Eine Ausstellung zu organisieren, die sich mit dem kreativen Potential auseinandersetzt, das die Krise in Italien hervorgebracht hat, bedeutet ja fast schon (wenn man es etwas spöttisch sieht) die Präsentation einer vollständigen Chronologie des kreativen Potentials in Italien seit undenklichen Zeiten.
Genau das hat sich das Triennale Design Museum Milan aber für seine siebte Ausgabe vorgenommen.
Unter dem Titel "Autarky, Austerity, Autonomy" (Autarkie, Entbehrung, Autonomie) konzentriert sich das Triennale Design Museum allerdings auf drei Abschnitte der fortwährenden Krise Italiens: die 1930er Jahre, die 70er und die derzeitige Lage.
Under the title "Autarky, Austerity, Autonomy" the Triennale Design Museum have, however, chosen to focus on just three periods of Italy's perpetual crisis: the 1930s, the 1970s and today.
Die Ausstellung beginnt mit einer Sammlung von Objekten, die für die drei thematisierten Jahrzehnte stehen - darunter, beispielsweise, das Holz- und Aluminiumfahrrad Littorina autarchica aus dem Jahr 1939, ein Tisch aus Enzo Maris Projekt Proposta per un’autoprogettazione oder die 3D gedruckte LAmpe "In tensione" von Alberto Meda für Belux. Danach klärt die Ausstellung detaillierter in welcher Art und Weise italienische Designer auf die jeweiligen Herausforderungen der 30er und 70er Jahre und unserer modernen Zeit reagierten und reagieren.
Wie immer bei den Ausstellungen des Triennale Design Museums kommt auch bei Autarky, Austerity, Autonomy ein veritables Who is Who des italienischen Designs zusammen: Sottsaa, Mari, Ponti, de Lucchi, Albini, Formafantasma, Martimo Gamper ... .Das größte Problem der Ausstellung, wie bei allen anderen Ausstellungen auch, ist ist
And as ever with Triennale Design Museum exhibitions the biggest problem is an exhibition format that presents far too much. Or at least does towards the end. Whereas the first two thirds of the exhibition is relatively intelligible and clear the nearer one gets towards the end the more the objects become stacked, helplessly, on top of one another.
This may of course be symptomatic of the inflationary nature of contemporary design, proof that today there is far too much "design". It is however, we suspect, much more that the curators wanted to present as many examples of contemporary design as possible, and got a bit carried away. The organisers speak of presenting some 650 objects. Were the Triennale exhibition space three times as big one could have attempted to present so many objects. It isn't. And so by the end of the exhibition one is so overloaded one almost loses the will to explore.
A situation exacerbated by an exhibition design concept that, for us, perfectly demonstrates the sort of outmoded, uninspired format that, we feel, the Vitra Design Museum are being ironic about in the Object Space section of Konstantin Grcic - Panorama.
Following on from 2013's Made in Slums – Mathare Nairobi, Autarky, Austerity, Autonomy is the second exhibition about design in context of crises to be staged at the Triennal Design Museum in the past twelve months. However whereas in Made in Slums the curators could convincingly present a design culture born of the local conditions and crises, the curators of Autarky, Austerity, Autonomy present only very little that is exclusively Italian. Very little that can be considered an Italian response to the global crises of the periods under consideration, far less a particularly Italian response to particularly Italian crises.
And indeed through the inclusion of notable non-Italians such as Ronen Kadushin or Patricia Urquiola they tacitly acknowledge this fact.
Consequently what one is left with is an extensive collection of design objects from the past 80 years.
Not what the curators were intending to present; but, as an extensive collection of design objects from the past 80 years, well worth viewing.
Italian Design Beyond the Crisis. Autarky, Austerity, Autonomy runs at the Triennale Design Museum, Viale Alemagna, 6, 20121 Milan until February 22nd 2015
A few impressions.
