garage BENTIVOGLIO

Edmund De Waal's vases represent one of the subsets in which the Palazzo Bentivoglio collection is divided and developed. If the process of forming the Torlonia collection was to be a collection of collections, already purchased in their constituent nuclei (Albani, Cavaceppi, Giustiniani), in the era of serial reproduction we can all be collectors of collections, buying objects that find in seriality the ultimate term in which their emblematic meaning is summarized. \nAnd Edmund De Waal's work originates precisely from a collection: the series of netsukes that he inherited in 1994 after the death of his great-uncle Iggie and that had already entered his imagination in 1991, during his stay in Japan, Iggie's adopted country. \nSmall, like a matchbox, netsukes preserve all the qualities that De Waal transfers to his vases: patinated and smooth like river stones, with faint shades, so inconsistent as to evoke awe when touched. \nThe explosion of Japonism in 19th century Paris had led Charles, Iggie's ancestor, to empty netsukes of their usefulness, i.e. simple belt clips, and to transform them into collectibles; so De Waal was once again able to make the figure of the craftsman match that of the artist, elevating the ceramic techniques learned during his stay in Japan to the meaning of the ceramic techniques learned during his stay in Japan. \nAnd if Iggie's collection, in its changes of hands, has preserved all the pilgrimages it underwent and the lives it went through, finding its fulfillment in the work of De Waal, one wonders what meanings and questions the objects that now inhabit the rooms of Palazzo Bentivoglio may arouse, what will be handed down to the next possible owners, what oblivion will inevitably bring with it.