Bertozzi & Casoni

In 1980, Italian-born duo Giampaiolo Bertozzi and Stefano Dal Monte Casoni teamed up to form the Bertozzi & Casoni company, making ceramics with a twist. After attending the esteemed Istituto d’Arte per la Ceramica in Faenza, they broke the mold, enlivening the staid medium with a conceptual edge, wry humor and a dose of art history. Their greatest hits include realistic, full-sized versions of classics like Warhol’s “Brillo Box” and Manzoni’s “Artist’s Shit.” Not content with just remaking this “cultural trash,” they also replicate beautiful, Daniel Spoerri-esque tableaux featuring cafeteria-tray remains and garbage bins. This volume is a rare chance to see Bertozzi & Casoni’s oeuvre in its entirety: It was produced for a survey of new and old work at Venice’s Galleria Internazionale d’Arte Moderna, which ran concurrently with the 2007 Bienniale. The artists most recently showed their work in New York at Sperone Westwater gallery.