Gruppo Bardelli and Colorobbia in partnership with the artist Sol Calero

The Pabellón Criollo project by artist Sol Calero, at the Gardens of the 60th International Biennale of Venice 2024.

Sol Calero, a Venezuelan artist based in Berlin, creates site-specific installations that serve as meeting and sharing places, characterized by vivacity, luminosity, and playful creativity, enhanced by a background that blends various cultural codes of Latin America.

Thanks to a combination of synergies and knowledge with the art gallery Francesca Minini and the studio Diego Grandi Office by Diego Grandi, Sol Calero has identified the excellence of Made in Italy as the ideal choice for her project. Therefore, collaborating with two established entities in the Italian design and ceramic industry landscape such as Gruppo Bardelli and Gruppo Colorobbia was a natural decision.

Italian ceramics meet art and architecture, and color becomes the element of union between the artist and the two partners to evoke emotions and sensations and transform architectural spaces.

The partnership between Gruppo Bardelli and Gruppo Colorobbia for Sol Calero's Pabellón Criollo project creates an important connection between art, culture, and the ceramic industry. Through collaboration with artist Sol Calero, the two companies are committed to promote beauty and innovation, thus contributing to the growth and vitality of Italian ceramic culture in an international context such as the Venice Biennale: demonstrating a strong focus on the art world, supporting projects and initiatives that enhance creativity and artistic expression.

The project is a manifesto of cultural integration and "mescla" – mixture – of excellences that combine creativity, quality, and sensitivity towards sustainability and material recycling. These values characterize the two entities recognized for the quality that distinguishes raw materials and products, boasting a unique design that enhances Italian style, with particular attention to the theme of sustainability.

The pavilion of artist Sol Calero evokes elements from past projects of the city of Venice: among these, the ramp from the current German pavilion is built with wood taken from the last Ukrainian pavilion, the wood comes from a former pavilion of Uzbekistan, the tiles from an old pavilion of the United States, the bamboo and sheets from a project of an Ethiopian and Australian architecture team. This reuse represents a new life for the materials and reflects the international history and exchange of ideas that the Biennale embodies in its principles.

Gruppo Bardelli is a reference point in the world of high-end ceramics with brands Ceramica Bardelli, Ceramica Vogue, and Appiani, a visionary design, where corporate know-how is put at the service of prestigious collaborations with national and international architecture studios to create innovative and sophisticated products.

Colorobbia specializes in the production and distribution of raw materials and semi-finished products for the ceramic, glass industry and digital printing to obtain ceramic surfaces of high added value both in the industrial and artistic fields.

Design Made in Italy is one of the key principles. The entire production, design, Research and Development of Gruppo Bardelli develop in its own facilities in Italy, transferring to the market the beauty and elegance of Italian savoir-faire. Using Gruppo Bardelli ceramic surfaces means entering scenarios strongly characterized by modernity, aesthetic sign, choice of two-dimensional motifs that become architecture.

Colorobbia is the reference partner for the international ceramic panorama thanks to the high technical level and aesthetic innovation achieved with the combination of its product range. Colorobbia, founded in 1921 in Montelupo Fiorentino, has been promoting ceramic culture abroad (29 companies in 19 countries) and locally through the Vittoriano Bitossi Foundation for years. The Foundation mainly aims at enhancing and disseminating the culture, historical and scientific research of ceramic art.

Colors are creative and design freedom. The wide availability of colors from Gruppo Bardelli, from the most vivid to pastel colors, to the more neutral ones, offers a complete range of products characterized by a strong expressive and functional modularity also thanks to a system of small formats and special solutions for architecture. Colorobbia places significant attention on the quality of its product range: from pigments to ceramic glazes, both traditional and digital, in which it is an absolute innovator. To enrich the proposal of various materials, new water-based glazes, inks, and digital effects represent for customers both a qualitative option in terms of color range rendering and surface development, and a flexible and ecological choice.

Sustainability respecting social and ecological standards translates for Gruppo Bardelli into the reuse of waste primarily used in the production process and recycling up to one hundred percent of production wastewater, as well as minimizing energy consumption with responsible and efficient behavior. Packaging is made from recyclable natural materials, thus encouraging the entire supply chain that uses Bardelli products to adopt sustainable disposal methods.

Colorobbia has always embraced a philosophy that respects environmental sustainability, translating into an approach of extreme efficiency in all stages of production, in addition to energy recovery, recycling, and treatment of industrial water use, reuse of raw materials, and reduction of atmospheric emissions.

Participation in the Venice Biennale offers a prestigious stage to enhance the originality of Made in Italy both in the artistic and industrial fields, a meeting point for the brightest minds and the most promising talents. The presence of Gruppo Bardelli and Colorobbia becomes a symbol not only of technical excellence but also of openness and dialogue between cultures, a true "mescla" of visions that contributes to promoting the union between art and ceramic innovation.