Paolo Gonzato talks about art and chooses Treverkchic and SistemC ceramic tiles for "Kitchen"

Internationally famous artist Paolo Gonzato was born at Busto Arsizio in 1975 and lives and works in Milan.

He moves easily from the large to the small scale, using his trademark multi-coloured diamond forms and psychedelic wall-paintings to transform spaces, sculptures and automobiles. His sculptures created with recycled materials make apparently banal objects and materials suddenly appear precious.

Paolo is one of the 5 artists featured in the “The Art of Living” exhibition organised by Living - Corriere della Sera at the Triennale during the Milan Design Week, the central theme of which is an exploration of the relationship between the work of art and home interiors. Together with Marazzi, Paolo investigates this topic with “Kitchen”, an installation dedicated to the kitchen, in which he used our Treverkchic and SistemC tiles.

This is the starting-point for our interview with him.

Give us a brief outline of the concept of your “Untitled” installation. How did you decide which materials to use for this work?

I did a collage using several different Marazzi products, mixing up the most widely varying surfaces and an almost wilfully random assortment of colours, like pixels gone crazy.

I wanted absolute opposites, I wanted them to clash so fiercely they would create a new, sparkling, vibrant equilibrium, a small shift in the direction of art.
 

Historically, ceramics have been an artistic material, suitable for a vast range of applications. What do you think the role of ceramics is in the world of interior design today and what, if any, benefits do they offer the world of architecture and home decoration?

Ceramics are an amazing material and I’m using them more and more in my work; they let you produce everything you want to, and are both humble and exquisite at the same time.

Actually, I misuse ceramics, mixing them with other materials like Champaign; the material is still the same but its concept is transformed, bringing unexpected information and collisions between different environments.

In terms of manufacturing, I think ceramics have the potential to invent new surfaces for our living spaces, letting us give strong character to our homes, while providing all the security of strength, quality and innovation.

 I’d love to be able to produce interior designs with ceramics and apply the signs of my work, just as one of my heroes, Gio’ Ponti, once did.
 

What do you think the role of the artist, and of art in general, is today?

Dreams, unexpected visions, the chance of giving objective form to something dreamlike, vulgar, transcendent and everyday all at the same time, the pleasure of expressing the imponderable and making the perception of a moment so amazing that it can become eternal. 

Time is now.