Biennial Specialization Course in the Art of Majolica, also at the Faenza Art Institute, where he met and frequented the sculptor Carlo Zauli, whom he followed in the various stages of technical and artistic realization of the sculptor’s latest works, being encouraged and advised by him in his own activities in the field of ceramics. He was selected at the 1989 Faenza Prize with the work “Baffi,” white stoneware, black engobe. In 2010 he won a Japanese government scholarship and carried out the research program at the Kyoto Academy of Arts, in the Artistic Ceramics Section. During this period he exhibits at the Kyoto Museum of Art, travels through many cities in Japan visiting temples and works of art. In Rome he works in his atelier and participates in Personals and Collective exhibitions including the XII Quadriennale. His art is characterized by a deep connection with ancient civilizations declined in a contemporary key and uses ceramics as the main media. The Works range from sculpture to painting, reflecting an aesthetics that cites and dialogues with the past, but at the same time is placed in a fluid present in constant evolution. The exhibition “The Art of Simone Crespi” is a synthesis of contemporary visionariness and universal-existential themes, treated in a style that oscillates between neo-surrealism and ironic quotations fished from the ancient figurative repertoire. Art critics have pointed out that Crespi is not tied to a single artistic current, but his work is a bridge between the classical world and modern Western society that, expressing a simple and immediate language, seeks to be universally comprehensible. His works, while recalling archaic images, have a modern and personal style that is inextricably linked to the contemporary world.  

The exhibition is curated by Sandro Conte with the collaboration of La Bacc Gallery, cultural promoter of the Crespi collection.