Students At The European Institute Of Design In Milan Are Innovating Inclusivity

In their first semester of the 20/21 academic year, students of the European Institute of Design in Milan were asked to design in an inclusive way with gender, disability, ethnicity, and age in mind. Conducted by professors Mia Vilardo and Riccardo Polidoro, partners of Studio Elitre, the inclusive design course asked students to create original products capable of satisfying everyone's needs.

In terms of gender inclusiveness, the REN proposal goes to intercept the needs of those who do not identify with one of the two sexes and of those who feel unique through what they choose to wear: a mix of garments and accessories that reflects the person without distinction between man and woman. On the disability front, there are those who have imagined a fashion brand " for anyone who feels wrong or not fully represented ". JFMP - Joy for mistaken people (proposed by Penelope Bazzani, Michela Polo, Jennifer Rossi, Federica Santangelo) subverts the rules and looks at things in a different light, working specifically on blindness and low vision.

On the path of ethnic inclusion, the To.get.there - Rebirth project instead works conceptually to "unite" what is at the deepest roots of human experience, what unites all cultures (both physically and spiritually). This translates not only into the choice of fabrics made from elements present in nature, but also into the reuse, grinding and processing of industrial and production waste to obtain, with the appropriate binders, new design materials.

Good taste and being able to be inspirational have no age: thus, the working group on the ageless theme (Simone Ricetti, Alice Marchetti, Alessandra Natalino, Martina Sagliaschi) imagined AMAS, a range of accessories perfect for all seasons of the life.

 
 

Samson Young's Closer Reading @ ORDET In Milan

Formal construction and imperfect forms, time and consciousness are just a few territories that Samson Young (b. 1979, lives and works in Hong Kong) explores in his first solo exhibition in Italy. Renowned for a practice that weaves multicultural paradigms and cross-media experiences, the artist takes a group of works that he created during a residency at the Ryosoku-In at the Kennin-ji temple [1] the oldest zen temple in Kyoto—as a point of departure for Closer Reading. During those weeks, Young carried on his ongoing research on what form and its rethinking are.

At ORDET, Young deploys video, drawings, sound works and installations to generate an articulated, absorbing environment. Each work is connected and at the same time reveals its uniqueness in the hope of unveiling some fundamental beliefs about the way things work. There are different truths that await exploration. The video installation Sonata (2020, revised 2021) is a sequence of actions and images with a sense of a general direction and a recurring motif, in a choreography of events happening in time and space. A few objects complete the installation: a group of light clay pieces bear on their surface indented impressions of architectural features of the temple and a book of Zen scriptures with a circle drawn on it.

Closer Reading is on view through April 17 @ ORDET Via Adige 17, 20135 Milan

Digital Mourning: A Solo Exhibition By Neïl Beloufa @ Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan

The French-Algerian artist, Neïl Beloufa, is one of the leading voices of the past decade and a keen observer of our times, offering vivid representations of the world through films, videos, installations, and sculptures. 

Avoiding direct judgments and forceful declarations, Beloufa successfully conveys a reality that, in its subtlety, is often awkward to behold, focusing on highly topical issues such as power relationships, the technological control, the perils of data collection, as well as on a possible collapse in the management of a pandemic. 

Digital Mourning is on view through July 18 @ Pirelli HangarBicocca Via Chiese 2 20126 Milan

Tea Hacic-Vlahovic's Debut Memoir-Cum-Milanese Fever Dream Is Now Available

Tea Hacic is an MDMA-fueled Oscar Wilde with fake eyelashes and this book is a Fear and Loathing for the late Berlusconi-era; a deep walk of shame that tiptoes between a bewildering Bildungsroman and a fever dream of social climbing and social embarrassment. Click here to order now online and in print.

Kate Crawford & Trevor Paglen: Training Humans @ Osservatorio Fondazione Prada In Milan

Training Humans, conceived by Kate Crawford, AI researcher and professor, and Trevor Paglen, artist and researcher, is the first major photography exhibition devoted to training images: the collections of photos used by scientists to train artificial intelligence (AI) systems in how to “see” and categorize the world.

