Kartell’s products, over the past 70 years, have made the brand one of the most important names in Italian and international design. Founded by Giulio Castelli in 1949, for Kartell worked the great names of design and architecture of that time: Anna Castelli Ferrieri, one of the first women architect, Gino Colombini, Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni, Joe Colombo, Marco Zanuso, Gae Aulenti, Richard Sapper, Giotto Stoppino, and Ignazio Gardella.
Today, the company is still on the same proficuous path, even after the acquisition in 1988 by Claudio Luti, who comes from the fashion world. The sensitivity he gained at the Maison Versace together with the love for perfection and good taste, continued to foster the evolutionary path of style and materials with the collaboration of important contemporary designers and architects such as Philippe Starck, Ron Arad, Antonio Citterio, Ferruccio Laviani, Piero Lissoni, Patricia Urquiola, Mario Bellini, Alberto Meda, and Vico Magistretti.
Executive councilor for cultural affairs of Milan Filippo Del Corno commented: “It is an important birthday that marks a historic moment for a company that has made the history of Milan as a city of design developing a continuous relationship with the art and culture of the project that is transferred to the industrial production process. It will be celebrated with great attention and gratitude for what Kartell has done and continues to do.”
Kartell and art have a lot in common, and it is precisely this relationship that ‘The Art Side of Kartell’, curated by the architect and designer Ferruccio Laviani and Rita Selvaggio, wants to celebrate and present to the visitors of Palazzo Reale from April 9th to May 12th. Through a narrative journey that includes some of the most important chapters of Kartell’s production, the exhibition portrays the way the company has changed over the last seven decades, in parallel with the evolution of the many artistic currents of the 20th century up to the contemporary expressive languages.
Ilona Catani Scarlett