P icasso ’s charismatic visits, from 1946 on: to work at Madoura — where he produced one-offs for art collectors, as well as limited editions for a wider public — established Vallauris as a trendy holiday destination where Art blended with sea-side culture .  The presence of other artists — Pignon, Miro, Chagall, Ozenfant, Léger, Cocteau, etc. — affected the practice of potters who adopted and developed modern painterly styles that brought Art into everyday life through the mediation of affordable ceramic objects. Thus, many of the workshops that had produced humble cooking ware since the eighteenth century, progressively re-opened to produce ‘poterie d’art’ , that emphasised the  ‘fait main’ or ‘décoré main’ (as was often inscribed on the base of hand-turned or slipcast pieces), made in series and retailed at affordable prices. Initially, some artists shared a workshop, where they worked individually; sharing expenses, assistants equipment, and know how’s. Accordi...

  VALLAURIS: Earthenware . One important site of the ceramics revival in France, from the 40s onward, was Vallauris , a traditional center for the production of hand-made cooking pots and table ware since the eighteenth century: With the industrialisation of ceramic production in large factories (Sarreguemine, Longchamp, etc.), the demand for the heavy and more fragile  ‘terres vernissées’  declined, and many workshops closed-down; turning the place into a ghost town. Till newcomers arrived with new ideas and new life styles that contrasted with and puzzled the few remaining exponents of the old tradition. In  Vallauris , unlike in  Saint-Amand  and  La Borne , the postwar ceramic revival was stimulated, in part, by domestic ceramics that offered  Robert Picault  a challenge for revolutionise the design and manufacture by craft means of cooking and  table ware   that could co-exist on the dining table without shame.  Thus, hand...

The Meaning of Art I shall start from the assumption/proposition that the meaning of a work of art is not 'in' the work itself, and is not accessible to us provided we acquire the 'correct' information (the 'truth of/about the work'); but, rather, that meanings change according to the time, the ways and the context/s in which the works are  displayed , seen, apprehended and experienced . I believe, rather, that 'meaning' (the so-called meaning 'of' the work ) is — as in language —  'differential' ; i.e. it arises from the interaction between an art work and all the others in which it stands  in relation:  physically (in a museum display or in storage ) or in the mind (in the same category in which it is apprehended).  Put more concretely  t he meaning of a work arises from the dynamic relations and interactions in which it stands with  other works, and with us, potential viewers: in complex, 'open' semiological relations:  ...