art
Architecture – Design
Olivetti - Una bella società
Società Promotrice delle Belle Arti
from 16.05.2008 to 27.07.2008
2008 will mark the centenary of Olivetti’s foundation, and the company’s history not only mirrors the vicissitudes of industrialization, it is also emblematic of the rise and fall of a dream nurtured for over a hundred years, the dream that industry would be more than just a rational, efficient approach to producing things, that it would act as the driving force behind and inspiration for the growth and development of society as a whole.
No other company, anywhere in the world, succeeded in making its own the forward-thinking optimism of this ambition to the extent Olivetti did.
And it is this quintessential uniqueness that the exhibition aims to highlight, starting with the title: una bella Società (a fine company/a better society).
Olivetti’s many facets make for a kaleidoscope of enquiry, for example, exploring the company’s ethical choices, its civic morality, design, industrial organization, communication strategies, political outlook, the role of intellectuals, the acknowledged value of art, research, the elaboration of new languages, the ultimate goal of society. Each of these approaches would deserve a complete exhibition of its own, the product of thorough research. What strikes us as being once more topical, however, is Olivetti’s ability to fashion a total vision, a veritable landscape of modernity. The exhibition showcases a selection of emblematic innovations from across the range of the company’s activity, collocating at the heart of the exhibition a kind of encyclopedic compilation of all the experiences that marked the output of a firm that was certainly not limited to office machinery.
Graphic art and architecture, design and town planning, advertising and communication and literature, shops and typography will all be explored not so much within the confines of their individual disciplines but as a multitude of inter-connected facets of a modern form of culture based on image.
