Category: Updates

This is a story written in 6 hands: behind the scenes we have the Anna Fileppo Studio in Cossato (BI) and its flagship project for over 10 years, the now well-known concept Art and Industry, while on stage here are the protagonists, the international artist Silvia Levenson and the Biella company MANTICO.

Anna Fileppo with Art  and Industry wants to promote synergies between artists and businesses. His Studio, which in 2018 has turned 30, encourages and coordinates a creative exchange between art, design and the best of artisan production, with the aim of bringing contemporary art into everyday life.

His motto “There is no communication without emotion” means precisely this: the emotion is the search for beauty, a beauty that is not abstract or sterile, but something that can improve the corporate image.

And it is precisely through this new way of communicating that the company is told and seen through the eyes of an artist.

On the one hand Silvia Levenson, an artist of Argentine origin and who has moved to Italy for over 30 years, specializes in glass processing. His sculpture has a dark and ironic vision of modern domestic life and his works are exhibited in the most prestigious museums around the world.

From the other MANTICO, from the Latin “manticum“, “bag”: an imaginary baggage where to keep one’s own experiences and with which to feel free to live without compromising, without putting on brakes or limits. A world where the Italian spirit blends with inspirations from different cultures, telling the biellese textile tradition through backpacks that make life #amanilibere.

The synergy between the company and the artist, under the careful direction of Anna Fileppo, has given life to a Limited Collection with customizable details, with the reproduction of the iconic “Pink Glass Hand Grenade”, the famous hand-colored bomb rose made of glass.

The collection consists precisely of the kvattro bag and two backpacks, memo zayno and classy zayno, all made in Italy: the products thus become small works of art, precisely 90 unique pieces.

The Limited Collection was officially presented in March 2019 at the Mint Museum in Charlotte, United States, and last May 25 in the heart of Biella at Thanks, an official MANTICO retailer.

On June 3, the artist also came to the store to talk about this happy synergy with Michele Pozzo of MANTICO: a work born as usual in glass, but here it was woven by hand to personalize a manufacturing product and characterized by great care for small details.

The Biella fabric and fashion are therefore combined with art and design, giving life to a collaboration made in Biella where creativity is the basis of everything: a liaison that fully supports Biella’s candidacy for UNESCO Creative City .

For CNN, the Ricetto of Candelo is “the Pompeii of the Middle Ages”, ranking third among the 20 most idyllic Italian towns that perfectly sum up the “Bel Paese” (Beautiful Country), or rather the Italy of food, art and wonderful landscapes from the sea to the mountains .

An excellent result for the village that has 140,000 tourists a year, mostly from Northern Italy, but also from abroad, with an induced 600,000 euros for B & Bs, guest houses and farmhouses in 5 years and of 400 thousand euros of expenditure on the territory (excluding overnight stays) in 2018.

The Ricetto is part of the circuit of the most beautiful villages in Italy, the Orange Flag of the Touring Club, useful brands to get out of the local boundaries and to propose forcefully abroad.

The US broadcaster has published in its CNN Travel section a selection of the most beautiful places to visit in Italy. The Ricetto is the only Piedmontese to appear in the list and is preceded only by Pietrapertosa (Basilicata), whose enormous rocks are called the “Dolomites of the South”, and by Marina Corricella, in Procida, with its fortress Terra Murata.

For more information, see the article in La Stampa: Biella. The Ricetto by Candelo on the CNN podium: “Medieval Pompeii”

Contemporary art and haute cuisine come together in a unique experience of its kind: a silicone dinner, for refined palates and design enthusiasts.

Once again Studio Anna Fileppo collaborates in the creation of a new synergy between Art and Industry, and in this case between the award-winning Biella artist Alessandro Ciffo and the starred Chef Sergio Vineis.

The first, in the art world since 1997, is formed in autonomy and, always alone, produces his works: his path is based on the extreme research of the potential of silicone, the only medium for him able to fully express his emotions. For him, silicone is the most alchemical of all modern materials because sand, from which it derives, maintains the memory of inorganic inert material that is physically and chemically unassailable.

