Radical Utopias. Beyond Architecture: Florence 1966–1976
October 20, 2017–January 21, 2018
Palazzo Strozzi
Strozzina
Florence
Italy
Hours: Friday–Wednesday 12–8pm,
Thursdays 12–11pm
T +39 055 2645155
info [at] palazzostrozzi.org
www.palazzostrozzi.org
Curated by Pino Brugellis, Gianni Pettena and Alberto Salvadori
From October 20, 2017 to January 21, 2018, Palazzo Strozzi in Florence will be hosting Radical Utopias. Beyond Architecture: Florence 1966–1976, an exhibition curated by Pino Brugellis, Gianni Pettena and Alberto Salvadori, celebrating the outstanding creative season enjoyed by the Radical Movement in Florence in the 1960s and ’70s.
In a kaledoscopic dialogue involving objects of design, videos, installations, performances and narratives, the exhibition brings together for the very first time in a single venue the visionary work of such groups and figures as Archizoom, Remo Buti, 9999, Gianni Pettena, Superstudio, UFO and Zziggurat, groups and individuals who succeeded in turning Florence into the hub of a creative revolution that was to have a profound impact on the development of art at the global level.
The exhibition comprises 320 exhibits ranging from clothing, jewels, fabrics, porcelain, lamps, furniture, photographs, photomontages and collages to scale models and designs.
Radical Utopias brings together all the Florentine Radical architects for the first time, half a century after the origin and spread of their movement between 1966 and 1976. This generation of artists was the first in Italy to adopt an original approach to the sweeping renewal of the discipline of architecture as part of a search for a new way of conjugating architectural utopia with research based on the most advanced forms of technology, a process that was already taking place on the international level thanks to such groups and individuals as Hollein and Pichler in Vienna, the Archigram in London, the Metabolists in Japan, Yona Friedman in France, Buckminster Fuller in the United States, Frei Otto in Germany, or Costant and Debord’s Situationist Movement in France and the Netherlands.
Characteristically, the Florentine avant-garde architects’ “radical” role lay in profoundly renewing design strategies and conceptual platforms, a feature apparent also in their urban performances and operational short-circuits, with global theorisation and conceptual input translated into both interior architectural design and the urban space.
Shaking off the cultural dross and architectural infatuations embodied in the legacy of Rationalism, the Radicals began to engage in the demolition of the discipline, adopting guerrilla tactics, short-circuits and Trojan horses, transgressing in their determination to rock the very foundations of a grey, bourgeois and monotonous society that had no time for the contemporary cultural debate. While the Radicals operated on various different and occasionally inconsistent levels, they constantly displayed an irreverent, sardonic and cutting irony towards a totally unaware society, thus effectively staging the clash between the establishment and the new generations who were clamouring for their own space.
Reservations
Sigma CSC: from Monday to Friday, 9am–1pm / 2–6pm
T +39 055 2469600 / prenotazioni [at] palazzostrozzi.org
Promoted and organised by Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi, Fondazione CR Firenze, Osservatorio per le Arti Contemporanee With the support of Comune di Firenze, Camera di Commercio di Firenze, Associazione Partners Palazzo Strozzi, Regione Toscana in collaboration with CCA-Centre Canadien d’Architecture Montreal
With the collaboration of Gervasi S.p.A, Mercato Centrale Firenze
Thanks to Trenitalia Gruppo Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, ATAF GESTIONI, BUSITALIA-Sita Nord, la Feltrinelli, Ufficio Turismo della Città Metropolitana di Firenze, Toscana Aeroporti Spa, Unicoop Firenze, Firenze Parcheggi.
Press office
Antonella Fiori: T + 39 347 2526982, a.fiori [at] antonellafiori.it
Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi: Lavinia Rinaldi, T +39 055 3917122 / l.rinaldi [at] palazzostrozzi.org
Promotion
Susanna Holm, Sigma CSC: T +39 055 2340742, susannaholm [at] cscsigma.it
Catalogue
Quodlibet, Macerata
Bookings
Sigma CSC: T +39 055 2469600, F +39 055 244145, prenotazioni [at] palazzostrozzi.org