Asger Jorn and Ceramiche San Giorgio
Interview with Giovanni Poggi
Tiziana Casapietra and Roberto Costantino
Roberto Costantino: How did you meet Asger Jorn?
Giovanni Poggi: I met Jorn at the end of 1958, seven or eight months after having opened the ceramics laboratory. One day, Salino showed up to announce that a great Danish painter wanted to make an enormous panel. That was the famous panel of Aarhus. We were convinced that if everyone worked together, we would really be able to make it. And so we got together with Jorn, reached agreements with him and went to a lawyer in Milan to stipulate a contract, defining the conditions and work schedules. The customer was the government of Denmark. The works would have begun between the end of May and the beginning of June, so that we could deliver it by the beginning of September, before the winter began in Denmark.
RC: How was work organised in the laboratory?
GP: Every morning we got up very early, around 5.00. Jorn was already living in Albissola, in the area of Brucciati. We would go pick him up and then began working. After a couple of hours we’d go eat breakfast in Grana, in the trattoria of Salino’s friend, Margherita. After relaxing for about an hour, we went back to the laboratory. The panel, that measured 90 square metres (30x3m), was modelled in the courtyard. While we were working, sometimes Jorn would run over the panel with Salino’s Lambretta motorcycle, followed by his dog, Dick. Each section was about 6 square metres. To make it, we used 10,000 kilos of refractory clay made by the Bartoli company of Savona. At the time, all the newspapers were saying that it was the world’s largest panel!
Tiziana Casapietra: How was it decorated?
GP: For the decoration, Jorn used very expensive selenium-based glazes. He would pour the colour directly from the 15-20 kg buckets, just like he did with his paintings. The main colours were the ones he usually used: yellow, orange, green, red.
RC: How did you transport the panel to Aarhus?
GP: The panel consisted of 1250 fired and glazed pieces. I was responsible for packing all the parts that were then loaded into one whole railway car, which departed from the old railway station of Albisola. It took Salino, Pastorino (co-founder of the Ceramiche San Giorgio. He left the company in ’64), and a mason from Albisola Capo, Mario Spotorno, forty days to assemble it in Denmark. In the meantime, to also make a kind of frame, we had sent 50 square metres of handcrafted floor tiles from Santa Margherita Ligure to Aarhus.
R.C: Other than the panel for Aarhus, what else did Jorn make in Albissola?
GP: Jorn worked at Ceramiche San Giorgio from 1958 to 1972. After the huge panel for Aarhus, we created a series of refractory sculptures for the Schubert Gallery of Milan. In 1970, Jorn had mentioned that there might be an opportunity to make another big panel, 20 square metres (5x4 m), and so we began creating a model that’s still walled inside Villa Jorn. The work was rather discontinuous. Every so often Jorn came to the laboratory and announced that he wanted to do something, but then he often disappeared. He would leave and then return even after six months. Instead, the family, with his wife and four children, stayed here, with support from Berto Gambetta and his wife Teresa. Even the ceramic creations in his house, from 1958 on, were all made here.
RC: We found some period photographs that show you all together during the “goat party.” What was that all about?
GP: Every time we completed an important project, Jorn invited everyone to his house to celebrate and they would cook a goat on the spit. We would eat, drink and play music. Jorn played the guitar and had a great passion for music, and to such an extent that he worked while singing softly.
TC: What type of person was Jorn?
GP: He was a real character. Women like him, he was charming, very educated, and had travelled around the world. If he could, he would help young artists by buying their works, a bit like Fontana.
RC: When a sculpture was to be made, how was work organised?
GP: To make panels, the entire laboratory helped Jorn and everyone was at his disposal. We helped him to work the clay, both on the wheel and for the decoration. When he wanted to make a sculpture, Jorn asked me to model a vase. I would start working and prepare the base, he would watch and then at a certain point he would stop me and begin to work the body, until the sculpture had acquired a shape.
TC: When Jorn came to Albissola, had he already worked with clay or did he learn to work it here?
GP: Jorn had already made a few pieces in Denmark and here, during the International Meetings of Ceramics. I think that he learned to model the sculptures here in Albissola.
RC: Jorn was a great activist and he always had a knack for forming groups. Is it because of him that Wifredo Lam and Pinot Gallizio came here?
GP: I had already met Lam in Santa Margherita and I had made a dozen pieces with him. Then, in 1960, Jorn told me: “I’ll introduce you to a painter who’s better than me” and it was Lam. In 1960-61, Jorn and Lam made a vase together that was one metre tall. Instead, Gallizio arrived at Ceramiche San Giorgio at the end of 1958 and it was here that he made the only ceramic plate. After Jorn, there was also the very young Swedish sculptor Ansgar Elde.
RC: What were the relationships between the various artists who stayed in Albissola?
GP: They really respected each other and about 10-15 artists would get together in the evening and talk at the Testa bar. There was Fontana, Sassu, Migneco, Rossello, Dova, Crippa and Fabbri, the liveliest of the group. They talked about what they did and a little bit of everything.
TC: How were the decorations in Jorn’s house made?
GP: Jorn came to the laboratory, worked there and then took the finished ceramic pieces to his house where he applied them. He made a lot of them. The sculptures were placed outside, in the garden. Instead, inside, there should be two panels. In Jorn’s house there are also enameled ceramic pieces. In particular, when Jorn found popular sponge-decorated yellow ceramic pieces, he used to buy them. For decorations he also used artisan-ceramics, and some bottles with a particular vivid colour he liked. For the floor he used the tiles made by C.A.S. of Pinelli, Santa Margherita Ligure, perhaps those left over from the Aarhus panel.