The second, which for over 20 years carries on its signature cuisine, enriched by the fresh resourcefulness of his son and sous chef Simone and by the oenological skills of the maître sommelier Michela Rosco, has been awarded the Michelin star since 2003 (he now has receipts 15), goal achieved with work, study and dedication in his restaurant in Pollone (BI), Il Patio. For him the kitchen is life and, like life, it is always in motion.

And with these two excellencies from Biella, Anna Fileppo was involved in this innovative project, in effect a “brand” to be exported: the Silicone Experience signed by Ciffo / Vineis is something absolutely never seen at the center of which, in the higher than the meaning, the concept of creativity.

So with the 31st May 2019 first and an unexpected bis soon after, on June 6th at Il Patio a meeting between art and taste went on stage, a fusion of flavors and colors where “sensations and emotions become experience”.

Fans of contemporary art and starred menus sat at the table, to experience a truly spectacular dinner-performance, a real challenge to the imagination.

The initiative was born from Ciffo’s desire to bring silicone to the best restaurants in the world: a seemingly arduous undertaking that can win by convincing Chefs that silicone is “good”. In Sergio, a friend, Alessandro has found a Chef with whom he can experiment with this new idea and so, for almost a year now, the two have been talking about, comparing and studying the dishes and flavors, the other the basis on which to present them to the best.

And here is that Ciffo has created a service of covers with hand-made pieces, one by one: bowls with tentacles, striped nacre discs and even tablecloths, interspersed with its famous vases and giant bowls: everything in the room recalled a mass in an almost theatrical scene, giving diners the opportunity to visual and tactile experiences. Ceramics, steel and glass, materials commonly used on our tables, have here been replaced with an element, silicone, almost unknown.

The theme of the evening and the union between the two protagonists was water, a symbolic element for our territory, which has always drawn from it everything it could, in textiles and in the food industry. Each course was accompanied by a story of its own, telling its precise identity.

Another, yet another confirmation of how Biella is increasingly a creative city.

In recent days, a series of events took place in Sicily, starring Michelangelo Pistoletto: the master received an honorary degree conferred by the Academy of Fine Arts in Catania, held a lectio magistralis and completed a work of art. collective art of the Third Paradise.

Denounce pollution from marine plastic waste in the Mediterranean, celebrate the transformative power of art as a gesture of collective responsibility, affirm an alternative vision of the Mediterranean sea no longer only associated with migratory flows, but as the heart of our civilization and window of Europe on the world: these are, in summary, the objectives of the project-event “A sea of ​​plastic“, which took place in Catania.

The activities were held during the World Environment Day (June 5) and the numerous mobilization and awareness-raising initiatives that are affecting Italy and the whole world.

The artistic-social initiative is promoted by the OELLE Mediterraneo Antico Foundation, to which the entrepreneur Ornella Laneri – with a new governance – gives her own imprinting in 2017 in order to enhance the historical, artistic, cultural and environmental heritage of the Mediterranean; everything through the languages ​​of art, the recovery of civic memory and corporate social responsibility.

The installation of the Third Paradise, the heart of the project-event, curated by Cesare Biasini Selvaggi and Carmelo Nicosia, is the trinamic symbol of Michelangelo Pistoletto: in Catania, in fact, the Third Paradise was created for the first time at sea with plastic waste recovered from the marine environment.

See more on: http://journal.cittadellarte.it/arte-societa/un-mare-plastica-catania-la-sostenibilita-incontra-larte-terzo-paradiso

“We have created a new thought, united humble people and with sympathy, good will and above all with the cohesion of our forces we are rolling up our sleeves to be an example to imitate, a spark that wants to light a fire, the fire of hope for our future. We identify ourselves as Biella in the heart “.

This is the appeal of a shopkeeper in Via Vescovado, Roberto Franco, who in recent months has worked to revive the center of Biella with his colleagues: “We have a splendid land that we love and respect and we want to participate in creating something pleasant, original and creative that attracts in the city center the beauty that is now missing. Via Vescovado wants to be the Way of hope”

“Biella nel cuore” supports Biella’s candidacy for the Creative Cities network!