Ettore Sottsass and the Social Factory

Ettore Sottsass and the Social Factory surveys the work of Italian architect and designer Ettore Sottsass (b. 1917, Innsbruck, Austria; d. 2007, Milan), focusing on four decades of his monumental furniture and ceramics, conceptual photography, and speculative drawings. A seminal figure of the postwar period, Sottsass reimagined modern life through design, profoundly influencing his peers and generations of cultural producers.

While Sottsass has been frequently touted for his contributions to design and architecture, Ettore Sottsass and the Social Factory investigates his polymathic work through its social and economic contexts, from Italy’s postwar prosperity to the utopianism and social upheaval of the 1960s and ’70s to the conservative turn of the 1980s and the renewed progressive currents of the turn of the millennium.

Encompassing more than 50 works organized in four chronological sections, the exhibition presents significant objects that convey the designer’s evolving visions of society. Included in the exhibition are Sottsass’s “Superboxes,” functional cabinets that challenge the traditional scale and role of furniture in order to defy consumerist trends. Ceramic totems of the late 1960s combine sacred architectural forms and pop culture artifacts, while utopian drawings and photographs imagine a world free from tedious work. The exhibition also highlights outstanding examples of Sottsass’s objects for the famed Memphis group he founded in the 1980s, and the baroque and monumental furniture he produced until his passing.

Ettore Sottsass and the Social Factory is the inaugural exhibition in a series committed to exploring significant advances in postwar and contemporary design and its relationship to contemporary art. The exhibition is designed by architect Frida Escobedo.

This exhibition is organized by ICA Miami and curated by Alex Gartenfeld, Artistic Director, and Gean Moreno, Curator of Programs.

This exhibition is funded through the Knight Contemporary Art Fund at The Miami Foundation. Major support is provided by Dr. David and Linda Frankel, Jay Franke and David Herro, and Alexis and Isadore Havenick. Additional support is provided by Al Eiber and Phillips.