Designer, architect, and writer, Ettore Sottsass Jr. (Innsbruck, Austria, 1917 - Milan, Italy, 2007) was a pioneer in every period of his life. Opposed to rationalism, he constantly advocated for an emotional experience of objects. He saw design as a way to rethink architecture and to forge a new bond between people and objects: "I have always believed that design begins where rational processes end and magical processes begin."
BRAYER Marie-Ange.
Ettore Sottsass. The magic object.
Pompidou Center
Regular price
€42,00
| N° d'inventaire | 25047 |
| Format | 25 x 34 |
| Détails | 240 p., paperback. |
| Publication | Paris, 2021 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782844269079 |
The exhibition begins with Ettore Sottsass's first creations in the 1940s, inspired by the artistic and architectural avant-gardes – Cubism, Constructivism, and Neo-Plasticism. He then created works to be understood as "spatial constructions" ( Maquette spatiale , 1947, Mnam-Cci collection), "architectural objects", at the crossroads of painting, sculpture, and model making. From 1947, he founded his design agency in Milan and began to create furniture objects and interior design projects ( Cabinet Grassotti , 1949, Mnam-Cci collection). This period was, for him, one of his first experiments, where he was simultaneously an architect, designer, painter, sculptor, scenographer, graphic designer, critic, etc.
Ettore Sottsass created his very first ceramics in 1956. A poor material, clay connects man to the cosmos, opening up a "ritual and symbolic function" of objects. After a trip to India in 1961, he contracted a serious illness that took him to California where he stayed in the hospital between life and death for many months. From this dark period, in 1963, the Ceramics of Darkness were born, punctuated by diagrammatic drawings. In 1969, he exhibited a set of monumental ceramics, somewhere between primitive architecture and shamanic totems, at the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm ("Miljö för en ny planet", Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 07/02/1969 - 09/03/1969), a partial reconstruction of which is presented in this exhibition. The "ritual weight" that Sottsass gives to objects is found at all scales, including his jewelry creations. The 1960s and 1970s were also years of radical experimentation, between design and architecture, as evidenced by the Container Furniture (Mnam-Cci collection), created in 1972 for the MoMA in New York.
In 1981, Sottsass founded the Memphis group. With its liberating vision of design, Memphis laid the foundations for a different creative approach, highlighting the failure of modern ideologies in favor of an emotional and sensory dimension of objects. The decorative revival, initiated by Memphis, through patterns, colors, materials, and a new expressiveness of the object, opens up infinite experiments with forms, which will be presented in an immersive environment of patterns created by Sottsass (Bacterio, Serpente, Rete, Spugnato, etc.).
This exhibition also allows visitors to discover Ettore Sottsass's passion for photography as a tool for capturing reality. For him, travel and photography are part of a single spiritual odyssey and nourish his work and his concept of "magical thinking." Several hundred previously unseen photographs will be presented, taken from the Kandinsky Library.
Designer, architect, and writer, Ettore Sottsass Jr. (Innsbruck, Austria, 1917 - Milan, Italy, 2007) was a pioneer in every period of his life. Opposed to rationalism, he constantly advocated for an emotional experience of objects. He saw design as a way to rethink architecture and to forge a new bond between people and objects: "I have always believed that design begins where rational processes end and magical processes begin."
The exhibition begins with Ettore Sottsass's first creations in the 1940s, inspired by the artistic and architectural avant-gardes – Cubism, Constructivism, and Neo-Plasticism. He then created works to be understood as "spatial constructions" ( Maquette spatiale , 1947, Mnam-Cci collection), "architectural objects", at the crossroads of painting, sculpture, and model making. From 1947, he founded his design agency in Milan and began to create furniture objects and interior design projects ( Cabinet Grassotti , 1949, Mnam-Cci collection). This period was, for him, one of his first experiments, where he was simultaneously an architect, designer, painter, sculptor, scenographer, graphic designer, critic, etc.
Ettore Sottsass created his very first ceramics in 1956. A poor material, clay connects man to the cosmos, opening up a "ritual and symbolic function" of objects. After a trip to India in 1961, he contracted a serious illness that took him to California where he stayed in the hospital between life and death for many months. From this dark period, in 1963, the Ceramics of Darkness were born, punctuated by diagrammatic drawings. In 1969, he exhibited a set of monumental ceramics, somewhere between primitive architecture and shamanic totems, at the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm ("Miljö för en ny planet", Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, 07/02/1969 - 09/03/1969), a partial reconstruction of which is presented in this exhibition. The "ritual weight" that Sottsass gives to objects is found at all scales, including his jewelry creations. The 1960s and 1970s were also years of radical experimentation, between design and architecture, as evidenced by the Container Furniture (Mnam-Cci collection), created in 1972 for the MoMA in New York.
In 1981, Sottsass founded the Memphis group. With its liberating vision of design, Memphis laid the foundations for a different creative approach, highlighting the failure of modern ideologies in favor of an emotional and sensory dimension of objects. The decorative revival, initiated by Memphis, through patterns, colors, materials, and a new expressiveness of the object, opens up infinite experiments with forms, which will be presented in an immersive environment of patterns created by Sottsass (Bacterio, Serpente, Rete, Spugnato, etc.).
This exhibition also allows visitors to discover Ettore Sottsass's passion for photography as a tool for capturing reality. For him, travel and photography are part of a single spiritual odyssey and nourish his work and his concept of "magical thinking." Several hundred previously unseen photographs will be presented, taken from the Kandinsky Library.