In this exhibition, Crawford and Paglen reveal the evolution of training image sets from the 1960s to today. As stated by Trevor Paglen, “when we first started conceptualizing this exhibition over two years ago, we wanted to tell a story about the history of images used to ‘recognize’ humans in computer vision and AI systems. We weren’t interested in either the hyped, marketing version of AI nor the tales of dystopian robot futures.” Kate Crawford observed, “We wanted to engage with the materiality of AI, and to take those everyday images seriously as a part of a rapidly evolving machinic visual culture. That required us to open up the black boxes and look at how these ‘engines of seeing’ currently operate”. Training Humans is on view through February 24 2020 at Osservatorio Fondazione Prada Corso Vittorio Emanuele II, 20121 Milano

Punk in Britain Opens This Weekend At Galleria Carla Sozzani in Milan

On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of punk, the Galleria Carla Sozzani presents “Punk in Britain”. More than 90 photos documenting the key players in British punk who, since the mid 70s, have changed the language of fashion and music in London and around the world will be shown. The exhibition incorporates two parts: the photographs of Simon Barker (Six), Dennis Morris, Sheila Rock, Ray Stevenson, Karen Knorr, Olivier Richon, and drawings, collages and graphics of Jamie Reid with a special section highlighting the videos and photos of John Tiberi. In 1976, the Sex Pistols were shouting "I wanna be Anarchy, in the City" while wearing torn shirts, and dresses with studs purchased at Malcom McLaren and his partner Vivienne Westwood's Chelsea store SEX. McLaren had been instrumental in bringing the Sex Pistols into being and, among the Sex Pistols fans, Siouxsie Sioux, Jordan, Debbie, Billy Idol, Soo Catwoman, Adam Ant became known as the "Bromley Contingent", the group associated with them throughout this period. Together they represented a sort of reaction to the years of English austerity and a new response, young and spontaneous, to the rigid formalism of that time. Punk In Britain opens July 11 and runs until August 28, 2016 at Galleria Carla Sozzani, 

Exclusive Preview Of "Kienholz: Five Car Stud" @ Fondazione Prada in Milan

Milan’s Fondazione Prada presents “Kienholz: Five Car Stud”. The exhibition brings together a selection of artworks by Edward Kienholz and his wife Nancy Reddin Kienholz, including the well known installation that gives the show its title. A self-taught artist from Washington State, Edward Kienholz’s work was described by Germano Celant as “making no attempt to sublimate the meanness and tragedy of life, its condition of loneliness and triviality, but on the contrary using them as a way of highlighting a low and popular universe in which the wasted and the dirty, the depraved and the filthy, represented a new and surprising beauty”. The exhibition features numerous installations and tableaux created by the couple between the early late fifties and the nineties, often directly representing death, violence, war and various kinds of social injustices. Looking at them makes the viewer feel uncomfortable and powerless but, at the same time, turns him into a participating witness as the urge to meticulously explore the details take over: Voyeurism and the power of crude beauty win over the common sense of morality. The main installation, “Five Car Stud”, catapults the viewer into a nightmarish situation, plunging him into a dimension of extreme violence. It recreates a dark, isolated environment, illuminated merely by the headlights of four cars and a pick-up truck,  at the center of which lies an African–American man, surrounded by five white men wearing Halloween masks. The aggressors grab his arms and legs while one of them prepares to castrate him. A woman is forced to watch, shocked and powerless, and a frightened little boy witnesses the scene from the backseat of his father’s car. This work was defined by Kienholz as the representation of “The Burden of Being American”. The exhibition will be on view until December 31 2016 at Fondazione Prada, Largo Isarco 2, Mila. Text and photographs by Sara Kaufman

Anish Kapoor Stainless Steel Sculptures @ Lisson Gallery in Milan

For his first exhibition in Milan’s Lisson Gallery, Anish Kapoor presents a new series of fourteen steel sculptures, stainless and polished, twisted through an unspecified number of degrees. These small scale twists - thirty centimeters by height - are shown for the first time as an entire group, placed together in a room, interacting with one another and with the public by creating fluid reflections, which disrupt and dismantle any stable imagery: their original pre-twisted form becomes impossible to detect and the space around them turns into a surreal mixture of reality and reflection, continuously changing according to one’s vision and perspective . The artist has referred to similar sculptures as “non – objects”, losing themselves almost completely because of their unidentifiable geometry and their highly reflective material. One larger twist (100 cm) is placed outside on the terrace. Just like in some of his best –known works such as the Cloud Gate in Chicago’s and the C-Curve at the Chateau De Versailles, Anish Kapoor once again explores the idea of the curve. In this particular case his twisted forms somehow provide an optical vision of the universe by warping the light on its way through space and tilting our intuition to one side, presenting to the viewer a distorted vision of reality which is totally subjective to his point of view. The exhibition will be on view until July 22nd at Lisson Gallery Milan (via Zenale 3, Milan). text and photographs by Sarah Kaufman

