Carlo Zoli's exhibition at Palazzo Guadagni Strozzi Sacrati

From 7 March to 13 April the intense retrospective entitled The Infinite Turning of Time is on view

Thirty-five polychrome terracottas, unique and irreplaceable pieces, retracing a poetry inspired by myth and documenting its evolution from the 1990s to the present day, following a completely unprecedented underlying theme. The work of master Carlo Zoli, after the great success of the Florence Biennale, finds a home at Palazzo Guadagni Strozzi Sacrati until April 13th, for an intense retrospective entitled L’infinito Volgere del Tempo (The Infinite Turn of Time ), curated by Greta Zuccali.

Conosco i segni dell’antica fiamma, 2021 (ph. Camilla Valli)

This is an exhibition that highlights the more contemporary side of Zoli’s aesthetic: a constant search for the human, as happens in all the creative expressions of our time, from fashion to design to music. The artist, who won first place in the Ceramics category at the XIV Florence Biennale, reaffirms his powerful creativity at Palazzo Guadagni Strozzi Sacrati, which time and time again provokes wonder, contemplation and finally prayer. In Zoli’s world, clay becomes living matter and is transformed into a thousand figures, sometimes enigmatic and fantastic, other times anchored in classical myth, chivalric literature or Christian traditions, imagining a world parallel to the real one. This is a world where the tradition of his family meets Zoli’s own visions and sensibility.

Re Porsenna, 2023 (ph. Camilla Valli)

His great-grandfather Carlo was a ceramist in Borgo Durbecco in Faenza, where his grandfather Paolo later founded the La Faience artistic majolica workshop. Such history gives life to his works that can be contemplated in an evocative chase, starting from the grand staircase and continuing in the magnificent halls of the monumental palace overlooking Piazza del Duomo. Alongside the ethereal and harmonious creatures of the Quiete series and the visceral and belligerent subjects of the Tempesta series, the two faces of that medal, as precious as it is ephemeral, that we call existence, to which Zoli has been devoting himself for thirty years now, we also find recent works and never-before-seen collections, such as the one that gives the exhibition its title and constitutes the cornerstone around which the whole exhibition revolves, like a magical dance of an ancient fairy tale.