Otto luogo dell’arte
Cloe Piccoli
Olivia Toscani’s OTTO Luogo dell’Arte project arrives just at the right moment, because in this period, design is looking for new directions, meanings and means of expression. OTTO Luogo dell’Arte’s place is within this fragmented and fascinating context of research and design, where Olivia Toscani, with Mauro Lovi as Art Director, produces and presents designer pieces by artists: unique pieces and limited editions; special objects, all designed, built and loved before they exist. The idea is to invite artists, designers and architects to design works with strong identities: meaningful pieces, dense in their conception, history and memory, with a vision of the future. The intention is for them to become useful everyday objects, because ambition means confronting everyday life.
To achieve this aim, aside from her careful selection of the designers, Olivia Toscani intends to give new value to ancient Italian–especially Tuscan–manufacturing culture: handicrafts, trades and knowledge handed down for generations, now unique and beyond time, therefore seminal. The idea is to work with territorial resources, human and material, in order to involve local workshops and small industry. All this with a contemporary vision that connects the local with the global, artisanry with technology, the past with the present.
Olivia Toscani is inspired by the past…the roots, more precisely, which link OTTO Luogo dell’Arte to family experience: specifically, Megalopoli, the gallery/workshop which her mother, Agneta Holst, opened in Milan in 1979. This was a unique place in a courtyard of Corso Europa, behind Piazza Duomo. Agneta exhibited designs, objects and projects realized by Megalopoli in collaboration with artists, designers and architects whom she involved in the project.
There was Enrico Castellani, who created a blanket that recalled his monochrome folded surfaces in a series of reliefs that suggested space and movement; then there were Carla Accardi, Alik Cavaliere, Piero Dorazio, Agostino Ferrari, Mauro Lovi, Sandro Martini, Mario Nigro, Mimmo Paladino, Urano Palma and Bobo Piccoli (my father), who made an ironically shaped surreal cheese cover from Murano blown glass. Gio Pomodoro and Michelangelo Pistoletto were also part of the enterprise; Pistoletto made Blue Bench, a bench of blue wood with a mirror surface, conceived with the same logic as his mirror paintings with figures painted on them. Many other artists and designers joined the project, such as Rosanna Bianchi Piccoli (my mother), Ugo Marano, Gianni Pettena, Ettore Sottsass, Shama, Tarshito …
At the time, Olivia, one of my childhood friends, went to her mother’s gallery every afternoon after school; her sister Sabina was often with her. It was a place she loved happy, familiar and full of fascinating objects. Artists and friends stopped by, Olivia knew them all. Sometimes I went too, with my parents. Then there were Aldo and Marirosa Ballo, friends, and Agneta’s in-laws, Olivia’s aunt and uncle, who had a fundamental role in Megalopoli’s birth and who, during the years, photographed the entire production. The story is a long, interesting one, and the time will come for it to be told, soon, it seems, since OTTO Luogo dell’Arte is already planning a show based on this experience.
In the meantime, Olivia Toscani resumes Megalopoli’s humanistic, and idealistic vocation, transposing it to the present tense to produce objects and designs full of identity, history and memory. Objects that speak of those who made them and those who chose them, the place where they were created and the world. A designer object, if it’s a successful one, is all this, and more.
Cloe Piccoli
OTTO luogo dell’arte
Cloe Piccoli
Olivia Toscani’s OTTO Luogo dell’Arte project arrives just at the right moment, because in this period, design is looking for new directions, meanings and means of expression. OTTO Luogo dell’Arte’s place is within this fragmented and fascinating context of research and design, where Olivia Toscani, with Mauro Lovi as Art Director, produces and presents designer pieces by artists: unique pieces and limited editions; special objects, all designed, built and loved before they exist. The idea is to invite artists, designers and architects to design works with strong identities: meaningful pieces, dense in their conception, history and memory, with a vision of the future. The intention is for them to become useful everyday objects, because ambition means confronting everyday life.
To achieve this aim, aside from her careful selection of the designers, Olivia Toscani intends to give new value to ancient Italian–especially Tuscan–manufacturing culture: handicrafts, trades and knowledge handed down for generations, now unique and beyond time, therefore seminal. The idea is to work with territorial resources, human and material, in order to involve local workshops and small industry. All this with a contemporary vision that connects the local with the global, artisanry with technology, the past with the present.
