We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
Materializing Modernism in Postwar Italy: Fausto Melotti, Gio Ponti, and the 1961 Esposizione Internazionale del Lavoro.
- Authors
Sullivan, Marin R.
- Abstract
In 1961, the Italian sculptor Fausto Melotti contributed a massive display of 800 handcrafted ceramic tiles meant to evoke the ‘Evolution of Form in Craftsmanship’ to the Esposizione Internazionale del Lavoro (International Labour Exhibition/EIL). The exhibition was one of the main features of Italia ’61, an even larger event occurring throughout Turin that summer, celebrating the centenary of Italy’s unification. Under the supervision of the ruling Christian Democrats and the patronage of corporations like FIAT, the architect Gio Ponti designed the EIL to highlight the positive outcomes of industrialization in postwar Italy, while also situating the country within an emergent global, consumer goods-driven economy. Melotti’s project materially manifested the lofty goals of the exhibition’s organizers, but did so in a paradoxical manner – reflecting the possibilities of modern life while simultaneously suggesting the destabilization wrought by such rapid social and economic change.
- Subjects
MODERNISM (Art) -- History; HISTORY of exhibitions; MELOTTI, Fausto; PONTI, Gio, 1891-1979; HISTORY of labor; ART exhibitions; 20TH century Italian art; MATERIALISM in art; TWENTIETH century; HISTORY
- Publication
Art History, 2016, Vol 39, Issue 4, p720
- ISSN
0141-6790
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/1467-8365.12272