Alberto Gianfreda's Ceramic Fragments at Gallipoli's Museo Civico

The Museo Civico Emanuele Barba in Gallipoli, a small museum housing an eclectic collection spanning numismatics, malacology, thalassology, zoology, mineralogy, ornithology, 18th-century clothing, weapons, sabers, and 17th-18th century maiolica and ceramics, now hosts the fragmented and reassembled ceramics of Alberto Gianfreda (born 1981 in Desio). Gianfreda's sculptural research is polymaterial—using marble, wood, iron, bronze, and ceramic—and focuses on plastic form through a process of visual reconstruction tied to socioeconomic and identity phenomena. His sculptures consist of Chinese vase fragments partially reassembled using a soft assembly method with iron chains, an artistic and laboratory operation that regenerates and elevates the industrial object into a new compositional and formal language with cultural and architectural value. The exhibition, titled "Mirabilia," exemplifies silent, shared integration between past and present, offering a moment of reflection that places contemporary art and the historical-artistic heritage of the city at the center of an interdisciplinary path. The article was written by Giuseppe Amedeo Arnesano, an art historian and independent curator with degrees from the University of Salento and La Sapienza University of Rome, and a master's from LUISS Master of Art in Rome.