«This exhibition provides a platform of enquiry that offers a clear and simple reading, for further critical studies, taking on board something which for Gavina was always a necessary condition: keeping up with his time.»
With these words Elena Brigi and Daniele Vincenzi present the exhibition, of which they are curators, Dino Gavina: Lampi di Design (“Flashes of Design”), currently on show at MAMbo, Bologna (September 23 to December 12 26).
This investigation and clarification they have made is the more important and necessary, as long as they focus on a figure – Dino Gavina – and a period – the 1950-60s of Italian design, in particular – that are often found to be still dispersed in the fog of anecdotes and mythologies. For someone like me, who has learnt about Gavina only through books and the voice of other people, the exhibition thus offers an excellent opportunity to learn and understand.
The exhibition is organized in sections devoted to themes, people, projects and companies, avoiding a strictly chronological sequence. The visitor is guided through the story – or rather the multiple stories – of Gavina the man and entrepreneur, and hence invited to look to the broader contexts and events that characterised industry, culture and society after World War II.
In each section, large panels with text and images, placed on the wall, introduce the core themes and key figures (designers, companies, places), offering different levels of reading: Graphic Design (an overview of the role of graphic design and communications for Gavina, according to whom production is, itself, “communication”; it is interesting to note that the table used in this room are produced following the instructions of the “Selfdesign proposal” by Enzo Mari), Lucio Fontana (the artist who introduced Gavina to design culture, to architects such as De Carlo, Mollino, and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni), Anonymous Masters (the interest in material culture and Italian craftsmanship), Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni (with whom Gavina developed a strong friendship and cooperation, clarifying his own idea of industrial product), Neoliberty 1960 (a reference for Italian design, a new path free from the imperatives of Modernism), Flos (the company co-founded by Gavina, and that in a few years, between 1961 and 1968, produced a large number of models, some of which are still in production today), Marcel Breuer (a meeting with the master of Modernism that leads to the production of models dating back to 1920s, thus strengthening the prestige of Gavina), Showrooms and factories (all places that are not only for production and trade, but for producing and promoting the culture of industry and design), Kazuhide Takahama (this is a particularly rich section, probably as an homage to the Japanese-born designer, who died in Bologna earlier this year), Sirrah (the company based in Imola, to which Gavina was a consultant), Luigi Caccia Dominioni (who collaborated with Gavina in particular in the 1980s), Tobia Scarpa, Carlo Scarpa (who not only designed Gavina’s showroom in Bologna, but also significant pieces), Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray (two artists sought and loved by Gavin), The Duchamp Center (a center of research and experimentation aimed at bringing together art, design, science, industry), Ultramobile (functional art furnishings), Sebastian Matta, Giacomo Balla (whose designs for “futurist flowers” are produced by Gavina in the 1960s), Metamobile (the “Selfdesign proposal” by Enzo Mari), Paradisoterrestre (ideas and designs for the urban environment, the city, the natural landscape).
Walking through the exhibition, the impression is confirmed that, as they state, the curators were guided by the aim of clarification, carefully documenting and displaying stories that are only apparently simple; and they do so without falling into hagiography, letting the visitor read also the illusions and failures of a man who was as ironic as restless.
The large black and white photographs that are reproduced on the panels not only offer visual input, but add an additional level of storytelling, thanks to the accurate captions that tell in detail about people, documents, events.
In addition to text and pictures, of course there are objects. Carefully selected and presented on white platforms, in the center of the rooms or near the walls, the products are offered as an example of the fruitful collaborations between Gavina and designers, and above all as an illustration of single design and industrial issues.
While lingering around these objects, the visitor’s vocabulary is enriched with details that explain much of the evolution and history of design and industry: Villa Olmo (the space designed by the Castiglioni brothers, mostly furnished with “anonymous” items), Disassembly (exemplified by Castiglioni brothers’ Giro armchair), Seriality (Digamma chair designed by Ignazio Gardella), Molds and foam rubber (again exemplified by a piece by the Castiglioni brothers, the Sanluca chair), New Light (a focus on Flos production), Drawing with the tubular (that is, drawing from Breuer’s principles), Transformations (the bench Monforte by Caccia Dominioni), For the Factory, Modules (modularity, the guiding criteria for many designs by Takahama), Light cuts (again a focus on a design by Takahama, a tribute to Fontana: the lamp Saori), Movable blocks, Cut and Fit (key principle in the “Futurist flowers” by Balla), Autonomy (as advocated by Enzo Mari).
Along the way, texts, photographs, objects, provide a wide range of keys to access contents, catching the visitors’ attention and allowing everyone to take away with them an impression, an idea, a story, an inspiration.
Certainly the structure of the exhibition Dino Gavina is largely given by the written word (and it is unfortunate that the same contents have not been featured in the Atlas Gavina, that was published on the occasion of the exhibition by Corraini Publisher). But the exhibition is also enriched by the spoken word: on the one hand, that of the curators who, every Thursday, lead guided visits; on the other hand, the words of friends and collaborators of Gavina, of witnesses and interpreters of his story.
Finally, the exhibition is accompanied by two other exhibitions, again curated by Brigi and Vincenzi, in other venues: Dino Gavina. Bologna, Bologna, at the Urban Center in Bologna, and UltraGavina at the Water Tower of Budrio (BO).
