Memphis: Decorative Arts from Milan, 1981-1983
Saturday, June 15, 1985 - Thursday, August 1, 1985
Call it crazy, radical, pop, funk, punk, camp or gaudy–but do not call it stodgy. "It" is Memphis, an international collection of furniture, lighting, fabrics and other home accessories created in Milan, Italy, by an avant-garde group of architects and designers. The Memphis group has set off one of the most influential design movements of the 1980's.
Visitors are cautioned to put their status-quo convictions about furniture on hold when they come to the UT gallery. They will see lamps that resemble psychedelic hedgehogs, beds that look like castles, tables shaped like airplanes, cubist chairs, a fruit bowl on zig-zag columns and daring varieties of surfaces and combinations of unrelated materials such as aluminum, marble, wood, glass and durable plastic laminates in untraditional colors and patters.
One art critic in Philadelphia has stated that Memphis designs share certain common elements, "in particular a penchant for lovable lunacy."
The Pied Piper of the Memphis group is Ettore Sottsass Jr., Italian designer who is well known for his machine and office system designs. He has long been fascinated with pop imagery. The furniture and objects that he and the other Memphis designers create deliberately questions conventional principles of functionalism and taste. Memphis designers are from Italy, the U.S., France, Scotland, Japan and Spain.
Visitors are cautioned to put their status-quo convictions about furniture on hold when they come to the UT gallery. They will see lamps that resemble psychedelic hedgehogs, beds that look like castles, tables shaped like airplanes, cubist chairs, a fruit bowl on zig-zag columns and daring varieties of surfaces and combinations of unrelated materials such as aluminum, marble, wood, glass and durable plastic laminates in untraditional colors and patters.
One art critic in Philadelphia has stated that Memphis designs share certain common elements, "in particular a penchant for lovable lunacy."
The Pied Piper of the Memphis group is Ettore Sottsass Jr., Italian designer who is well known for his machine and office system designs. He has long been fascinated with pop imagery. The furniture and objects that he and the other Memphis designers create deliberately questions conventional principles of functionalism and taste. Memphis designers are from Italy, the U.S., France, Scotland, Japan and Spain.