Olivia Toscani is inspired by the past…the roots, more precisely, which link OTTO Luogo dell’Arte to family experience: specifically, Megalopoli, the gallery/workshop which her mother, Agneta Holst, opened in Milan in 1979. This was a unique place in a courtyard of Corso Europa, behind Piazza Duomo. Agneta exhibited designs, objects and projects realized by Megalopoli in collaboration with artists, designers and architects whom she involved in the project.
There was Enrico Castellani, who created a blanket that recalled his monochrome folded surfaces in a series of reliefs that suggested space and movement; then there were Carla Accardi, Alik Cavaliere, Piero Dorazio, Agostino Ferrari, Mauro Lovi, Sandro Martini, Mario Nigro, Mimmo Paladino, Urano Palma and Bobo Piccoli (my father), who made an ironically shaped surreal cheese cover from Murano blown glass. Gio Pomodoro and Michelangelo Pistoletto were also part of the enterprise; Pistoletto made Blue Bench, a bench of blue wood with a mirror surface, conceived with the same logic as his mirror paintings with figures painted on them. Many other artists and designers joined the project, such as Rosanna Bianchi Piccoli (my mother), Ugo Marano, Gianni Pettena, Ettore Sottsass, Shama, Tarshito …
At the time, Olivia, one of my childhood friends, went to her mother’s gallery every afternoon after school; her sister Sabina was often with her. It was a place she loved happy, familiar and full of fascinating objects. Artists and friends stopped by, Olivia knew them all. Sometimes I went too, with my parents. Then there were Aldo and Marirosa Ballo, friends, and Agneta’s in-laws, Olivia’s aunt and uncle, who had a fundamental role in Megalopoli’s birth and who, during the years, photographed the entire production. The story is a long, interesting one, and the time will come for it to be told, soon, it seems, since OTTO Luogo dell’Arte is already planning a show based on this experience.
In the meantime, Olivia Toscani resumes Megalopoli’s humanistic, and idealistic vocation, transposing it to the present tense to produce objects and designs full of identity, history and memory. Objects that speak of those who made them and those who chose them, the place where they were created and the world. A designer object, if it’s a successful one, is all this, and more.
Cloe Piccoli
OTTO luogo dell’arte
Cloe Piccoli
Olivia Toscani’s OTTO Luogo dell’Arte project arrives just at the right moment, because in this period, design is looking for new directions, meanings and means of expression. OTTO Luogo dell’Arte’s place is within this fragmented and fascinating context of research and design, where Olivia Toscani, with Mauro Lovi as Art Director, produces and presentsdesigner pieces by artists: unique pieces and limited editions; special objects, all designed, built and loved before they exist. The idea is to invite artists, designers and architects to design works with strong identities: meaningful pieces, dense in their conception, history and memory, with a vision of the future. The intention is for them to become useful everyday objects, because ambition means confronting everyday life.
To achieve this aim, aside from her careful selection of the designers, Olivia Toscani intends to give new value to ancient Italian–especially Tuscan–manufacturing culture: handicrafts, trades and knowledge handed down for generations, now unique and beyond time, therefore seminal. The idea is to work with territorial resources, human and material, in order to involve local workshops and small industry. All this with a contemporary vision that connects the local with the global, artisanry with technology, the past with the present.
Olivia Toscani is inspired by the past…the roots, more precisely, which link OTTO Luogo dell’Arte to family experience: specifically, Megalopoli, the gallery/workshop which her mother, Agneta Holst, opened in Milan in 1979. This was a unique place in a courtyard of Corso Europa, behind Piazza Duomo. Agneta exhibited designs, objects and projects realized by Megalopoli in collaboration with artists, designers and architectswhom she involved in the project.
