The history of the villa on Lake Maggiore

Villa Fumagalli is a project by architect Piero Portaluppi, built in 1935 on commission from the Milanese textile entrepreneur Roberto Fumagalli and his wife Matilde Frascoli. The building, characterized by essential and rigorous lines and external surfaces, is part of a significant corpus of architectural projects specifically from Laveno that Portaluppi carried out between the 1920s and 1930s, including the establishment of the Italian Ceramic Society (1924-1926). and the cottage for its director (1923).

Two contrasting search paths dialogue with the portaluppian spaces

The two artists interact with the portaluppiani spaces through recent and unpublished works: Eloisa Gobbo and Luce Raggi interact with the architecture of the interiors and offer the interesting opportunity to follow - by contrast - two paths of research that are placed on different positions in terms of interests and intentions in the relationship with the ceramic medium.

As the curator Fabio Carnaghi points out: “The ceramic works by Eloisa Gobbo reflect on decoration and its potential for reinterpretation in a crossroads of cultures and inclusion, to the point of becoming real anthropological epertories , maps on which to intercept trajectories of migrating signs. The approach of Luce Raggi refers to an ironic imagery that re-enacts everyday reality by resorting to communication entrusted to the written word and the sign graphic, a practice that can be traced in ceramics combined with traditional forms, in video with use of animation, and finally in drawing and illustration”.

The linguistic breviary of Luce Raggi creates speaking objects

“ The divertissement takes a stand in the reinterpretation of the ceramic tradition by Luce Raggi” continues Carnaghi. “The particular aptitude for irony transmutes a formal heritage, sometimes derived from stylistic reminiscences or from remakes of historical originals in a linguistic breviary made up of puns, quotations taken from the newspaper or from slang contexts. This hybridization between formal and informal determines the transliteration of the historical ceramic typologies into real speaking objects”.

The exhibition, promoted by Associazione Amici del MIDeC with the patronage of MIDeC - International Museum of Ceramic Design and of the Municipality of Laveno Mombello and with the support of Hotel de Charme Laveno, is one of the initiatives by MIDeC Award, in recognition of Eloisa Gobbo and Luce Raggi, second and third classified respectively of the second edition of the Laveno review every two years.