The Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris Features Exhibition on Italian Architect and Designer Gio Ponti
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The work of Italian architect and designer Gio Ponti is the focus of a major exhibition at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, which is currently on view through May 5, 2019. This is the Italian architect’s first retrospective in France.Considere
The Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris Features Exhibition on Italian Architect and Designer Gio Ponti
The work of Italian architect and designer Gio Ponti is the focus of a major exhibition at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, which is currently on view through May 5, 2019. This is the Italian architect’s first retrospective in France.Considered one of the most influential architects and designers of the 20th century, and a prolific creator who was equally interested in both industrial and craft production, Ponti revolutionized post-war architecture, opening up the way for a new art of living. The exhibition titled “Tutto Ponti: Gio Ponti, Archi-Designer” brings together more than 500 pieces from the artist’s oeuvre, created during his long career from 1921 to 1978. The pieces highlight the numerous aspects of his work from architecture to industrial design, from furniture to lighting, and from the creation of journals to his incursion into the fields of glassware, ceramics, and metalwork.Presented at the Museum’s main hall, the exhibition features pieces that have never left their place of origin and combines architecture, furniture, and interior fittings created by Ponti for private homes and public buildings (universities and cathedrals). The exhibition is being curated by Salvatore Licitra, — who also happens to be Ponti’s nephew — in collaboration with Olivier Gabet, Dominique Forest, and Sophie Bouilhet-Dumas.While Gio Ponti’s work is admired today by enlightened design enthusiasts and highly coveted by collectors, it nevertheless remains little known in France. This exhibition introduces the wider public to the creative world of this mythical character from the Italian design scene, whose generosity and passion stimulated his contemporaries and continues to inspire new generations of designers and architects. The exhibition design which was conceived by the agency Wilmotte & Associes in collaboration with graphic designer Italo Lupi makes full use of the triple-height space of the museum’s main hall, dividing it into five sections featuring Ponti's commissions, furniture, lighting and textiles, and architectural projects. These are further detailed through drawings and papier-mache models, as well as photographs and films.The exhibition begins with an evocation of the 1970 Taranto Cathedral's openwork front inspired by paper cut-outs, before unfolding in chronological order into displays of his objects, furniture, and architecture. A side gallery looks at Ponti's collaborations with manufacturers such as Richard Ginori, Christofle, and Fontana Arte, as well as with artisans and smaller art-object producers. Six period rooms in an adjacent gallery complete the exhibition with full reconstructions that demonstrate the reach of Ponti's work globally. Each reconstructed room represents a different period of his work. The reconstructed rooms include representations of the L'Ange Volant, built outside Paris in 1926; the Montecatini building in Milan from a decade later; the Great Hall at the Palazzo Bo, part of Padua University; Gio Ponti's own home on Via Dezza in Milan; Villa Planchart in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas; and the white and blue interior of the Parco dei Principi hotel in Sorrento in the 1960s.Some of the key furniture designs of Ponti, which are on display at the exhibition, include the “811 armchair,” which effectively represents the switch from artisanal furniture and cabinet-making to industrialized mass production. Describing the chair, Salvatore Licitra said, “The expression of this chair is basically provided by its wooden frame, which suggests fine craftsmanship, but also boasts a suspension system for the seat and backrest with elastic belts made by Pirelli, which was decidedly innovative for those years. An example, therefore, of hybridization between industrial production and sophisticated aesthetic finishing and material solutions.”The “Mariposa armchair,” which is one of the significant exhibits, was a model, created by Ponti for the Villa Planchart in Caracas, which aesthetically recalls the lines and proportions of Venezuelan villas, but also of Villa Nemazee in Teheran. In Spanish, the word mariposa means butterfly. And, in fact, this armchair, with the moving lines of its volumes, and in the profile of its arm and backrests, is effectively reminiscent of a butterfly.Another furniture piece to look out for is the “D5551 side table.” As described by Licitra, “This small table, designed by Ponti in the early 1950s, is key to understanding Ponti's poetics, in both design and architecture. In its elementary simplicity, it sums up and embodies procedures and principles that animate all Ponti's work. It is a good example of his creative journey, along which his works do not follow one another in a linear fashion. The grid that supports the glass reflects the refined small rosewood tables that Ponti had been designing since the 1930s, where the framework of the table is part of the object's aesthetics. A key feature of this item is that the grid is painted to achieve different color effects according to the point of view.”The exhibition also displays a “Lamp with light modules.” Technological development of the 1960s led to the mass production of lamps using neon tubes as their light source. Ponti masterly interpreted the possibilities that this offered by focusing on the beauty of linear light. In this lighting system, designed in the name of essentiality, there is nothing more than the light source and a curved screen for the luminous rod, made with ultra-thin gold anodized aluminum, to provide a body to the lamp and to give direction to the light. As described by Licitra, “This is a project of light modules that could create hanging lamps or round ones but also self-standing lamps, and individual or multi-body wall-lamps or ceiling-lamps.”Ponti’s famous “Superleggera” chair and the “Sedia di poco sedile (small-seated armchair)” are also at display at the exhibition. Among the surprises at the exhibition is a framed series of poetic letters colorfully drawn on with markers and pens. Ponti dispatched hundreds of them over the years to family, friends, and colleagues.Gio Ponti was born in Milan in 1891. Having received his diploma from the Milan Polytechnic, he opened his architecture practice in 1921. Apart from producing architecture, furniture, ceramics, lamps, and glassware, Ponti experimented with various materials including copper, enamel, and silver leaf during his long career. He was also the founder and, for two stretches, the editor, of Domus magazine, enlisting many friends and colleagues to write for the title.The exhibition which opened in October 2018, has had its run extended till May 5, 2019, in response to visitor demand. It is on view at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs, 107, rue de Rivoli, 75001 Paris, France. https://www.blouinartinfo.com/ Founder: Louise Blouin Read more
