May 18 - June 12 (TBD)
directed by: Christoph Radl
starring (in order of appearance): Ettore Sottsass, Michele De Lucchi, George J. Sowden, Martine Bedin, Andrea Branzi, Shiro Kuramata, Marco Zanini, Matteo Thun, Peter Shire, Aldo Cibic, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Gerard Taylor, Masanori Umeda
special guests: Arquitectonica, Michael Graves, Hans Hollein, Arata Isozaki, Javier Mariscal
sound track by Seth Troxler
The exhibition presents more than two hundred pieces of furniture and objects (bookcases, partitions, display cases, toilets, dining tables, coffee tables, desks, chairs, armchairs, sofa beds, lamps (table, wall, floor, ceiling), ashtrays, flowerpots, fruit containers, textile accessories, carpets, in the most diverse materials, woods, plastics, laminates, glass, ceramics, porcelain, silver, steel, textiles, made between 1981 and 1986 for the Memphis collection. The objects are presented in chronological order, like a fashion show, in which the spectator moves along the catwalk in a night club atmosphere suggested by the setting and the soundtrack. The exhibition is neither a homage nor a historicization. It intends, today as then (1981), to focus attention on the expressive and cultural possibilities of a design beyond marketing.