“THE‘Humour It was a salvation. Until then art was such a serious and pontifical thing that I was very happy, when I discovered I could introduce you to humor. It was a sort of liberation, “he said Marcel Duchamp in 1960returning to that second decade of the twentieth century where, with the sound of wheels of bicycles and urinals, his works had aroused smiles and indignation, embarrassment and fun.
And so in the last hundred years not only artists, but also designers and stylists have tried to confirm the thought of Walter Benjamin: if there was really no better starting point, for the thought, of a laugh?
“A declaredly ironic work, to be understood, requires an effort by the observer. It is not obvious: in the artist a certain knowledge of those who will have to understand how to interpret it “explains Lorenzo Balbi, director of the Mambo-Museum of modern art of Bologna and curator (with Caterina Molteni) of the exhibition Easy irony. Irony in Italian art between the 20th and twentieth centuries, to Mambo from 6 February to 7 September.
On the edge on the crest of the wave) by Piero Golia portrays the artist in Turin when, during Artissima, in 2000, he climbed on a palmman refusing to go down until his work had been bought. (Courtesy the artist). From “easy irony. The irony in Italian art between the 20th and twentieth centuries “by Lorenzo Balbi and Caterina Molteni.
«We worked a year and a half to highlight a trend that travels the last seventies. For many artists, living in a country of historicized splendor could be an obstacle, or intimidated: how to react to many wonders? With irony ». The dynamic, in the ironic visual process, is more or less this: to say something, expecting that the other caught a meaning not clearly expressed.
Giuseppe Chiari, 1974, art has ended we all stop together. Courtesy Frittelli Contemporary Art, Florence
«Maurizio Cattelan, using global and understandable visual registers, has always been a teacher, and has used this key over time to also propose criticisms of the institutions and rules of art. When Giuseppe Chiari, in a 1974 poster, declared Art is over. We all stop together, Would he ever imagine that that provocation would become a work? In the 70s, irony was also fundamental for feminist propaganda, with artists such as Cinzia Ruggeri, Mirella Bentivoglio and Lucia Marcucci“Adds Balbo stressing that, in humor works, the title always has a position. As in the famous culpted banana of Cattelan entitled, not surprisingly, Comedian.
“Let’s take the kitten placed in a photocopier of the work on display Copycat by Eva & Franco Mattes: it is taken for granted that the viewer includes the reference to the aesthetics of the memes that goes crazy on Instagram. A “hot” theme of which he was a forerunner Mozzarella in carriage by Gino De Dominicis of 1970, where a real mozzarella in a black carriage played on that misunderstanding which, online, is now on the agenda. One thing is certain: irony puts something invisible at the center, which will never be the same for two individuals. Personal interpretation always goes to the first place ».
The work Copycat of Eva & Franco Mattes (2024) with cat sculpture.
A smile in every room
Designed in 1967 by the Florentine radical group Archizoom, The Superonda sofa of Poltronova was immediately purchased by Elio Fiorucci, intrigued by that vinyl model to sit onlie down and stay in ride.
The Bocca sofa (1970) one of the iconic study pieces65.
While the Memphis group, in the 1980s, began to overturn paradigms, offering bookcases with volumes that danced on the shelves without ever being ordered, destroying the perfection of the old bourgeois houses: «They generated laughter by descending the most austere design with colorful and circus elements. The first Memphis house was the apartment in Montecarlo di Karl Lagerfeld »says Marco Sammicheli, curator for the design, fashion and craftsman sector of the Milan Triennale and director of the Italian design museum.
“Ettore Sottsass knew the revolutionary power of humor, with which you can also overturn a tyrant. Then there are objects that trigger fun because they are used in memorable contexts: the bag of Zanotta is an icon of design and softness that makes us smile, thinking of that Paolo Villaggio who in Fantozzi never knew how to sit in front of his director! ” .
In 1970 Sebastian Matta had already designed the Magritta armchair: an inverted cylinder with a green apple inside, a tribute to the famous painting by Magritte. While Studio65 reproduced sofas like mouths and soft seats, but modeled like the hard marble of the Greek capitals.
Because irony changed lifestyles with a design that no longer only had to respond to stringent needs of comfort and practicality. Each object began to have a personality, to keep company, to express feelings. To trigger sensuality and empathy. Sammicheli continues: «The Family Follows Fiction objects of Alessi also were also created as characters. Small creatures with cartoon inspirational faceseffect of “disneyification” then in progress. Everything had to have a face, a smile, a recognition, mindful of the eternal surrealist lesson, for which what has eyes, ears, mouth or a tail can make you smile, frighten, but above all give a soul, even to objects ” .
Smiles, irreverence and falpalà
In fashion, the use of humor inaugurated the 1920s clothes by Elsa Schiaparelli Which first caused ambiguity and surprise with unpublished techniques, such as that of the Trompe-L’Oeil, involving in the creation of its artists such as Salvador Dalí. «Certainly not the geometric seriousness of names such as Chanel or Balenciaga. Playful and visionary, Just Schiaparelli told Coco Chanel – lover of the most black penalty – of being “expert in cemeteries”! Elsa anticipated what they did as big as the brilliant Franco Moschino or even Nicolas Ghesquière: very elegant, but also passionate of manga which it expertly inserts in many robotic collections created for Louis Vuitton “explains Fabriano Fabbri, professor of forms of contemporary fashion at the University of Bologna as well as author of The devil’s voice. Contemporary art and fashion (Einaudi).
Irony “in shirt”, in 2004, for one of Franco Moschino’s latest fashion shows. (Photo by Davide Maestri/Penske Media Via Getty Images)
Returning to Duchamp and his passion for “Readymade” (the use of objects already existing for his works), Fabbri underlines how this practice introduced a subtle sarcasm in the first collection of avant -garde creators: Martin Margielaat the beginning of the 2000s, He created clothes with cellophane normally used to protect the same tailoring creations.
Considered by many heirs of Surrealism himself, Even the punk movement to well thinking based his stylistic features on the ironic: using music and fashion to desecrate, ridiculating the political order with irreverent t-shirts (launched by Vivienne Westwood), combining childish thug pins with tears and exhibited bodies.
An attitude that, as in art, allows you to reflect on the contemporary: in 2004, Jean-Paul Gaultier sent models disguised as a mannequin to the catwalk Together with robotic puppets, to symbolize the function of “groups” of many wears. Again, make a reason for it: humor, as he said the same enfant terrible Gaultier, “… will always have to be a natural part of clothing”.
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