Today it is International Workers' Day (or Labour Day) and, to think about the concept of labour in the creative arts and in the manufacturing industries, let's look at an interesting quiz game that Casa Vogue (interior design supplement of Vogue Italia) included in a 1971 issue that reunited the two aspects.
The game was actually a short feature with several large pictures in black and white. The photographs juxtaposed artworks with industrial parts and asked readers to spot which items according to them were supposed to be art and which objects belonged to the industrial landscape.
The feature was a fun way to prove that, quite often, it is not possible to neatly separate one world from the other: artists often borrow interesting shapes and silhouettes from the industry sector; at the same time the manufacturing industry would be dead without artists, designers and creative minds.
The first image in this post included ceramics by Ettore Sottsass, artworks by Getulio Alviani, and Joseph Beuys' "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, no, no, no, no, no" (Ja, ja, ja, ja, ja, nee, nee, nee, nee, nee), comprising a stack of felt squares housing at its centre a magnetic tape recording on a reel-to-reel player. The pieces were photographed together with ceramic and epoxy resin insulators.
The second image included a selection of anti-vibrating rubber plates, grids, assorted industrial waste materials and linoleum tiles pictured with a canvas by Paolo Scheggi and with Shusaku Arakawa's work "Living Room".
The arch in the third picture is a work of art by Giuseppe Uncini, an Italian artist famous for his works in concrete and iron, and the piece is juxtaposed to concrete elements and abrasive and diamond cutting discs.
This game of shapes and silhouettes, textures and materials, was also a way to ponder about the role of artists and creative minds and people working in the manufacturing industries, and analyse the dichotomy between aesthetic form and practical function, while prompting readers to think about technology, crafts and arts, and reminding them that all sorts jobs are important, especially (we may add…) when they are rewarded with decent and fair wages.
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