Triennale Milano opens an exhibition on Ettore Sottsass and the use of words in his works

From January 20 to April 2, 2023, Triennale Milano presents the exhibition Ettore Sottsass. The Word, curated by Marco Sammicheli with Barbara Radice and Iskra Grisogono of Studio Sottsass, with art direction by Chirstoph Radl. After Structure and Color and The Calculus, the third project in the exhibition cycle dedicated to Ettore Sottsass focuses on the varied, constant and multiple use of the word in the production of the great architect and designer.

The exhibition is set up inside Sala Sottsass, where the permanent installation of Casa Lana has been located since January 2021: the interior of a private residence designed by Sottsass around the mid-1960s in Milan, faithfully reconstructed at the Triennale and accessible to the public thanks to a donation from Barbara Radice Sottsass.

The exhibition project brings together a selection of drawings, objects, writings and unpublished works with the aim of proposing avisual and literary anthology that constitutes the essence of Sottsass’s original narrative vein.

“Ettore Sottsass possessed the extremely rare gift of limpid writing that was rich in profound suggestions. He distilled with words concepts and images that still reach directly to the heart of the reader, of those who allow themselves to be led-and inevitably enchanted-into his intimate imagery of spaces, objects and human events,” comments Stefano Boeri, President of Triennale Milano.

“The word mixed with visual art and design can be for Ettore Sottsass a metaphor, a condensation, a layering of experiences and symbols,” says Marco Sammicheli, Director of the Museum of Italian Design at Triennale Milano. “It is a bridge between visual and poetic grammar, a source of incidental knowledge to instill doubt, to imagine, to discover, to complete, and above all to keep searching.”

The exhibition aims to bring out the multiplicity of forms in which the word is present in the work of Ettore Sottsass: lists, descriptions, confessions, diaries, italics, short stories, journals, posters, fanzines, articles, speeches, lectures and reviews, traces used to accompany the moments and movements of his works.

His use of words is very archaic, his writing, almost always in capital letters, has a precise calligraphic status, always comprehensible, and conveys an accessible expressive code. It is averbo-visual art where the fusion of the word, its manipulation, juxtaposition with drawings, objects, puts concepts before, adds or alters representations and processes before forms.

The exhibition has the support of Lavazza Group and Salone del Mobile.Milano.

For info: https://triennale.org/

Hours: Tuesday through Sunday from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.

Tickets: 4 euros

Photo © Gianluca Di Ioia

Triennale Milano opens an exhibition on Ettore Sottsass and the use of words in his works

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.