Download PDF (114 K)FRIEDMAN BENDA GALLERY PRESENTS ARCHETYPES,
AN EXHIBITION OF RARE AND LIMITED-EDITION WORK BY
ETTORE SOTTSASS
Exhibition Features Work by Sottsass Never Before Seen in U.S. that Demonstrates his
Interest in the ways that Forms, Patterns, Structures Can Convey Universal Ideas
NEW YORK – Friedman Benda gallery presents Archetypes, the second in a cycle of exhibitions
devoted to the investigation of the limited edition and rare work of Ettore Sottsass (1917-2007) in all
its complexity and historical relevance. Archetypes features glass, marble, and furniture made from
1965-1995. Many of the works will be on view for the first time outside European Museums, and
many have never been seen in a commercial context before. The exhibition will be on view May 1 –
June 21st at Friedman Benda, 515 West 26th Street, NYC. An opening reception will take place on
Thursday, May 1 from 6:00-8:00pm.
This exhibition will reflect Sottsass' broad-based investigation of the essential attributes, or
archetypal forms, patterns and structures that convey universal ideas and explore the rituals of daily
life. This quest underlies the myriad of domestic objects, volumes of photography, and architectural
projects Sottsass created throughout his extensive working life.
The exhibition will include a number of iconic and metaphorical works including the well-known
Neferiti ti desk (1968), first shown in the 1972 MoMA exhibition, Italy: The New Domestic Landscape,
a Superbox cabinet (1968) and the rare Flying Carpe t Armchair (1972). Experimental works from
the later 1970s, including Le Strutture Tremano side table (1979) which he created for Studio
Alchimia, will be on view and for the first time in America, a group of bookcases and rarely seen
glass sculptures from the early 1990s will be shown in the context of the earlier work.
For Sottsass, creating a lexicon of design that incorporated emotive, sensorial and humanist
concerns was a rebellion against post-war rationalist architecture that valued function over form, and
left human nature out of the architectural equation. He was moved by the subjective gesture of
American abstract expressionist painting and the direct resonance of pop art. He also looked to
ancient eastern cultures for examples of how to create a spiritual connection between form and
meaning. The nature of his research varies from pieces to piece, at times social or psychological,
often balancing popular images with esoteric, evoking Jungian memories or looking to provoke
primordial reactions. Always counterintuitive and built on complex though-patterns, the notion that
a functional object could communicate an abstract idea was groundbreaking and has emboldened
legions of designers today.
Expressing this idea in 1972 while preparing a group of work for what was to become a seminal
exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Sottsass wrote "the aim of the project was not to achieve a
product, but to state and provoke ideas. I wasn't in the least concerned with making furniture, or an
elegant, 'cute,' sweet, or amusing environment, and still less was I concerned with designing within
this psychic and cultural status quo."
The works included in Archetypes, are visceral and rife with contradiction, and reflect the mind that
created them. Ultimately, the exhibition is about moments—not the culminating public moments of
the Valentine typewriter or the Memphis design movement, but moments represented by works that
express the ideology and language that guided Sottsass during his 60-year career. As R. Craig Miller,
Curator of Design Arts at the Indianapolis Museum of Art has written, "To be fair, artists of
Sottsass' magnitude can never be defined. Each generation – and succeeding century – will find yet
another aspect that resonates anew."
About Ettore Sottsass:
One of the most significant counter-forces to modernism in the history of design, Ettore Sottsass
made monumental artistic contributions to every decade since his life in design began in Italy in
1945. His remarkable career produced a provocative body of work, including architecture, furniture,
industrial design, glass, ceramics, painting, photography and a wealth of writings.
Sottsass intellectually and aesthetically challenged the conventional wisdom of forms and
proportions throughout his 60-plus year career, driven by what Penny Sparke aptly described in her
essay for LACMA's 2006 Sottsass retrospective as "a personal search for a new language of modern
design." His rigorous pursuit has led to the creation of such groundbreaking movements as radical
design, anti-design and post-modernist architecture, which led to his founding Memphis in the early
1980s.
A central concern of much of Sottsass' work is the social, cultural and technical implications of
architecture and design on the way people live and interact. New materials and technologies were of
particular interest to him and exploring these elements led him to apply both new and historical
materials in non-traditional ways. Color and form are of equal importance in Sottsass' work and he
embraced them with a similarly radical approach. Throughout the entirety of his career, from early
paintings of the 1930s to later works of architecture during the 1980s, Sottsass used color to
determine shapes within a composition and the relationship of exterior surface to interior function.
Sottsass' remarkable career produced a diverse array of commissions that have transformed
architecture and design. Iconic built architectural works include Wolf House (1989) in Colorado and
Milan's Malpensa Airport (2000). Objects he designed for Alessi and electronic products for Olivetti,
including his iconic Valentine typewriter, changed the landscape of industrial design. The Memphis
movement, for which he is most popularly known, set the style for an entire decade. Ettore Sottsass
died December 31, 2007, just three months after his 90th birthday. His work continues to be
produced through Sottsass Associati, the architecture and design practice he founded in Milan in
1985.