By Madhusree Chatterjee, IANS,
New Delhi : In the carnival days when the horrors of war were yet to break upon Italy, fashion crossed over from the showrooms to the sidewalks in Italy – and the other way round. Everyday bric-a-brac became objects de art. But it was in the post-war years when America rushed to rescue Italy’s designer art that these objects presented themselves to the world.
And that is how chamois leather stilettos (shoes) patented by the lifestyle giant Salvatore Ferragamo in 1955-56 and even earlier in 1947 and 1898 came to be looked upon as exquisite works of art.
Now India is getting to sample the best of Italian functional designs and fashion as avant garde art in an itinerant show called the “Italian Genius Now” that opened at the Travancore Gallery Monday. From food to fashion to automobiles to furniture, all made in Italy over the last six decades, the show displays it all.
“After the war, many Americans came to Italy to buy good quality art at affordable prices because the country boasted of several artists who represented the avant garde, but were not necessarily famous,” Sergio Finloni of The Luigi Pecci Centre for Contemporary Art told IANS.
Marco Bazzini has curated the show for the Luigi Pecci Centre and it is being promoted by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is a creative exposition of 53 artistic minds.
The exhibition is like a lens capturing the extraordinary panorama of Italian contemporary art, starting with the Vespa motorcycle designed by Corradino D’ Ascanio in the 1940s to spatial outdoor solutions of Lucio Fonatana in the 1950s, pioneer Geo Ponti’s ground-breaking designs, Bruno Munari’s fantasy art and Ferragamo and Armani’s haute fashion of the 1960s, 70s and the 80s.
Said Finloni: “We wanted to showcase something new and innovative; especially by those belonging to the radical group of artists in the 1950s. If you have to move ahead and be a part of the contemporary global art frat, you have to use your culture and design intelligently by incorporating it in your artistic heritage.”
The post-war economy and its ensuing downturn years had a major role to play in the country’s growth as a major centre for contemporary arts. “Several entrepreneurs from the US came to Italy in the initial rush of the post-war industrial boom to cash in on the recession, cheap labour and the rebuilding process.
“They tied up with Italian design firms to manufacture lifestyle goods and accessories. In the 1950s, the salary of an average Italian was 1/10th that of an American. The tie-ups proved mutually beneficial,” Finloni said shedding light on the economic history of the growth of contemporary art.
The Italian American liaison was an era of creative explosion – art blending with chic, passion and prosperity. It gave to the world institutional labels like the Vespa, Prada, Ferragamo, Gucci and the glamorous marriage between artworks and advertising devised by Toscani for Benetton.
The artistic high also spawned names like Amelio Pucci (of the Lui Vuitton Group) and the radical designers of the 70s – Pistoletto, Fabro, Mertz and Pesce – up to the Transavanguardia of the 1980s whose designs set the trend for the subsequent decades.
The secret of the radical designers, Finloni said, was to make furniture “a joke, fun something useful and an irony”.
A set of funky chairs in polythene shades of white, green, red and yellow at the show with a matching puzzle table in green and black; and prim designer typewriters in fashionable shades completed the hep office look. The designs were definitely Italian in origin, but crossover in their straight utilitarian American lines.
The show also analyses the artistic movements of the Italian Pop Art of the Sixties.
The show was conceived at the Italian consulate in Hanoi (Vietnam) towards the end of 2006 and is an attempt to showcase that European country’s growing business linkages with Asian nations and allowing entrepreneurs in India to acquaint themselves with contemporary Italian designs.
The country, which is facing another economic slump, is outsourcing several of its design, fashion and lifestyle businesses to Asian countries, including India.