TRIBUTE TO GIÒ POMODORO
Dialoghi continui
“ubi materia ibi geometria”
From 28th November to 8th December 2025
The Exhibition
The exhibition is intended as a tribute and recognition to an artist and teacher who found friends and fruitful collaborations in Ravenna. The plates (sheets produced during his lessons) are a testament to Giò Pomodoro's uncompromising approach to the transmission of knowledge. Teaching and art are linked by a culture of design. Clear methodologies and rigorous planning, research as a stimulus to new techniques and materials: marble, gold, bronze, and more, without neglecting less noble materials like paper, glue, and cement.
Nature is a fundamental element of study, governed by opposites: light and shadow, earth and air, fire and water are elements that support the project, where reason, in the form of Cartesian axes, creates form.
The exhibition features educational "thematic plates" produced by Giò Pomodoro during his lessons in Applied Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ravenna.
The plates are complemented by research by Franca Minardi, Maria Luisa Niero, and Paolo Racagni.
Their research took place primarily in Mondavio, a town in the province of Pesaro-Urbino, where architect Francesco di Giorgio Martini built the fortress between 1482 and 1492, commissioned by Duke Giovanni della Rovere.
Their tools were graphic and photographic surveys of "movements of space and the relationships between full and empty spaces," intertwined and correlated with the passage of time and with man, the measure of all things.
Contemplating and reflecting on the places where we live. Exalting the social function of art, from the common form of natural things to the tools of work, through walking surfaces to work surfaces, to rediscover the essence of things, their feelings.
The Artists
Giò Pomodoro (born Giorgio Pomodoro) was born in Orciano di Pesaro on November 17, 1930. He worked in Milan and Querceta, dedicating himself to sculpture, graphic art, goldsmithing, and scenography.
He died in his studio in Milan on December 21, 2002.
His works include large-scale monumental public works in stone and bronze with significant social and environmental significance, such as:
Piano d’Uso Collettivo, dedicated to Antonio Gramsci near Ales in Sardinia, 1974.
Teatro del Sole, a square-fountain dedicated to Goethe in Frankfurt, 1976.
T-Verticale -Orizzontale Orizzontale, dedicated to the Government of Unidad Popular Chile, September 1973, now Homage to the Resistance in Ravenna, Martyrs' Bridge, 1980.
Sole Depostodesign and construction of the small square in Orciano, where his birthplace once stood, 1986.
Many of his works are present in public and private collections worldwide.
Franca Minardi, born in Russi and living in Faenza (Ravenna, Italy), graduated from the Art School and, under the guidance of Giò Pomodoro, studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ravenna.
Her exhibition activity began in 1977, with participation in group shows—at the Pinacoteca di Ravenna and the Magazzeno del Sale in Cervia — with conceptual works inspired by the feminine universe. Throughout the 1990s, her research analyzed and experimented with natural and artificial organic materials, creating works with an evocative and enigmatic presence.
She participated in group exhibitions and organized solo shows.
In 1973, Uno Dei Tanti Nomi Del Sole: a collective structure for the municipality of Parma, curated by Giò Pomodoro.
IN 1977, Sdoppiata Doppia Magazzeno del Sale, Cervia, curated by Giulio Guberti.
Segno-Identità: ipotesi-itinerari dentro la creatività femminile. Loggetta Lombardesca Art Gallery, Ravenna, curated by Marisa Vescovo.
Paolo Racagni, , born in Ravenna in 1948, earned a master's degree and a high school diploma in art from the State Institute of Mosaic Art in Ravenna. He continued his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, earning a doctorate in painting. Since 1976, he has lectured extensively, authored articles, both individually and in collaboration with other specialists, and is an expert and scientific consultant for numerous mosaic-themed projects.
Since 1972, he has taught professionally and artistically: mosaic, painting, photography, and mosaic theory and restoration techniques at various public and private training institutes in Ravenna, Spilimbergo (Friuli Venezia Giulia), Paray-le-Monial (France), and Damascus (Syria).
He has collaborated with companies in Ravenna from 1972 to the present, in particular: the Ravenna Mosaic Group, Renato Signorini's "Il Mosaico" Laboratory, the Ravenna Mosaic Association, Luciana Notturni's Mosaic Workshop, Paola Perpignani's P.R.P. Laboratory, and the Ravennantica Foundation.
