La Giostra

2011
Unique artwork


Ceramic – Polychrome terracotta
Metal
Yellow gold – Third fire
45,5×45,5×60

From an ancient knightly challenge to a fun ride for children, the carousel is part of the collective imagination and it still fascinates us because it awakens something ancestral. Inspired by the nineteenth-century rides with wooden horses that went up and down, fixed to a rotating platform, Carlo Zoli has created a colourful carillon, with four galloping steeds circling around a sweet girl. A game that evokes the joy and lightheartedness of childhood but the very refined decoration with metals and yellow gold makes it a precious and almost magical object.
It is a throwback to the memory of the tournaments between medieval knights to win the hand of the princess and it seems that she is the prize; bouncing a globe in her golden hands and other spheres are at her feet.
One can also be tempted to think of Mother Nature, wrapped in some sort of bark and sheltered by a floral dome, she is the fulcrum, the giver of gifts for those willing to play in the carousel of life.