Art Bites: Maurizio Cattelan, Women in Desing, and Walid Raad

From new contemporary artworks to modernist design, the most relevant news on international contempory art world this week addressed ideas suchs as political issues, design historiography and the and the participation of the State in the shaping of historical narratives through art. On the one hand, Italian most controversial artist Maurizio Cattelan is presenting three artworks for its new exhibition at Pirelli Hangar Bicocca; then the Vitra Design Museum is proposing a review of the history of desing by showing the work of leading women designs. Finally, the Lebanese artist Walid Raad questions the idea of a private collection formed by a State and its relation with the ideas of nationality and identity.

Here is a brief tour for the information:

—Maurizio Cattelan’s new projects for Pireli Hangar Bicocca

For his new exhibitios Breath Ghosts Blind, Maurizio Cattelan (Padua, 1960) has conceived three site-specific projects for the spaces of Pirelli Hangar Bicocca  that gives the audience an insight into collective and personal through a symbolic representation of life.

Bringing together new artworks with the reconfiguration of an historical piece, the show unfolds in a series of acts dealing with existential concepts and issues such as the fragility of life, memory as well as the individual and collective sense of loss. Amongst symbolic references that belong to our collective imagery, the unique site-specific project challenges the current system of values. The three new works are Breath (2021), Ghosts (2021) and Blind (2021).

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—Here We Are! Women in Design

Be it in furniture design, fashion design, industrial design, or interior design, women have contributed crucially to the development of modern design, both creatively and commercially. The Vitra Design Museum is presenting the exhibition Here We Are! Women in Design 1900 – Today, featuring the work of  around 80 women designers from the past 120 years, including  including protagonists of modernism like Eileen Gray, Charlotte Perriand, Lilly Reich, and Clara Porset, business leaders like Florence Knoll and Armi Ratia, but also lesser-known figures like the social reformer Jane Addams. Contemporary positions and future outlooks are represented by such designers as Matali Crasset, Patricia Urquiola, Julia Lohmann, as well as the collectives Matri-Archi(tecture) and Futuress

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—Cotton Under My Feet by Walidad Raad

The exhibition Cotton Under My Feet consists of a new corpus of works by US-lebanese artist Walid Raad, commissioned by TBA21 and specifically conceived for the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza. In Cotton Under My Feet, Raad explores different approaches and representations to historical collective realities surrounding the acquisition of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection by the Spanish State. The exhibition unfolds as an imagined investigation around the historical events and conditions that concerned the sale, transfer, display, and storage of the artworks. Cotton Under My Feet becomes an exploration of several narratives, which expose to the visitor a broad range of images and narratives on the origins and futures of the collection Thyssen-Bornemisza and other large western and non-western art collections in the world.

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Sources: Pirelli Hangar Bicocca, Vitra Design Museum and Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza