Venice. Unique talents and ancient crafts to look to the future

“The enemy of the métiers d'art is ignorance, meaning when people unable to understand the difference between something that is made with love and care, and something that isn’t,” says Alberto Cavalli, the co-executive director of the Michelangelo Foundation for Creativity and Craftsmanship and the commissioner of “Homo Faber”. The show, which closed on 30 September 2018, was hosted at the Fondazione Cini in Venice. It was a generous and enlightening exhibition. Generous because the 4,000-square-metre area allowed the eye to take in 900 objects (the work of 400 master craftspeople from Europe including the Azores, Russia and Iceland) and 300 unique skills. And enlightening because it not only aimed to teach, explain and describe today’s métiers d’art, but also presented them in a new way: contemporary, concrete, almost accessible and seductive. This reversal of perspective was clear in all 16 sections. No longer do crafts conjure up the image of dusty workshops, rather they convey the possibility of putting a passion into practice, cultivating it, creating something beautiful with your own hands, and thereby reaping satisfaction. Has the majority of us not always dreamed of this? Yes of course, but minus the hard work and enormous dedication that every one of these skills inevitably requires.

The 16 exhibitions-within-the-exhibition and their 13 curators offered multifarious viewpoints, a kaleidoscope of visions on the same subject, namely that the manual work of high craftsmanship is not a repetitive activity, but a cultural product, a mastery of technique, the fruit of patience, creativity and continuous exercise. To stage “Homo Faber”, the Michelangelo Foundation (instituted two years ago in Geneva by Johann Rupert and Franco Cologni) organised a gathering of designers, architects, curators, artists and theoreticians, each with a different type of affinity with the subject matter.

The only approach not taken into consideration here was nostalgia. Instead, the presentation is strictly contemporary, and speaks of true dedication, unique talent and ancient crafts. “Craftsmanship is a wonderful, up-to-date realm by which to innovate and look to the future,” says Michele De Lucchi, who led the “Creativity and Craftsmanship” section where eight objects inspired by the notion of the tabernacle were displayed.

Alberto Cavalli says that in the eyes of young people, “Homo Faber is a vast territory of possibilities and a limitless source of inspiration regarding their future. The métiers d'art and the great artisans are the competitive advantage of our country. What can we add to the international scale if not the magnificent talent of our master craftspeople? ‘Homo Faber’ is not only an exhibition of beautiful objects, but also an exhibition about work and an employment possibility for future generations that could be inspired here. They can think of transforming a talent into a profession.” Indeed, the visitor exited every single room with a great aspiration to bring herself to the test and try harder. While it is true that talent and enthusiasm are necessary ingredients, it is just as true that technical ability is obtained through practice.

Perhaps to the future generations of a globalised world, the artisan embodies the desire to escape homogenisation, be independent and command a project's process from beginning to end. Forms of good handwork today are diverse and diffuse, including the counter-cultural self-employed makers (or digital artisans), open-source communities of "artisanal" code writers, and designers who are also refined cabinet-makers or metalworkers.

As Richard Sennett writes in The Craftsman (2008), “The craftsman represents the special human condition of being engaged.” This happens in artistic ateliers and mechanic's workshops alike. "High craftsmanship is found everywhere there is excellence," says Stefano Micelli, a professor of international management at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, “You see it in the prefabrication of a gearwheel for a motor and in the construction of a wheel.” The exhibition he created at “Homo Faber” was called “Workshop Exclusives”, a display of bicycles by Pedemonte, made-to-measure helicopters by Konner and other means of transportation. Culture, communication and value were the key words of the exhibition. Prices were not one of the topics. (Indeed, entrance to the show was free of charge.) “The price reveals certain things, but hides many others,” says Cavalli. “Which values guide us? Authenticity, originality, a local connection and creativity. Also the hope that we will never be substituted by machines, that there will always be things that humans do better.”

“Homo faber is also Homo ludens,” says the eclectic Jean Blanchaert, a gallery owner, curator, artist and journalist. “Most artisans never become rich, but spend their days and their entire life at play.” His room here is called “Best of Europe”, an exhibit of 150 intricate objects shown in an exhibit designed by Stefano Boeri Architetti. Blanchaert says he “hunted down the artisans like a truffle-searching dog” in Iran, Albania and even the mountains of Cyprus. They included a Unesco-listed weaver; a German artisan who speaks only in dialect, does not answer the telephone and sculpts olive-wood vases; a craftswoman from Iceland who transfers the colours of the northern lights to felt; and an Irish lady who gathers flowers, lies them on a bed of warm plexiglass and uses the result as a room divider. All are diverse; all are unique, but there is one common denominator: they are dedicated to “good work for its own sake” as the American author Sennett writes. The exhibition was exemplary for being organised in painstaking, impeccable detail. It was a compelling discovery thanks to the involvement of 100 young ambassadors – European students and future artisans or designers – who moved to Venice for two weeks to illustrate the show’s contents to visitors. The two-week duration of the show was too short, however, for such a hefty endeavour both conceptually and organisationally. Like a rare opportunity, it needed to be seized. Like a beautiful and somewhat exclusive occasion, it was accessible only briefly.