ELOGIO DEL BANALE

Barbara Radice [Curator]

6.75 x 9.25 softcover book with 72 pages devoted to "l'oggetto banale" [the banal object], as exhibited at the 1980 Venice Biennale. Includes well-illustrated essays by Barbara Radice, Alessandro Mendini, and Franco Raggi. "Libro ... realizzato in occasione della mostra 'L'oggetto banale' alla Biennale di Venezia 1980 nella I Mostra internazionale di architettura"--title page verso.

From the Modern Design Dictionary: "Founded by Alessandro and Adriana Guerriero and Bruno and Giorgio Gregori in 1976, this Milan-based avant-garde experimental design group worked outside the constraints of mass production and the dictates of manufacturers . . . The pivotal figures of the group were Alessandro Mendini and Ettore Sottsass Jr., both of whom were opposed to the dogma of elegance and 'good taste' so evident in much mainstream Italian design of the 1950s and 1960s . . . The group's exhibitions included Bauhaus I and Bauhaus II, the latter shown at the Milan Triennale of 1979, and The Banal Object exhibited at the Venice Biennale of 1980. The Bauhaus exhibitions included commonplace motifs drawn from the 1950s, drawing together strands of design, culture, and everyday life in the belief that the ordinary can provide the impetus for creativity. The Banal Object comprised a collection of everyday products such as irons, carpet sweepers, lights, and shoes, the banality of which was accentuated by the addition of dramatic decorative features. Mendini was commited to the idea of design as expressing a polemical or didactic position rather than providing a set of propositions for the reinvigoration of design as a positive instrument of social and cultural change. It was this latter outlook that was to be taken up by Memphis for much of the 1980s."

Spreads from this volume can be viewed here.

Price: $250.00
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