English
Comune di Riccione
Villa Mussolini – viale Milano 40
28 aprile – 19 agosto 2018
Sirene, latin lover e altri mostri marini
Mermaids, latin lover and other sea monsters
progetto artistico site-specific pensato per Riccione
a cura di Umberto Giovannini – Opificio della Rosa
promosso da Comune di Riccione – Assessorato Turismo Sport Cultura Eventi
in collaborazione con Comune di Morciano di Romagna e Comune di Montefiore Conca
site-specific artistic project designed for Riccione by Umberto Giovannini – Opificio della Rosa
promoted by the Municipality of Riccione – Tourism Sport Culture Events Department
in collaboration with the Municipality of Morciano di Romagna and the Municipality of Montefiore Conca
Come possiamo rappresentare in modo ironico, in chiave contemporanea, l’universo balneare con i suoi tic, le sue leggende epiche e umane? Si tratta di un mondo che da oltre un secolo ha affascinato creatori di immagini e narratori, pubblicitari e musicisti, stilisti e teatranti. A plasmare questo immaginario rivierasco sono stati chiamati tre illustratori, Nick Morley, William Davey (Inghilterra) e Ignacia Ruiz (Cile), accomunati da una cifra iconografica ironica e surreale, capace di reinventare un luogo storico, la Villa Mussolini di Riccione, con occhio ludico e disincantato. Il pubblico potrà immergersi in una trama di narrazioni e storie illustrate che rievocano ambienti sottomarini, cartoline di spiaggia e fauna da balera. Cortei di sirene, latin lover e figure antropomorfe popolano il parco della Villa e conducono i visitatori all’interno delle sale, si addentrano, insieme, in un immenso libro pop-up illustrato, pronti a sorprendersi, a perdersi, come fece Alice nel suo Paese delle Meraviglie.
How can we represent in an ironic way, with a contemporary eye, the seaside universe with its eccentricities and its epic nature of humans and legends? It is a world that for over a century has fascinated image makers and narrators, advertisers and musicians, stylists and actors. To shape this imaginary coast three illustrators have made their interpretations, Nick Morley, William Davey (England) and Ignacia Ruiz (Chile), united by an ironic and surreal iconographic figure, reinventing a historic place, the Villa Mussolini of Riccione, with a playful eye. The public can immerse themselves in worlds of narratives and illustrated stories that evoke underwater environments, beach postcards and ballistic fauna. Mermaid parades, latin lovers and anthropomorphic figures populate the park of the Villa and lead visitors into the halls, where they are immersed in a huge illustrated pop-up book, ready to surprise and allow the viewer to get lost, as Alice did in her Wonderland.
Rufa, Rome University of Fine Arts
Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London
Opificio della Rosa
2-13 July 2016
The Magic Box: The Japanese theatre kamishibai
Experimental workshop of printmaking illustration and story telling
12 day workshop designed for 10 students of Rome University of Fine Arts and Central Saint Martins
C/O Printmaking Centre Opificio della Rosa, Castle of Montefiore
tutors: Maria Pina Bentivenga (RUFA) – Umberto Giovannini (CSM)
This 12-day workshop born from the experience of the tutors, Maria Pina Bentivenga and Umberto Giovannini, that work together on interdisciplinary artistic projects about illustration and printmaking and for story telling and theatre.
The idea is a collaborative project for a group of 10 students (5 from RUFA and 5 from CSM) and the tutors: a playful approach, from drawing to the creation, sharing skills and ideas.
Kamishibai is a traditional Japanese images’ theatre originally used by story-tellers. It is a wooden case with inside cardboards printed front and back: on one hand the drawing and on the other the text. The audience is watching the illustrations while the story-teller acts the story. A little theatre in a suitcase that becomes a scenic place to create a strong involvement between the storyteller and the audience.
Starting from a text, a story or a narrative will be given, to each participant, the skill to create his own Kamishibai and animate it. Each participant will bring his own story to realize: from fairy tales to thrillers, from oral narratives to daily life stories: feel free, this path has many possibilities.
The stories will be divided into scenes according to the techniques of illustration and theatrical drama, experiencing new areas and possibilities, just like to create an illustrated book or write the play of a show.
