Giuseppe Ducrot’s colossal ceramic fountain debuts at Hypermaremma in Capalbio

A monumental ceramic fountain by Giuseppe Ducrot has been unveiled for the fifth edition of Hypermaremma, a diffuse festival curated by Giorgio Galotti, Carlo Pratis, and Matteo d’Aloja with organizational manager Beatrice Benella, dedicated this year to social impact. The site-specific work, titled Fontanile, measures 15 meters long and 4 meters high. It reinterprets Italy’s and Europe’s recent agricultural past and was fabricated by Bottega Gatti of Faenza, which remained active despite severe flood damage. The sculpture incorporates a pre-existing 1930s watering trough for Maremman cows, recently restored by Terre di Sacra, a slow-tourism estate that also established the Oasi del Lago di Burano, Italy’s first WWF nature reserve. Ducrot, an academician of the Pontifical Academy of Fine Arts and Letters of the Virtuosi since 2013, known for interventions at Museo Borghese, Duomo di Norcia, and Fondazione Rovati in Milan, created the work after extensive study of the local territory and its languages. While the piece features his characteristic strong color contrasts and yellow hues, it departs from his earlier architectural connections, becoming a self-sufficient artwork that, in the artist’s words, “basta a sé stessa” (is enough in itself). The fountain is located along Strada di Macchiatonda in Capalbio.