Break the Mold - Jenna Basso Pietrobon

IExcerpt from Article

Break the Mold is a series of lamps, vases, and photographs which deconstruct and reimagine traditions of craft by subverting the ethos of mass production.

For Break the Mold, I engaged old plaster molds—produced between the 1970s and 1990s—that I found in the basement of my cousin’s ceramics factory. The slip-casting process used for this group of works is common in commercial mass-production, and traditionally yields materials that are sanded and glazed to perfection, every piece precisely mirroring the others. For my series, I disrupted this process by removing the forms prematurely from the plaster molds, before their clay walls were fully hardened, and manually shaped their fragile forms into something unexpected. In this flimsy state, they were poked and prodded out of sameness, forced to stand—if a little clumsily (nobody is perfect)—on their own feet. Each of my works is only truly activated when it comes into contact with light or flowers, or is mirrored through photography.

My work in ceramics springs from a deep familial and cultural history. In the 1950s, my grandparents left Italy for Canada, where my grandfather applied his knowledge of ceramics to making lamps. Growing up, I spent weekends in my grandfather’s and father’s lighting factory, roller-skating down the long hallways lined with fixtures and shades, and playing hide and seek amongst the boxes with my siblings. As a teenager, I spent summers helping out in the factory, and, after college, I moved to New York to work with architects and designers in the lighting industry. Now, retracing my grandfather’s footsteps back to the Italian town of Nove di Bassano almost 70 years after he first left, I am on a journey to create my own clay forms that honor and expand on the craftsmanship and legacy of ceramics in this historic place.

The clay forms of the lamps are collaged from multiple different plaster molds modified to make each piece distinct; stacked in precarious configurations, they seem almost to buckle under pressure. Each one of my unique lampshades is crafted from fabrics made in the Veneto region and manufactured between 1950 and 1990, a time span that encapsulates the year of my grandparents’ immigration, my parents’ birth, and the year that I was born. By adorning the lampshades with fabrics originally used for objects, fashion, and interior design—such as silk, velvet, and wallcoverings—I suggest different relationships between the viewer and the figure of the lamp.

The collection also includes a series of photographs depicting my clay constructions. The photographs are a conceptual work that stand alone but are also inextricably and forever tied to the tangible, material reality of the lamps and vases they document. Printed similar to life-size, it feels as if the objects themselves are stepping out of the images and into your physical reality — a memory brought to life. If not for a pop of color from a flower, many of the images would otherwise appear to be shot in black and white due to the neutral palette of the vases and their environments.

My white ceramic vases are willfully lopsided and asymmetrical, like the clay and glass vessels in a Giorgio Morandi painting—which warp and melt as if from heat. They wobble and wilt like the flowers they hold, seemingly pliant, tractable, and yielding, the ceramics stagger and trip over the even table surface.

The vases, when empty, recall the factories left vacant and unused in Nove. In my images, empty vases sit in the stark lighting — the sun goes up and down, and it is as if years go by. The vases represent objects abandoned in these factories, bathed in beautiful lighting, but left waiting for the town to wake up and rediscover them. The vases, like the factories, require active investment to be brought back to life, or “activated.” By placing flowers in the vases or turning on the lamps, we can completely change the light and the energy of the space. This activation represents the artist’s desire and effort to help revitalize the factories in the town of Nove.

IIDocumentary

IIIPerformance: The Lamp Lady (Milan Design Week/ Fuorisalone 2023)

“Each day of the performance, I will be dressed as a deconstructed lamp: donning a unitard of different colors with various lampshades, and holding an illuminated light bulb in my hand. I envision each of my lamps as their own unique characters, and by embodying them, I bring them to life and enter into a new kind of dialogue with my work. As I make my way from the art museum Pinacoteca di Brera to different areas of the city, I will invite onlookers to join me in traversing the streets, integrating the performance into the public sphere amongst the people who live there.”

Schedule:

April 18
We begin at 19:00 in front of Pinacoteca di Brera and walk to Duomo di Milano

April 19
We begin at 19:00 in front of Pinacoteca di Brera and walk to Duomo di Milano and walk to Bar Basso

April 20
We begin at 19:00 in Central Station and walk to DropCity

April 21
We begin at 19:00 in front of Pinacoteca di Brera and walk to Arco della Pace

** The footage over the four days will become an over hour long video artwork.

IVSupport / Purchase

VISIT NEGOZIO | SHOP

A few series are available for purchase.

Part of the proceeds from each vase, lamp, and photograph sold will be given to The Fondamenta — a project to support the craft of ceramics in the artist’s family’s hometown of Nove di Bassano, Veneto.