Carsten Höller "Doubt" @ Pirelli HangarBicocca in Milan

In his works, Carsten Höller investigates the nature of human experience. His settings dismantle not only the traditional concept of art work but also the very idea of experiencing an exhibition or a museum. Visitors are put into a condition of disorientation and confusion, which turns out to be an incredibly productive state of mind. The loss of every certainty is precisely the condition which inspired this particular exhibition: “Doubt”. The “Doubt” starts from the very beginning, when the visitor is asked to choose between two opposite directions (“Y”), both of them leading into long pitch black corridors (“Decision Corridors”). At this point, after having walked through complete darkness for several minutes, the viewer finds himself in the perfect physical and mental condition to access the main room, where all sort of interactive works are placed, from flying machines to carousels, video art and interactive Aquariums, giving the surreal idea of an amusement park. Höller named it “Radical Entertainment”, aiming to reflect both on art as a form of entertainment as well as on fun itself being a dominant aspect in our lives. From the main room once again two different corridors lead to another space, where the exhibition ends with one last work, “Two roaming beds”, which recreates the concept of doubt and uncertainty experimented in the very first part. Carsten Höller "Doubt" will be on view until July 31, 2016 at Pirelli HangarBicocca, Via Chiese 2, 20126 Milano. text and photographs by Sara Kaufman

Lee Broom's Salone del Automobile Installation On the Streets of Milan

Lee Broom drove from London to Milan on this truck/mobile Palazzo to display his new collection of lighting fixtures. When asked about it he said: "Last year I went to a lot of exhibitions that were all about the Palazzo and everybody was talking about that." So this year he decided to literally deliver his own Palazzo. Always in the fastlane this guy. You can follow the whereabouts of Salone Del Automobile here. text and photograph by Juanco Viso

Autre Exclusively Premieres The Short Film "Small Tits Big Dreams" By Tea Hacic and Milan Based Art Duo No Text Azienda

SMALL TITS BIG DREAMS is a story about impostor syndrome. It’s about finding yourself in a new country, situation, job or curse you can’t find your way out of. You don’t know who you need to be so you violently push yourself to the limits in order to find out. It’s about dating an illiterate drug dealer only so he’ll invite you to parties and then hating all of your clothes so much that you take them off once you get there. It’s about having a goal and doing whatever you must to reach it, even if “whatever you must” means stealing your best friend’s wallet. It’s about Milan, a city that was sleeping until noon, spending all its money on shoes and falling into k-holes by midnight. But the city is changing … ! Click here to read more about Small Tits Big Dreams

10 Must See Art Shows Around The World That You Really, Really Need To Check Out

1. Consumption, sexuality, violence, voyeurism, discomfort, guilt, loss of control, and fantasy at Paul McCarthy’s exhibition at Schinkel Pavillon – on view until November 22 in Berlin, Germany 2. Brad Phillip’s erotic Honeymoon Rehearsal at Rod Bianco opening on November 20 in Oslo, Norway 3. See Niki de Saint Phalle’s psychedelic world at the National Art Center in Tokyo, Japan – on view until December 14 4. Alex Israel’s cool, cool world at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas, Texas 5. See the late Dash Snow’s posthumous retrospective at the Brant Foundation in Greenwich, Connecticut 6. Misha Hollenbach and Cali Thornhill Dewitt team up for Hot Fire in Milan, Italy 7. Pablo Picasso’s sculptures are on view at The Museum of Modern Art In New York City, New York 8. The Avant-Garde Won’t Give Up at Blum & Poe in Los Angeles, California 9. Josh Jefferson is putting his Head Into The Trees at Gallery 16, opening on November 13, in San Francisco, California 10. Gilbert & George’s subversive banners will be on view at White Cube starting on November 25 in London, Englan

Read Autre's Favorites from Milan Fashion Week

Oh, Italy. The land of luxury behemoths. Young fashion people scoff at Milan, but Milan is planting itself once more at the forefront of conceptual fashion. Versace and Prada will always be doing their thing. Damir Doma decided to leave the herd of Paris and create his architectural garments in Italy. Arthur Arbesser is injecting youth and idea-driven fashion into the city revitalizing Iceberg and launching his own brand. And, less we forget, Alessandro Michele is the hottest designer in fashion at Gucci. It feels like people are ready for Italian fashion again, and they certainly want Gucci to be relevant again. We’ve had so many years of “cool” and “arty” brands out of Paris and London that maybe the coolest thing to do right now is to pay heed to the luxury giants of Italy. It’s hip to be square, motherfuckers. Click here to read the full review.

