Ugo Nespolo returns to Albissola with more than 30 new ceramic sculptures

From May 30 to September 6, 2026, Albissola Marina and Savona will host Nespolo and Albisola. Rediscovered Fire, a widespread exhibition dedicated to Ugo Nespolo’s recent ceramic production. The project, curated by Riccardo Zelatore, brings together more than 30 previously unseen sculptures made by the Turin-based artist at the historic Pierluca Ceramics factory, and is held between the MuDA - Museo Diffuso Exhibition Center in Albisola and the Museum of Ceramics in Savona.

The initiative is promoted by the Savona Ceramic Museum Foundation ETS, an instrumental entity of the De Mari CR Savona Foundation, in collaboration with the City of Albissola Marina. The title chosen for the exhibition, Fuoco ritrovato, recalls both the process of ceramic firing and Nespolo’s renewed interest in a language that has accompanied his work since the 1960s. Indeed, the exhibition focuses on a practice that has run through his production for decades and is now reinterpreted through new works conceived in close relationship with the Ligurian manufacturing tradition.

The project aims to enhance the role of Albisolese ceramic tradition as a still active space of contemporary production and experimentation. Within this framework, the collaboration between the Ceramics Museum Foundation of Savona and the City of Albissola Marina has shaped a path that relates local craft knowledge with contemporary artistic research, returning to the public a productive moment developed directly in the area. The works on display highlight some of the central elements of Nespolo’s language, such as the use of color, construction by joints, compositional dynamism and an ironic component that runs through a large part of his production. In the new sculptures, these aspects are translated into the three-dimensionality of ceramics, transforming signs and backgrounds into plastic structures that overcome the two-dimensional dimension typical of many of the artist’s works.

The relationship between Nespolo and ceramics has long occupied an important role within a research that includes painting, film, design and decorative arts. In this sphere, ceramics is used as a ground of convergence between references to the historical avant-garde, suggestions of Pop Art and Italian craft tradition. Special attention is also paid to the dialogue with Futurism, a movement that precisely in Albissola in the 1930s found one of its most original seasons through the encounter between poetry, painting, architecture and ceramic production. Nespolo’s works confront that linguistic legacy without renouncing the distinctive features of his own visual research.

“For Ugo Nespolo, ceramics is not a simple support, but a field of experimentation where color becomes substance. In these new sculptures made at Ceramiche Pierluca, we find the synthesis between the artisanal wisdom of the territory and the intellectual eclecticism of the artist,” emphasizes the curator, Riccardo Zelatore.

The exhibition takes place in two venues. The Exhibition Center of MuDA - Museo Diffuso Albisola constitutes the main core of the itinerary and houses mainly freestanding sculptures, as well as some plates of visual poetry and a series of graffiti and relief plates. The works also inaugurate the new museographic display designed by Gianluca Peluffo & Partners. The location of the path also takes on special value because of its proximity to the workshop of Ceramiche Pierluca, where the works were made, and to the Lungomare degli Artisti, the famous urban space decorated by many 20th-century artists Nespolo frequented and knew, including Lucio Fontana.

In contrast, the second venue, the Museum of Ceramics in Savona, offers a direct comparison between the artist’s contemporary works and the museum’s historical collections. Nespolo’s sculptures are placed in the oldest wing of the building, alongside Renaissance and Baroque majolica, creating a relationship between contemporary forms and the historical tradition of local manufacturing. The dialogue between recent works and historical objects highlights the continuity of Savona’s ceramic production, historically founded on the encounter between craft skills and artistic research. Forms such as the vase, cup and plate are thus reinterpreted as symbolic and representative elements, adapted over time to the different visual languages of Mediterranean and European culture.

Accompanying the exhibition will also be a catalog published by Moebius Books, with contributions by Nespolo himself, Riccardo Zelatore, Dario Bevilacqua of Pierluca Ceramics and Luca Bochicchio, scientific director of the Museum of Ceramics in Savona. The volume documents the new cycle of works created in Albissola and explores the relationship between the artist and the Ligurian context. The exhibition will also feature photographs by Marcello Campora, architect, photographer and vice president of the Ceramics Museum Foundation of Savona. The shots follow the different stages of the creation of the works and render the process of working through images dedicated to the relationship between gesture, material and fire.

Ugo Nespolo returns to Albissola with more than 30 new ceramic sculptures

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