Torgiano - Museo Arte Ceramica Contemporanea

Contemporary Art Pottery Museum
In the historical center of Torgiano, a renowned wine growing and producing center, between Perugia and Assisi, the Collezione Caruso and the Collezione delle Vaselle d’Autore are hosted inside Palazzo Malizia. The two collections are dedicated to the production of artistic ceramics, executed by contemporary artists of international fame. The Nino Caruso Collection contains works that have been executed by the Sicilian master since the 1950s and donated to Torgiano Municipality, to which the artist is profoundly tied. The display of 58 sculptures in ceramics testifies to the entire career of the artist, and also constitutes precious evidence of the production of contemporary ceramic art. Vases, lamps and stele evoke ancestral forms, along with archaic materials and ancient civilizations, mainly Etruscan, but also African. Instead, the Vaselle d’Autore Collection started in 1996 in conjunction with the homonym event of the Vaselle d’Autore per il Vino Novello Exhibition, whose Artistic Director is always Nino Caruso. As a demonstration of continuity with the activity of the ancient “cocciari” — the earthenware makers — from Torgiano, in November of every year three internationally renowned artists are invited to have a go at each other in a contest on the theme of the “vasella”, a traditional Umbrian flagon for wine and water descending from the medieval “panata”, a recipient with a spout resembling the beak of a pelican. At the end of the contest, at least three samples of their vaselle are acquired by the collection, which today amount to 150 pieces from 48 artists, such as Accardi, Dorazio, Caruso, Mattiacci, Weller, Ceccobelli, Gallo, Heyerdahl, Jense, Consolazione, Scannella, Guerri, Morigi, Woodman, Laghi, Bucci, Brook and Gioventù.