Will be given, to each participant, the skill to create his own little theatre divided in ten illustrations made with a mix of experimental printmaking techniques that allows an immediate approach, freshness and flexibility making the prints.
Under the guidance of the tutors you will act your own Kamishibai in a big final Party.
Each participant will have, at the end of the workshop, his Theatre Kamishibai.
RUFA, Rome University of Fine Arts
Opificio della Rosa
21-26 April 2016
Color woodcut workshop
6 day workshop designed for 10 students of RUFA, Rome University of Fine Arts
C/O Printmaking Centre Opificio della Rosa, Castle of Montefiore
Tutor: Umberto Giovannini
This workshop offers a deeper approach to the world of polychrome woodcutting. Starting from the classical XV century techniques, including the interpretations of these techniques by the great engravers of the past century up until the techniques developed by Umberto Giovannini in twenty years of studies and research.
Each day a different technique will be examined: after a historical-theoretical part there will be a practical demonstration of the technique, which the students will then use to create a personal work.
Rufa, Rome University of Fine Arts
Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London
Opificio della Rosa
26 June – 9 July 2015
Woodcut and letterpress Tarot
12 day workshop designed for 10 students of Rome University of Fine Arts and Central Saint Martins
C/O Printmaking Centre Opificio della Rosa, Castle of Montefiore
tutors: Maria Pina Bentivenga (RUFA) – Umberto Giovannini (CSM)
This is a 12-day experimental workshop who aims to create a new set of Major Arcana of the tarot, through the technique of colour woodcut and letterpress.
The idea is a collaborative project for a group of 10 students (5 from Rufa and 5 from CSM) and the tutors: a playful approach, from drawing to the creation, sharing skills and ideas. The aim is to create a folder with the 22 cards.
The project is designed by the tutor Umberto Giovannini who has deeply studied the iconography of tarot cards working at his woodcut series Tarocchi di Sigismondo (http://www.umbertogiovannini.it/inglese/tarot-uk2.html).
To each participant will be given the skill to create a series of images starting from a given iconography, through an approach of creative sharing. In addition, to each participant will be given the skill to realize a colour woodcut, from drawing to print, and a basic knowledge of the use of movable type and typesetting.
RUFA, Rome University of Fine Arts
Opificio della Rosa
1-5 May 2015
Color woodcut workshop
5 day workshop designed for 10 students of RUFA, Rome University of Fine Arts
C/O Printmaking Centre Opificio della Rosa, Castle of Montefiore
Tutor: Umberto Giovannini
This workshop offers a deeper approach to the world of polychrome woodcutting. Starting from the classical XV century techniques, including the interpretations of these techniques by the great engravers of the past century up until the techniques developed by Umberto Giovannini in twenty years of studies and research.
Each day a different technique will be examined: after a historical-theoretical part there will be a practical demonstration of the technique, which the students will then use to create a personal work.
FAO – Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
RUFA Rume University of Fine Art
Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London
Museo Civico della Stampa di Mondovì
Opificio della Rosa
7 June-3 July 2014
EQUAL ACCESS. Right to Food Guidelines +10
Installation for FAO project in Rome
To celebrate this event FAO, through RUFA commissioned installation EQUAL ACCESS Right to Food Guidelines +10.
The work was realized Opificio della Rosa, for the FAO headquarters in Rome, by the students of RUFA, Rome Academy of Fine Arts and the University of London Central Saint Martins coordinated by Maria Pina Bentivenga and Umberto Giovannini.
The installation, made colour woodcut and letterpress gives life to the image of 3.50 x 7 meters designed to celebrate – in the lobby of the FAO building in Rome – ten years after the approval, in Rome, the world’s Right to Food Guidelines Food.
The project is designed to suggest a color and iconographic pathway that takes its cue from the Right to Food Guidelines pages.
The woodcut prints, suggesting the colors of the food and the environment through the five continents, will form an installation on which they are printed iconographic references to molecular structures, a symbol of power and basic elements of life and letterpress and excerpts text from the “Guidelines”.
The letterpress is realized with the wooden type from Museum of Typography of Mondovì, after a project of restoration of 6000 letters made in Opificio in one year of work.
