Andrea Salvatori

Andrea Salvatori was born in Faenza, where he obtained his diploma as a master of art at the Institute for Ballardini Ceramics, a school where he began to handle glazed earthenware when he was still a teenager. What, however, makes Salvatori interesting is that he brought his knowledge as a ceramist to the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, where he graduated in sculpture, continuing to cultivate his passion for "ready made" and expanding his collection of tawdry porcelain figurines, bought by himself in flea markets where he loves to wander around.


His artistic path is quite original: Salvatori works with the figurines that he collects by modifying them or by making them side by side with new subjects. Undoubtedly it is the kitsch aspect of his sculptures that strikes on the first ones; however, it is the quality and content of his interventions that intrigues the visitor, keeping his attention alive. The most exquisite techniques of the craftsman can be recognized in the way Salvatori works because it is precisely there where his experience as a ceramist becomes indispensable.

The artist has in fact decided to express himself by respecting the nature of the object on which or with which he works, forcing himself to meticulously reproduce every detail of the original piece. The result is surprising: it is practically impossible to distinguish the original from the intervention. One can even go so far as to believe that the entire sculpture is made up of ready-made pieces intelligently combined together or that it was born completely out of the hands of the artist. It is in the contents, however, that Salvatori's playful nature finds room to express itself and matures visibly.

The objective with which the artist creates has not changed: to shake, to the point of overturning, the banal stories told by these statuettes. To change and mature are, instead, its contents rendered through an exquisite artisan technique at the service of great irony.