Today, the new 2022 autumn new exhibition "Fun and Wisdom - Italian Contemporary Design" was launched in an open and diverse form, from the perspective of "things", and traces back to the diversity and game spirit of Italian contemporary design from the perspective of "things". The exhibition hall on the fourth floor is filled with dazzling array of daily necessities, colorful, open-minded, and arranged in a scattered manner. It is relaxed and lively and full of fun. It seems to open a young, optimistic, cheerful and curious social laboratory in the name of design, inviting people to discover, participate, and think, and inspire more imagination space.
This new exhibition opens the other side of the Pudong Art Museum for the public - it is not only an art hall that needs to be looked up to, but also a creative energy field of inspiration collision, and thus extends the more meaningful meaning of art and current life. It is not easy to show the design exhibition in
. All design works of different types are gathered together in a hasty way, and if you accidentally get it, you will have a "store" visual effect. This exhibition obviously took some thought in curating. The ingenuity of the exhibition design itself is no less than the exhibits collected by the exhibition, and it can be called a larger design work.
The exhibition was co-curated by Ando Sibik, a famous Italian designer, one of the founders of the Memphis group, and emeritus professor at Tongji University, and Joseph Dejardan from the Sibik studio and was the exhibition design. It was co-curated by Mr. Enrico Moteo, an Italian architect, design and architecture historian and critic, Ms. Maria Vittoria Capitanucci, a professor at the Milan Polytechnic University, and Ms. Ling Min, a master's supervisor of the modern and contemporary art of the School of Fine Arts of Shanghai University and director of the International Art Criticism Award (IAAC).
In this exhibition, more than 100 classic design works left by the history of Italian design over the past 70 years are divided into 13 units according to different themes, unfolding in a path marked by a series of theme units, namely "Hidden Tragedy and Comedy of life", "Look or be seen", "Product of theory", "Fragile but eternal", "Soft shape", "Color captures light", "Simplicity as decoration", "Second nature", "Serious game", "Verification of the Future", "Daily Ritual", "Face and Soul" and "Nomadic Design".
Each unit is defined by a set of exhibits, through which the subject is interpreted and refined. These exhibits break the clues and boundaries of time, starting with the iconic design of the present, showing their derivatives and evolution. Each unit does not exhaust its own theme, but implies its boundaries and composition. Among them, the works of some designers such as Ettorre Sotsas and Creto Munari are spread throughout the exhibition hall and run through multiple theme units, demonstrating the designers' multi-faceted talents in different subdivided fields. The exhibition starts with the "tragedy and comedy of life" and kicks off the history of Italian design over the past 70 years. In the early 1980s, with the end of a long-term expansionary economic cycle, a group of designers led by Ettorre Sotsas and others began to face the uncertain future in a challenging manner. The works in this unit are full of tragic, rebellious and exaggerated characteristics, or directly abandon the furniture design concept dominated by functionality, or use classical architecture and furniture as inspiration to perform weird imitation and secondary creation. The sofa in the main visual poster of the exhibition is the Capitello seat designed in 1972 by the famous Italian architectural design studio Studio65, based on the Ioni column in the Greek building. This daily furniture item with pop-like meaning is disenchanted with elegant and solemn Greek culture, and has become a classic work with a great spirit of the times. There are many juxtapositions of a variety of materials in the exhibition, forming completely different texture contrasts. The unit consisting of ceramic vase is "fragile but timeless", and the sofas of different shapes in the "soft shape" unit are shrouded in a bright orange square frame.Among them, fun-filled designs such as hand-shaped Joe sofa from DDL Studio and wave-shaped Superonda sofa from Akizom Studio prove that under a faster and more energetic lifestyle, the structure and household items of traditional houses have been changed, and a more casual and free attitude towards life has gradually sprouted. In the exhibition
, the units such as "Color Capture Light", "Second Nature", and "Future Verification" also explain the works they contain based on materials.
glass is the only material in which light can perch and change. The application of glass has a long history in the history of Italian design: the island of Murano in Venice has a history of glass making for more than 1,000 years. The secret craft passed down from the local area can make the glass reveal the entire spectrum of the rainbow. Compared with other units, "Color Capture Light" guides the audience's sight with a unique display method. Anthropomorphic or objectified glass vases are placed on the top of a circular pavilion and surrounded by a luminous acrylic board , vividly showing the colorful colors reflected by the material after being stimulated by light.
's "Second Nature" unit reveals a more primitive temperament. In the unit, six cylindrical structures are wrapped in six different texture composite wood boards, and surrounded by bookshelf, chair and other furniture, inviting the audience to revisit the ancient handmade material of wood. The forms of wood products vary widely, connected with modern and rational thoughts, presenting a novel, calm and cautious trait. Sharp shapes, precise curves and small parts… In Italian design, wood writes new words in an ancient language every day.
and the "Future Verification" unit presents furniture and clothing made of lightweight and durable colored plastics as a medium. In the mid-20th century, Italian modernity thought prompted people to increasingly admire speed and comfort in the pursuit of the ideal of "realiability". The emergence of colored plastics has driven the explosion of Italian design. The works displayed in this unit include the classic Timor calendar created by the famous designer Enzo Mali using PVC materials.
Among the many units of the exhibition, "Serious Game" is the closest to the theme conveyed by the exhibition. The game seems relaxed, but in fact it hides the mechanism that regulates the social life and interpersonal relationships of adults. It happily simulates the adult world in a richer, exaggerated and distorted way, and Italian design is well versed in the game. This unit shows the stunning classic design created by the famous designer Philip Stark with the baroque seats of the French King Louis XV as the prototype. In the past, designers have also remodeled this seat many times, but the Stark Ghost Chair used a single mold to inject polycarbonate into one mold. At that time, it was not only an unprecedented subversive attempt, but also a technical breakthrough. On the same booth, he also placed a Gnomi footstool designed by him with the dwarfs in the fairy tale "Snow White". The two seats with completely different appearances, materials and creativity are from the same genius designer and from the same Italian brand, showing the endless creativity of Italian design and launching innovations in the game.
In addition to the rare large-scale home design works, the exhibition also covers many common small daily necessities. For example, the classic Anna G wine opener designed by Alessandro Mendini in the "Daily Rite" unit, the face TV ceramic disc designed by Bannaba Onnaseti in the "Face and Soul" unit, the Cobra table lamp designed by Elio Martinelli in the "Look or Be seen" unit, and the Italian contemporary jewelry based on geometric lines in the "Simple as Decoration" unit. In addition, contemporary homes are no longer fixed scenes, but mobile, dynamic, choreographable landscapes. In "Nomadic Design", Italian designs such as Vico Magistrati's Ospite bed and Piccy seats respond to this flowing mission with a range of lightweight, movable, foldable items.
Most of the Italian art we were familiar with in the past were limited to its brilliant Renaissance. This exhibition allows us to see the charm of contemporary Italian design and fashion. Ling Min, a Chinese curator of the exhibition, pointed out that Italian design is a living cultural language that tells the ever-changing relationship. From these works, the audience can perceive the relationship between people and society and design how to change people's attitude towards life.
Author: Fan Xin
Editor: Guo Chaohao