RUFA, Rome University of Fine Arts
Opificio della Rosa
April 25 to May 1 2014
Woodcut Illustration and letterpress
5 day workshop designed for 10 students of Rome University of Fine Arts
C/O Printmaking Centre Opificio della Rosa, Castle of Montefiore
Tutors: Maria Pina Bentivenga, Umberto Giovannini
Each student will realize an illustrated book – printed in a small edition – in a professional way, ready to be presented to a publishing company.
Starting from a text of the Polish poet Wisława Szymborska – Nobel Prize in 1996 – in collaboration with Malgorzata Chomicz and the University of Niwersytet Warmińsko-Mazurski W Olsztynie.
Each student will be given the skills to manage the project and the achievements of a homogeneous body of illustrations made in color woodcut with particular attention to the rules of the illustrated book: the construction of the page and the communication of a story, of a world, of a suggestion.
Letterpress: After an introduction to the printing techniques, each student will be given the knowledge to mount a typesetting that will be used as an illustration, or altogether with the woodcuts using short lines of text. Warning: we will not make the composition of the text in the manner editorial because the workshop is much more related to the illustration that typography.
Introduction to bind: how to make a professional prototype for an edition of art.
The Art Academy, London
Opificio della Rosa
24-30 August 2013
Polymergravure
5 day workshop designed for 10 students of The Art Academy, London
C/O Printmaking Centre Opificio della Rosa, Castle of Montefiore
Tutor: Victoria Browne
During this five day course attendees will learn to master this innovative printmaking process using hand-painted or drawn positives. Empowering light from the sun, positives are exposed onto photo-sensitive polymer plates.
Often compared to traditional copper-plate photogravure, polymergravure printing was developed in Denmark by Eli Ponsaing in 1989 and offers a non-toxic alternative.
The prints exhibit a wide and continuous tonal range, rich blacks and sensitive to the original intention of the artist. Attendees will work in the etching studio to combine a variety of inking methods and chine-collé to edition single and multiple-colour plates onto archival rag paper.
Accademia di Belle Arti di Catania
Opificio della Rosa
17-24 August 2013
Japanese Woodcut
5 day workshop designed for 10 students of Accademia di Belle Arti di Catania
C/O Printmaking Centre Opificio della Rosa, Castle of Montefiore
Tutor: Wuon-Gean Ho
Japanese woodblock is a beautiful, non toxic technique that uses natural wood, watercolours and handmade paper in order to create images. The colours can be transparent and subtle, or very intense and powerful. In this 5-day workshop you learn how to design, carve and print your own black and white and multi-coloured prints in the traditional Japanese style.
You will learn how to use the different tools such as carving knives, printing brushes and the hand held printing disc called a baren, and take these tools home with you after the course ends.
Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London
Opificio della Rosa
17-30 June 2013
Woodcut Illustration and letterpress
14 day workshop designed for 8 students of Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London
C/O Printmaking Centre Opificio della Rosa, Castle of Montefiore
Tutor: Umberto Giovannini
Each student will make an illustrated book – printed in a little edition –, in the professional way, ready to be proposed to a publishing house.
Starting from a text or an idea, each student has to be able to manage a series of illustration thought as a homogeneous body of works. The choice of the text is up to you: from a kitchen book to a fairy tale to a tattoo book… please be free!
Woodcut illustration: each student has to be able to realize colours woodcuts using different techniques with a particular attention to the book illustration’s rules: the pages and the communication of a story, a world, a suggestion, etc.
Letterpress: after an induction of the letterpress techniques, each student has to be able to make a letter composition to be used as an illustration, mixed with woodcut illustrations or only used as main lines of the text. Attention: we will not make text composition in the full-page manner because the workshop is much more about illustration than typography. Long texts could be used but will be printed with digital process.
Induction to bookbinding and how to make a mock-up for a professional artistic edition.
Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London
Opificio della Rosa
24-29 June 2012
Color woodcut workshop: advanced level
6 days workshop designed for 8 students of Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London
C/O Printmaking Centre Opificio della Rosa, Castle of Montefiore
Tutor: Umberto Giovannini
This workshop offers a deeper approach to the world of polychrome woodcutting. Starting from the classical XV century techniques, including the interpretations of these techniques by the great engravers of the past century up until the techniques developed by Umberto Giovannini in twenty years of studies and research.
Each day a different technique will be examined: after a historical-theoretical part there will be a practical demonstration of the technique, which the students will then use to create a personal work.
