EXHIBIT | SOTTSASS EM FOCO
Running from April 18th to May 14th, 2017.
In the early 1980s, the Memphis Group emerged as a reaction to the modern movement, with provocative design objects and bold colors. Led by Ettore Sottsass, this design phase was quite celebrated and with great repercussion in Brazil. In 2017, the Museu da Casa Brasileira inaugurated the exhibition panel ‘Sottsass In Focus’, with photos and pieces by Sottsass that revealed an important facet of the designer’s work.
Humor, energy and vitality were the hallmarks of the Memphis group, which created a new vocabulary that represented, through design, post-modern thinking, bringing together designers concerned with producing objects and furniture that would serve the debate on contemporary design.
Some of the Exhibited Pieces
The movement used prosaic materials such as plastic laminate, strong colors and innovative prints, in a conflict with the form-function tension advocated by modern design.
The exhibition panel dialogued with the MCB Sottsass Olivetti Synthesis exhibition, opened on March 28, 2017, which showed the line of office furniture that Sottsass designed for Olivetti in the early 1970s, in other words, about ten years before the beginning of the Memphis group.
The photographs for the exhibition ‘Sottsass In Focus’ were produced by Ruy Teixeira and exhibited in 2005 at Spazio Allegri in Milan, when designer Ettore Sottsass was still alive. The objects on display belong to the photographer’s collection: Gopuram side table, from 1988, made for the Bharata collection; Adesso Peró bookcase, 1992, from the Ruínas collection; and the 1960s ceramic totem pole.
Click here to check out the Sottsass Olivetti Synthesis show.
Achievement: MCB
Support: Cinex
About MCB
The Museu da Casa Brasileira, an institution of the Secretariat of Culture and Creative Economy of the State of São Paulo that celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2020, is dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of the material culture of the Brazilian house, being the only museum in the country specializing in architecture and design. The MCB’s program includes temporary and long-term exhibitions, with an agenda that also includes educational service activities, debates, lectures and publications contextualizing the museum’s vocation for the formation of critical thinking on themes such as architecture, urbanism, housing, economy creative, urban mobility and sustainability. Among its numerous initiatives, the MCB Design Award, the main award in the segment in the country, held since 1986, stand out; and the Casas do Brasil project, to rescue and preserve the memory of the rich diversity of living in the country.
Brazilian House Museum
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