By Lori-Ann Touchette
“Tremore Essenziale” at the Alfonso Artiaco Gallery in Naples represents the Belgian artist’s return to Italy after his masterful exhibition at the Villa Medici in Rome in 2020-21. A more intimate and personal vision is created at the Neapolitan gallery as opposed to the Villa Medici show that provided a retrospective of Creten’s sculptural production from the 1980s onwards. Whereas Villa Medici’s “Peccati” was conceived by the artist as a gift to the eternal city, this show is a homage to Naples, the city of tremors par excellence.
A poem written by the artist serves as a billet-doux to Naples, overshadowed by the silhouette of Vesuvius, whose historic eruptions are so often paired with earthquakes, starting with the tremors that preceded the most famous eruption of the volcano in 79 AD. Creten relates these tremors to the fragility of clay and the creative process, but also to the fear that comes from confronting taboos.
Known as the ‘gypsy ceramicist’ for his itinerant practice spanning almost 40 years, Creten recently settled in Paris at “La Solfatara”, the studio he shares with the visual artist Jean-Michel Othoniel. The choice of the name is telling. One of more than 40 volcanoes in the Campi Flegrei to the north of Naples, the Solfatura was identified by Strabo in the Roman early imperial age as the entrance into the underworld and home to the god Vulcan, the master craftsman. Creten explains: “The Solfatara was a place where people undertaking the Grand Tour went to write their poems, and it was an environment where one could see the future, through a connection with the underworld and the unknown.” (source). If the Solfatara was an obligatory site on the 18th-century Grand Tour, the designation also suggests the personal Grand Tour of the artists, residents at the French Academy in Rome in 1996. Moreover, Vulcan is evoked by the previous life of the building as a metalworks.
The viewer enters into contact with Cretan’s work already from the courtyard of the palazzo. Two gold bars, “Specchi dorati” (Golden mirrors), framed cross-like in the central window of the gallery already entice the visitor with their luscious surface treatment to enter into Creten’s constructed world. Like much of the work presented in the gallery, the mirrors are the latest incarnation of a well-loved imaginario of the artist. First presented in the Meyer Gallery in NYC in 1988 and included in the Villa Medici show in a more expected silver version, here the reflective surface of the gold-lustred pieces takes on a spiritual significance. Other “mirrors” positioned around the gallery serve to reflect the viewers as well as the works.
As a self-taught ceramist, Creten is resistant to the traditional constraints of ceramics, which he sees as too restrictive. He moves with ease between extremes: the minimalism of the “mirrors” and the baroque extravagance of the majority of the works on display. This juxtaposition is nowhere more apparent than in a comparison of the “Mirrors” with the “Gloria” series. Shield-like concave ovals, titled respectively “La Gloria – E avanti a lui tremava tutta Roma (and before him all of Rome trembled)”, citing Tosca, and “La Gloria Subliminale (Subliminal Glory)”, reflect the divine and also light, in this case, facetted by the elaborate surface treatment composed of multiple modules that portray the rhythmic pulsations of natural genesis.
Conceived as the central focus of the show are free-standing and wall pieces from the series “Odore di Femmina” that has been a recurrent theme since Creten’s residency at the Villa Medici in the 90’s. Words are important to Creten, as evidenced by this title, which refers to both Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” and Dino Risi’s film “Profumo di Donna”. It is here that Creten is at his most expressive. The precision of construction of the voluptuous folds of the flowers is enveloped as if in a caress by the lusciousness and sensuality of the glazes. In the poem composed as an integral part of the show, Creten writes:
I tremble, and it feels as though the building, the ground, and the entire earth tremble along with me. When I first began shaping delicate, fragile clay into flowers, my hands were already shaking.
The emotion, the dizziness of taboo – transforming a material so dirty, damp, yet so fertile and full of possibility into those seemingly untouchable, fragile flowers – led me to this series: Odore di Femmina.
One rose painting, subtitled “Il germe della libertà” (the seed of freedom) is transitional between the pure gold of the “Mirrors” and the “Gloria” series. Here the lustred surface is shattered through the intrusion of an opulent circular section that vibrates in hues of yellow and pink. In the other two bas-reliefs on display, the lustre becomes a minimalistic subtext to the black surface in “Vulva – Continente Nero – La Stupenda” (Vulva – Black Continent – the Studenous), whereas it is more eloquent in the figure-eight form of “La Ferita” (The Wound), articulating the berry-like elements and escaping in a broad swath on the left.
