Creativity, fantasy, simplicity, form, movement and light are just a few of the main themes Bruno Munari (1907-1998) explored in his multi-faceted career. A talented Italian artist who worked on both visual and non-visual expression, Munari is indeed loved by children for his spellbounding yet extremely simple books, by designers for his clever interior design objects such as the Falkland lamp, by fashion professionals for his connections with textile companies, and by creatives in general for his pioneering theories.
A new exhibition at London's Estorick Collection is set to explore Munari's futurist past. Drawn towards Futurism for its links with design, advertisement, graphics and architecture and its ability to mix different art forms and techniques, Munari became involved between the mid-'20s and the '30s in a variety of Futurist projects and exhibitions.
At the time, Munari usually signed his works under the nickname “BUM”, standing for his abbreviated name and hinting at the onomatopoeic word indicating an explosion in Italian. Considered by F. T. Marinetti as one of the movement's most promising and ingenious young exponents, Munari actually displayed an interest also for techniques and styles that didn't have much in common with Futurism.
Though enthralled by the notion of space and fluidly flowing and mutating forms as theorised by Giacomo Balla and Fortunato Depero in their 1915 Manifesto ‘Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe’, Munari created a series of photomontages and graphic collages that reflected the influence of other movements, including Constructivism, Dada, and Surrealism, proving he was extremely reluctant at being categorised and pigeonholed into any specific aesthetic straightjacket.
As the years passed, Munari developed his studies and researches along different lines, creating mobiles, tensostructures, photographic collages, kinetic pieces and metaphysical and oscillating objects dubbed “Useless Machines” since they didn't produce any consumer goods and didn't contribute to the growth of wealth and capital. In creating these useless objects, Munari's main aim became freeing abstract forms from the staticity of paintings and suspend them in the air, letting them inhabit a human environment and eventually breaking with the Futurist experience.
Soon Munari turned into one of the first artists to experiment in Italy with installations, video installations and kinetic objects using different materials and techniques. "Concavo-Convesso" (Concave-Convex, 1946-47) remains one of his most memorable pieces: considered as one of the first installations in the history of modern European art, "Concave-Convex" consisted in a sort of cloud or shell-like structure that also referenced geometry and mathematical variables made using a simple 1m x 1m square metal net. Munari bent the net giving it shape using an invisible thread to hang it from the ceiling and let it project shadows on the walls around it, allowing the object to actively interact with the architectures surrounding it.
Towards the end of the 1940s, Munari founded the M.A.C. (Movimento Arte Concreta/Concrete Art Movement) in Milan that looked at complementing traditional painting with new tools of communication and demonstrating the possibility of a convergence between art and technology, creativity and functionality, in an industrial context.
In the '50s Munari worked on his negative-positives abstract compositions, but his creativity never abandoned him and the eclectic artist, designer and pedagogue continued experimenting, creating artworks, curating exhibitions and publishing books until his death.
Curated by Miroslava Hajek in collaboration with Luca Zaffarano and the Massimo & Sonia Cirulli Archive, the exhibition at the Estorick Collection explores Munari's work from 1927 to 1950, moving from his first experiments, analysing both Munari's relationship with Futurism and his more graphic works created for Italian magazines. The event also offers the chance to see the “Concave-Convex” installation showcased for the first time in the UK.
Visitors to the Estorick exhibition will easily realise that Munari's writings and theories - especially those about technical and artistic innovation - are very contemporary even in our technological age and the event will hopefully introduce to a new generation of creatives, the work of a unique artist who once stated: “Bourgeois Art with a capital A, handmade by a Genius only for rich people, makes no sense in our age; Art for everybody is still this kind of art but cheaper; it still bears the imprint of the Genius while leaving everybody else with a sense of inferiority. The technological possibilities of our age allow everybody to produce something with an aesthetic value; allow everyone who got rid of their inferiority complex to put their creativity, humiliated for far too long, into action.”
“Bruno Munari: My Futurist Past”, The Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art, 39a Canonbury Square, London N1 2AN, from 19 September to 23 December 2012.
Image credits:
Bruno Munari, Cosmic Map, 1930
Tempera on card
30 x 40 cm
Courtesy Gambini Collection, Busto Arsizio
Bruno Munari, Aeroplanes and Archers, 1932
Mixed media
34.8 x 24.8 cm
Courtesy Massimo & Sonia Cirulli Archive
Bruno Munari, T (design for an advert for the magazine Campo Grafico), 1935
Mixed media
25 x 18 cm
Courtesy Massimo & Sonia Cirulli Archive
Bruno Munari, Negative-positive, 1950-1987
Acrylic on board
60 x 60 cm
Courtesy Nicoletta Gradella
Bruno Munari in his studio
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