There was Enrico Castellani, who created a blanket that recalled his monochrome folded surfaces in a series of reliefs that suggested space and movement; then there were Carla Accardi, Alik Cavaliere, Piero Dorazio, Agostino Ferrari, Mauro Lovi, Sandro Martini, Mario Nigro, Mimmo Paladino, Urano Palma and Bobo Piccoli (my father), who made an ironically shaped surreal cheese cover from Murano blown glass. Gio Pomodoro and Michelangelo Pistoletto were also part of the enterprise; Pistoletto made Blue Bench, a bench of blue wood with a mirror surface, conceived with the same logic as his mirror paintings with figures painted on them. Many other artists and designers joined the project, such as Rosanna Bianchi Piccoli (my mother), Ugo Marano, Gianni Pettena, Ettore Sottsass, Shama, Tarshito …
At the time, Olivia, one of my childhood friends, went to her mother’s gallery every afternoon after school; her sister Sabina was often with her. It was a place she loved happy, familiar and full of fascinating objects. Artists and friends stopped by, Olivia knew them all. Sometimes I went too, with my parents. Then there were Aldo and Marirosa Ballo, friends, and Agneta’s in-laws, Olivia’s aunt and uncle, who had a fundamental role in Megalopoli’s birth and who, during the years, photographed the entire production. The story is a long, interesting one, and the time will come for it to be told, soon, it seems, since OTTO Luogo dell’Arte is already planning a show based on this experience.
In the meantime, Olivia Toscani resumes Megalopoli’s humanistic, and idealistic vocation, transposing it to the present tense to produce objects and designs full of identity, history and memory. Objects that speak of those who made them and those who chose them, the place where they were created and the world. A designer object, if it’s a successful one, is all this, and more.
Cloe Piccoli
OTTO luogo dell’arte
Cloe Piccoli
Olivia Toscani’s OTTO Luogo dell’Arte project arrives just at the right moment, because in this period, design is looking for new directions, meanings and means of expression. OTTO Luogo dell’Arte’s place is within this fragmented and fascinating context of research and design, where Olivia Toscani, with Mauro Lovi as Art Director, produces and presents designer pieces by artists: unique pieces and limited editions; special objects, all designed, built and loved before they exist. The idea is to invite artists, designers and architects to design works with strong identities: meaningful pieces, dense in their conception, history and memory, with a vision of the future. The intention is for them to become useful everyday objects, because ambition means confronting everyday life.
To achieve this aim, aside from her careful selection of the designers, Olivia Toscani intends to give new value to ancient Italian–especially Tuscan–manufacturing culture: handicrafts, trades and knowledge handed down for generations, now unique and beyond time, therefore seminal. The idea is to work with territorial resources, human and material, in order to involve local workshops and small industry. All this with a contemporary vision that connects the local with the global, artisanry with technology, the past with the present.
Olivia Toscani is inspired by the past…the roots, more precisely, which link OTTO Luogo dell’Arte to family experience: specifically, Megalopoli, the gallery/workshop which her mother, Agneta Holst, opened in Milan in 1979. This was a unique place in a courtyard of Corso Europa, behind Piazza Duomo. Agneta exhibited designs, objects and projects realized by Megalopoli in collaboration with artists, designers and architects whom she involved in the project.
There was Enrico Castellani, who created a blanket that recalled his monochrome folded surfaces in a series of reliefs that suggested space and movement; then there were Carla Accardi, Alik Cavaliere, Piero Dorazio, Agostino Ferrari, Mauro Lovi, Sandro Martini, Mario Nigro, Mimmo Paladino, Urano Palma and Bobo Piccoli (my father), who made an ironically shaped surreal cheese cover from Murano blown glass. Gio Pomodoro and Michelangelo Pistoletto were also part of the enterprise; Pistoletto made Blue Bench, a bench of blue wood with a mirror surface, conceived with the same logic as his mirror paintings with figures painted on them. Many other artists and designers joined the project, such as Rosanna Bianchi Piccoli (my mother), Ugo Marano, Gianni Pettena, Ettore Sottsass, Shama, Tarshito …
At the time, Olivia, one of my childhood friends, went to her mother’s gallery every afternoon after school; her sister Sabina was often with her. It was a place she loved happy, familiar and full of fascinating objects. Artists and friends stopped by, Olivia knew them all. Sometimes I went too, with my parents. Then there were Aldo and Marirosa Ballo, friends, and Agneta’s in-laws, Olivia’s aunt and uncle, who had a fundamental role in Megalopoli’s birth and who, during the years, photographed the entire production. The story is a long, interesting one, and the time will come for it to be told, soon, it seems, since OTTO Luogo dell’Arte is already planning a show based on this experience.
In the meantime, Olivia Toscani resumes Megalopoli’s humanistic, and idealistic vocation, transposing it to the present tense to produce objects and designs full of identity, history and memory. Objects that speak of those who made them and those who chose them, the place where they were created and the world. A designer object, if it’s a successful one, is all this, and more.
Cloe Piccoli