London’s Design Museum to Mount Retrospective of Italian Modernist Enzo Mari
LONDON — The first solo U.K. exhibition of Italian modernist designer Enzo Mari is set to be held at the Design Museum from March 29 to Sept. 8.
Born in the ‘30s in Novara, Italy, Mari’s communist upbringing played a key role in his design philosophy to create sustainably made art — which ranged from paintings and furniture to text.
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Co-curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director of the Serpentine Gallery, and Francesca Giacomelli, Mari’s studio project assistant, designer, curator and researcher, the exhibition will examine the artist’s vast body of work, which spans nearly 2,000 objects.
“Mari believed that ‘ethics is the goal of every project’. He didn’t want to create objects, he wanted to create models for a different society, for a different way of producing and living,” said Giacomelli.
“The aim was to have people become part of the project itself: to free the others from the passive role of consumer, because the project is not a form to contemplate or to be consumed, but an instrument of transformation that requires the active participation of a community, made aware by knowledge,” she added.
Pieces on display will include crisp prints of brightly colored apples and pears from Mari’s “Nature Series,” wooden jigsaw puzzles with animal-shaped pieces made as a part of “16 Animals,” and archival material research.
Specially commissioned tributes from artists including Virgil Abloh, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Mimmo Jodice, and Dozie Kanu also will be on display, each reflecting on Mari’s life and impact.