Here Are Ten Things You Need To Know About Elio Fiorucci Who Passed Away On Monday At the Age of 80 →

This Monday, the fashion world was saddened to hear of the death of Italian designer Elio Fiorucci. Known as “The King of Jeans,” the Milanese designer’s raunchy, colorful fashions “sold America back to America.” His kitschy, recycled style broke the harsh, conservative boundaries of haute-couture, gaining international popularity with his low-cost materials and everyday fashions. The Fiorucci name was a staple in the jet-set world of youth and alternative culture in the New Wave era. However, despite fame and acclaim, poor management and legal issues separated Fiorucci from his brand into the 21st century. Interior design guru Rossana Orlandi said Fiorucci was “the point of reference for an entire generation.” Giorgio Armani called him “revolutionary.” Fiorucci recently celebrated his 80th birthday. Click here to read ten things you need to know about Elio Fiorucci. 

A Thing of Beauty Is A Joy Forever: A Fascinating New Monograph Explores the Life and Work of Underrated British Designer James Irvine

A fascinating new monograph, published by Phaidon, explores the life and work of design legend James Irvine (1958–2013). Indeed, you may not know Irvine by name, but his designs have had a profound influence in the world of both home furnishing as well as technology – he has also had a profound impact on other designers. On top of a beautiful offering of unpublished sketches and images from Irvine’s archives, this new comprehensive tome also includes texts and narratives by contemporary designers who were friends and that worked closely with the iconoclastic designer. For instance, Jasper Morrison tells the story of going to school with Irvine at the Royal Academy of Art and learning of his move to Milan to work for Olivetti – there is also a story about Irvine falling out of a window naked in Barcelona. Another designer, Naoto Fukasawa talks about meeting one of Irvine’s chairs before actually meeting the man – and based on the lines of the chair having a prescient notion of the designer’s friendliness as a person. There is also a great dialogue between Marc Newson, who recently signed on as a design consultant for Apple, and design critic Francesca Picchi on Irvine’s contributions to Olivetti and Toshiba – namely a computer device that looks like an iPad, well before its invention.  From his early work with Ettore Sottsass’ “Associati” to his more mature works for Japanese home and office goods retailer Muji, like a USB powered desk fan or a simple aluminum pen case, this monograph may be the corner piece that helps complete  the jigsaw puzzle of contemporary commercial design. The book is available to purchase here. Follow Autre on Instagram for updates: @autremagazine

An Exclusive Sneak-Peek At the New Fondazione Prada in Milan

For the last two decades, the Fondazione Prada has held numerous ground-breaking exhibitions, but without a permanent place to call home. An avid collector and matriarch of the Prada and Miu Miu brands, Miuccia Prada has been exhibiting artists like Dan Flavin and Anish Kapoor in a ramshackle assortment of shifting industrial buildings in Milan, Venice and elsewhere in the world. Yet, tomorrow will see the opening of a permanent campus in Milan – designed Rem Koolhaas, the new home of the Fondazione Prada will occupy more than 200,000 square-feet of a century-old distillery in Milan, which has been completely transformed by the Dutch architect and his firm OMA. Indeed, there is a lot to explore at the new foundation – including inaugural exhibitions, like Serial Classic, which plays with classic Roman sculpture, you can also view a new Roman Polanski film in the newly added theater, or you can visit the Haunted House – a permanent installation of late the Louise Bourgeois’ sculptural work. After exploring the expansive space, you can stop and have a cocktail at Bar Luce, which has been designed by the director Wes Anderson, and is inspired by the Milanese cafés of the 1970s. Autre was lucky enough to gather a sneak-peek of the space before it’s official opening – browse through photos to see the exhibitions, the architecture and the perfectly kitschy café. photographs by Juanco Viso for Autre Magazine.  

Julius Shulman 'Modernism Rediscovered' @ Taschen in Milan

Julius Shulman’s photography was instrumental in crafting the image of the midcentury Southern California lifestyle across the United States and around the world. Now a selection of Shulman's limited, signed prints are on display in the gallery of the newly opened Taschen Milan. The amazing floors have been designed by artist Jonas Wood. Julius Shulman Modernism Rediscovered will be on view until April 30th, 2016 at Taschen, Via Meravigli 17 20123, Milan, Italy

PART TWO: HIGHLIGHTS FROM SALONE DEL MOBILE 2015 IN MILAN

Part two of our coverage of Salone del Mobile 2015 - see part one here. Every corner of the city - including private palazzos and high end retail establishments – are transformed into an exhibition space showing local and global furniture design. For part two of Autre's coverage, highlights include Armani Casa's unique and classy exhibition feature blueprints from tallest building in the world, street scenes and Tom Dixon's classic furniture pieces floating in space. Full coverage and photos by Juanco Viso for Autre.

Cassina Celebrates Contemporary Icons @ Salone del Mobile

A stage in continuous movement: windows designed by winner Studio Calvi & Brambilla. Exhibit featuring the participating projects of the contest by Interni & Cassina to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the LC Collection, which was on in Milan as part of Salone del Mobile 2015. photographs by Juanco Viso