Quite a few museums and galleries have reopened their doors (in some cases with limited capacity) and exhibitions have started again in many countries after the long months of Coronavirus lockdown. Among such events there is also an exhibition dedicated to art and design fans that opened last week in Pistoia, Tuscany.
"Pistoia Novecento" at Palazzo de' Rossi (on until 22nd August 2021) is a journey featuring 70 works - mainly from the collection of the Fondazione Pistoia Musei (Pistoia Museums Foundation) - by artists and designers born in Pistoia or with some connections with the Italian city.
The exhibition develops through photographs, letters, posters, videos and artworks and looks at a variety of themes including realism, abstractions, nature, artifice, sign, gesture and environment.
Architecture fans will be able to rediscover the work of Adolfo Natalini, co-founder (with Cristiano Toraldo di Francia, Gian Piero Frassinelli, Roberto and Alessandro Magris and Alessandro Pol) of Superstudio, and the Archizoom group. Founded in 1966 by architects Andrea Branzi, Gilberto Corretti, Paolo Deganello and Massimo Morozzi, with designers Dario and Lucia Bartolini joining in 1968, Archizoom presented its first project at the Superarchitettura I exhibition in 1966 in Pistoia, Italy, an event that was followed by the second installment of the same even in Modena the following year.
Archizoom focused on industrial and architectural design and urban planning. The group became known for its visionary environments and fantasy furniture pieces such as the Superonda sofa (1967), a couch made of foam blocks, the palm-shaped Sanremo Floor Lamp with illuminated leaves (1967-68), the Mies Armchair and Footreast (1969) and their bed Presagio di rose (Presage of roses, 1967) that revolutionised the traditional understanding of good taste. Archizoom also developed radical ideas for what remained an unbuilt utopian model for urbanisation - the No-Stop City (1969-71) - that allowed the inhabitants to create their living spaces within a grid system of buildings that continued infinitely. While none of their projects came to fruition, they influenced the theory and practice of modern architecture.
There is a wide variety of artists and works included in "Pistoia Novecento", like Umberto Buscioni's Pop Art infused artworks or the collages of Remo Gordigiani. The latter started producing collages that had a painting-like quality in 1964, but exhibited them only in later years. The collages weren't his first works, but they represented a solution after the artist developed an allergy to colours and solvents used in oil paintings. The result of his research for new and exciting materials that would allow him to engage with colours, led him to a new world of possibilities represented by collages.
Visitors with a passion for graphic design and technology will fall in love with the works of a self-taught and innovative artist, Gianfranco Chiavacci, and with Mario Nigro's panels.
Born in 1936 in Pistoia, Chiavacci began his career as a painter in the 1950s. In 1962, the artist's practice went through a major change: Chiavacci took a programming course on IBM's first computers and became fascinated by this new form of language. From then on, the binary language entered in a dialogue with abstract art, and he started juxtaposing materials, threads and colours, three-dimensional shapes and forms.
Inspired also by optical and kinetic art, he developed two and three-dimensional paintings in which he created geometric figures and forms without using the computer, but employing the binary logic relating to programming that allowed him to come up with a unique aesthetic.
Mario Nigro was first and foremost an artist, but worked as a chemist, and in his panels formed by rhythmic and progressive iterations of grids, he combined art with science, abstract geometries and modular structures.
Abstract painter Gualtiero Nativi with his sharp geometries, almost mechanical and cruel, but fascinating at the same time, is also present in this event, that includes Gianni Ruffi as well. Another designer from the Italian Radical movement (his humorous "La Cova" or Nest, sculptural seat (1973) is a sofa-bed representing a giant nest) created playful artworks which revolved around a rich array of plays on words and double meanings.
Though curated by three women - Alessandra Acocella, Annamaria Iacuzzi, Caterina Toschi - "Pistoia Novecento" is mainly focused on men and, while some radical design groups had a very limited presence of women and it may have been more difficult to find women artists actually born in Pistoia, it may have still been possible to find connections or develop certain aspects a bit better.
Archizoom's projects "Dressing design" (1971) and "Dressing is easy" (1972), based on the idea of the user's participation in the finishing and on the use of neutral and modular clothes (later produced by Fiorucci), were developed by the group but in particular by Lucia Bartolini with her sister Nicoletta Morozzi, while the non-conformist Superonda sofa became popular thanks to an advert that featured actress Florinda Bolkan shot by Elisabetta Catalano (so featuring a woman and photographed by a woman). It would therefore have been interesting to try and shed some light on the presence of women in some of these groups, so you can maybe take this event as a starting point to do your own research on further aspects, movements and artists linked with Pistoia.
Image credits for this post
1. Archizoom Associati, Superonda, sofa, Poltronova; photo Dario Bartolini, Villa Strozzi, 1967. Courtesy Centro Studi Poltronova Archive
2. Archizoom and Superstudio. Superarchitettura. Galleria Jolly 2, Pistoia, 1966. Photo Cristiano Toraldo di Francia. Courtesy Archivio Toraldo di Francia, Filottrano
3. Ettore Sottsass jr., Mobili Grigi, Poltronova; photo E. Sottsass and A. Fioravanti, 1970. Courtesy Centro Studi Poltronova
4. Gianfranco Chiavacci, Opera numero 0043, 1966. Fondazione Caript Collection. Courtesy Fondazione Pistoia Musei
5. Gianni Ruffi, Giallo verde rosso, 1968. Fondazione Caript Collection. Courtesy Fondazione Pistoia Musei
6. Gianni Ruffi, Rimbalzo,1967, Fondazione Caript Collection, Courtesy Fondazione Pistoia Musei
7. Mario Nigro, Spazio totale, 1955. Fondazione Caript Collection. Courtesy Fondazione Pistoia Musei
8. Remo Gordigiani, Collage n.1 È meglio, 1964-1967. Fondazione Caript Collection. Courtesy Fondazione Pistoia Musei
9. Umberto Buscioni, Con la moto, 1967. Fondazione Caript Collection. Courtesy Fondazione Pistoia
10. Superstudio, Passiflora lamp, Poltronova. Courtesy Centro Studi Poltronova Archive
11. Florinda Bolkan on the Superonda sofa; photo by Elisabetta Catalano
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