Photo Bruno Gecchelin
Ettore Sottsass
Designer / Architect
Sottsass (1917–2007) was an Austro-Italian designer and one of the most unconventional figures in twentieth-century design. He gained renown with his designs for the office equipment manufacturer Olivetti, for his poetic, minimalist sculptural objects, and as the leading figure of the Memphis design collective in the 1980s. Over the course of his long career, Sottsass moved between disciplines, leaving behind a fascinating oeuvre that is represented by many objects in the collection of the Vitra Design Museum.
His most famous works are his furniture designs for the Memphis group, which created a sensation and ushered in the postmodern aesthetic of the 1980s.
The shrill colors, patterns and forms of Memphis objects were inspired by motifs from everyday life, Pop culture and the non-European civilisations encountered by Sottsass during his extensive travels from the 1960s onward. This resulted in iconic objects like the Carlton bookcase (1981), the lamps Ashoka (1981) and Tahiti (1981), and the Tartar table (1985) – expressive objects that sought to communicate with the viewer and liberate themselves from a functionalist design approach.
[from Vitra Design Museum]
Ettore Sottsass
Designer / Architect
Sottsass (1917–2007) was an Austro-Italian designer and one of the most unconventional figures in twentieth-century design. He gained renown with his designs for the office equipment manufacturer Olivetti, for his poetic, minimalist sculptural objects, and as the leading figure of the Memphis design collective in the 1980s. Over the course of his long career, Sottsass moved between disciplines, leaving behind a fascinating oeuvre that is represented by many objects in the collection of the Vitra Design Museum.
His most famous works are his furniture designs for the Memphis group, which created a sensation and ushered in the postmodern aesthetic of the 1980s.
The shrill colors, patterns and forms of Memphis objects were inspired by motifs from everyday life, Pop culture and the non-European civilisations encountered by Sottsass during his extensive travels from the 1960s onward. This resulted in iconic objects like the Carlton bookcase (1981), the lamps Ashoka (1981) and Tahiti (1981), and the Tartar table (1985) – expressive objects that sought to communicate with the viewer and liberate themselves from a functionalist design approach.
[from Vitra Design Museum]
•
-
Jasper JohnsArtistJasper Johns was an artist that came onto the scene in the 1950s. Much of the work that he created led the American public away from the expressionism form, and towards an art movement or form known as the concrete. (more…)
-
Roman Ondak: InfinitumMay 12 – Nov 22, 2023Roman Ondak’s practice brings together various methodologies, from simply formulated situations in which he binds relationships between members of his family, various groups of people or spectators entering his exhibitions, to modified found objects or constructed spatial installations. Space and time are often systematically thematised in his works and intertwined with his personal history, (more…)
-
Andreas Gursky: Visual Spaces of TodayPublicationPublished by Fondazione MAST, this catalogue accompanies the first exhibition in Italy dedicated to the German artist Andreas Gursky. Gursky’s large-scale images frame the contemporary landscape and define our experience of the world (more…)
-
Kanta Nomura / The Yoshida Dormitory Students’ HistoryPublicationThe Yoshida Dormitory is a self-governing dormitory that historically played a central role for students attending Kyoto University in Japan. Throughout the decades, it served as a place where the community gathered (more…)
-
Mark Rothko / RetrospectiveOct 18, 2023 – Apr 2, 2024Fondation Louis Vuitton presents the first retrospective in France dedicated to Mark Rothko (1903–1970) since the exhibition held at the musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris in 1999. (more…)
-
Dos Brasis: Black Art, Black ThinkingAug 2, 2023 – Jan 28, 2024The centrality of black thought in the field of Brazilian visual arts, in different times and places. This is one of the main assumptions that guide the curatorial process of the exhibition Dos Brasis – Black Art, Black Thinking, the most comprehensive exhibition dedicated exclusively to the production of black artists ever held in the country, (more…)
-
Paris Photo 2023November 9–12, 2023Welcome to the Paris Photo. Now, be YOU. At Paris Photo, everyone belongs. We cultivate a culture of inclusion at all our events, where the very things that make each of us unique are celebrated. Our exhibitors, attendees, partners and event colleagues are people from a wide variety of backgrounds, who make our shows stronger and our collective experience richer. (more…)
-
Alice Rekab / MehrfamilienhausFeb 16 – May 14, 2023Museum Villa Stuck presents Alice Rekab’s first institutional solo exhibition in Germany. Rekab explores cultural and personal narratives – stories that are told about us and by us. (more…)
-
Impressions of a Lived TimeDec 8, 2022 – Apr 16, 2023The exhibition is part of a comprehensive research on lesser-known painting and graphic works in Ștefan Câlția’s creative process. (more…)
