Page 68 - VIA CONDOTTI

BETWEEN ART AND FASHION

Fashion and art are a combination constantly in evolu-
tion and is not known for sure which is the first source of
inspiration for the other. There are those who continue to
question whether in the contemporary cultural industry
we can still speak of two distinct worlds or we rather talk
about a fluid game of roles. This is the thread of the
exhibition “Nostalgia del futuro nei tessuti d’artista del
dopoguerra” staged at the Museo del Tessuto in Prato
(where it will remain until February 19, 2017), which is
part of the exhibition program promoted and organi-
zed by the Fondazione Ferragamo and Museo Salvatore
Ferragamo and involve the collaboration with multiple
locations such as the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale of
Florence, Gallerie degli Uffizi, Galleria d’arte moderna,
Galleria del Costume of Palazzo Pitti and Museo Marino
Marini in Florence. The exhibition intercepts the favo-
rable conjuncture created in the fifties among art, fashion
and textile design that become mutually fed by ideas and
languages, through new materials made available by the
industry or experienced in atelier.
So we discover valuable and unpublished collections of
projects for printed fabrics, textile articles, artworks crea-
ted by the most famous Italian artists of the period. Such
as the projects for printed fabrics proposed in the contests
of the Milan Triennale in the editions from 1951 to ‘57,
by artists and designers such as Lucio Fontana, Bruno
Munari, Piero Dorazio, Gio Ponti and Enrico Prampoli-
ni among the others. Exposed even the scarves designed
by Edmondo Bacci, Franco Gentilini and Roberto Crip-
pa, works printed on silk that dialogue with the contem-
porary paintings by the same authors, demonstrating the
ability of the artists to experiment with new languages.
Contaminations and material overlays turn tapestries in
the closest textiles language to painting, like those of Ata-
nasio Soldati, among the first Italian artists, who in the
twentieth century adhere to the international abstractio-
nist trends. Unmissable the manufacturing experience of
Prato of the company of furnishing fabrics and carpets
Guido Pugi, in the sign of the most successful combina-
tion of art and fashion.

Nella pagina accanto: Fausto Melotti, Progetto grafico per
tessuto per la X Triennale di Milano, 1954 circa, tempera su
carta, Bologna, Fondazione Massimo e Sonia Cirulli
Ph. ©: Archivio Massimo e Sonia Cirulli.

In alto: Franco Gentilini, Ragazza di fronte su fondo rosso,
1959, Foulard in seta prodotto da Edizioni del Cavallino
Venezia, Collezione Cardazzo.

A destra: Lucio Fontana, Concetto spaziale rosso, 1960
Foulard in seta prodotto da Edizioni del Cavallino
Venezia, Collezione Cardazzo.

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