A Trailblazing Postmodernist’s Work To Display In Miami

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A Trailblazing Postmodernist's Work Is Put In Context

On View: Ettore Sottsass and the Social Factory


No voice defined the playful aesthetic sensibility of the 1980s better than Italian architect and designer Ettore Sottsass, famed founder of the Memphis Group, renowned for its kooky and now highly collectible Postmodern pieces. But the iconoclast’s creative legacy echoes throughout multiple decades and disciplines, as explored in the exhibition “Ettore Sottsass and the Social Factory,” which runs through October 6 at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami. The show spans his 50-year career and explores how his work reflected and challenged modern life. Pieces include his whimsical Superbox cabinets, which sought to defy the consumerist trends of the 1960s, and his utopian futuristic drawings and photography from the ’70s. The exhibit also features works from his iconic Memphis furniture collections, which adapted the colorful irreverence of Pop art in rebellion against straight-laced modernism. ICA collaborated with acclaimed Mexican architect Frida Escobedo to design the exhibition space, which divides each era with a series of scrim walls inspired by Sottsass’s aesthetics.

PHOTO: FREDRIK NILSEN STUDIO. © 2019 ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK / ADAGP, PARIS