The two free-standing figures, posed on bases glazed in primary colours, occupy the centre of the gallery. Composed like the rose paintings of multiples of flowers, they cite the fragmentary naked Venuses of Classical antiquity, torsos that are headless, armless and legless. In these works, difficult themes such as sexuality, the other and race are rendered more digestible by clothing them in pure beauty. One, “La Luminosa – La Solfatara” (the luminous – the Solfatara” is bright yellow, perhaps a reference to the sulphuric gases emitted by the volcano. Intrusions of other colours on the back of this figure are a poetic expression of the interior, hidden from the first glance of the viewer. Here gold lustre appears anew flanked by the rose glaze already in the rose painting, subtitled “Il germe della libertà” (the seed of freedom). In the turquoise torso titled “These are the springs”, bright primary red of the base is echoed in the yellow and red of the swath of colour that extends from the shoulder.
Social injustice is the focus of the series of “Perla Nera”, is which a disembodied head nestled between the two halves of a shell, is both revealed and concealed. As in Creten’s poem, it represents “an existential crossing, filled with fear and hope”. The three heads are distinguished by variations in the visibility of the head and the surface treatments.
Some works of Creten, in their universality, can take on new significance in each exhibition. Whereas the series “Points of Observation” in the Villa Medici serve as the bearers of the names of the 7 mortal sins of the show’s title “Peccati”, here they take on a maritime significance. Incised with lines that recall the latitudes and longitudes of navigational maps, they encourage the visitor to “anchor” themselves as if tied to a boat pier and to contemplate the various elements of this exhibition.
Creten’s show at the Alfonafo Artiaco Gallery is a vision in gold and vibrant colour, reflecting our world and encouraging the viewer’s reflection on crucial issues.
Lori-Ann Touchette is the co-founder of C.R.E.T.A. Rome, an international center for ceramics and the arts in Rome, Italy. An American art historian with degrees from Brown, Princeton, and Oxford Universities, she has taught and worked in the administration of several British and American study-abroad programs since moving to Rome in 1997. She is the author or editor of several articles and books on Greek and Roman art, as well as the 18th-century Grand Tour. Touchette has also contributed numerous articles on historical and contemporary ceramics to Ceramics: Art & Perception and other international ceramics magazines, and has written critical texts for international exhibitions.
Johan Creten: Tremore Essenziale was on view at Alfonso Artiaco, Naples, between September 11 and October 31, 2025.
Subscribe to Ceramics Now to read similar articles, essays, reviews and critical reflections on contemporary ceramics. Subscriptions enable us to feature a wider range of voices, perspectives, and expertise within the ceramics community.
Captions
- Featured image: External view, Johan Creten, Tremore Essenziale, 2025, Alfonso Artiaco, Napoli. Courtesy Alfonso Artiaco. Photo: Grafiluce
- Exhibition view, Johan Creten, Tremore Essenziale, 2025, Alfonso Artiaco, Napoli. Courtesy Alfonso Artiaco. Photo: Grafiluce
- Exhibition view, Johan Creten: Tremore Essenziale, 2025, Alfonso Artiaco, Napoli. Courtesy Alfonso Artiaco. Photo: Grafiluce
- Johan Creten, Specchio dorato #3 #4, 2022-2023, gold luster on glazed stoneware, 40.5 x 107 x 9 cm. Courtesy Alfonso Artiaco. Photo: Grafiluce
- Johan Creten, La Gloria Subliminale. Courtesy Alfonso Artiaco. Photo: Grafiluce
- Johan Creten, Odore di Femmina – Il germe della libertà, 2025, gold lustre on glazed stoneware, 81 x 61 x 19 cm. Courtesy Alfonso Artiaco. Photo: Grafiluce
- Johan Creten, Odore di Femmina – Vulva – Continente Nero – La Stupenda. Photo by Lori-Ann Touchette
- Johan Creten, Odore di Femmina – La Ferita. Courtesy Alfonso Artiaco. Photo: Grafiluce
- Johan Creten, Tremore Essenziale exhibition view with 3 “Odore di Femmina”. Courtesy Alfonso Artiaco. Photo: Grafiluce
- Johan Creten, Odore di Femmina – La Luminosa – Solfatara, 2025, gold lustre on glazed stoneware, 72 x 40 x 30 cm, base 38,5 x ø 80 cm. Courtesy Alfonso Artiaco. Photo: Grafiluce
- Johan Creten, Perla Nera – Mare Profondo. Courtesy Alfonso Artiaco. Photo: Grafiluce
- Exhibition view with “Odore di femmina” torsos. Johan Creten, Tremore Essenziale, 2025. Courtesy Alfonso Artiaco. Photo: Grafiluce
