Quello nato a Milano nel 1907
Quello delle Macchine inutili del 1930
Quello dei nuovi libri per bambini del 1945
Quello dell'Ora X del 1945
Quello delle Scritture illeggibili di popoli sconosciuti del 1947
Quello dei Libri illeggibili del 1949
Quello delle Pitture negative-positive del 1950
Quello delle Aritmie meccaniche del 1951
Quello delle Proiezioni a luce polarizzata del 1952
Quello delle fontane e giochi d'acqua del 1954
Quello delle Ricostruzioni teoriche di oggetti immaginari in base a frammenti di residui di origine incerta e di uso dubbio
Quello delle Forchette parlanti del 1958
Quello del design
Quello delle Sculture da viaggio del 1958
Quello dei Fossili del duemila del 1959
Quello delle Strutture continue del 1961
Quello delle Xerografie originali del 1964
Quello degli Antenati del 1966
Quello della Flexy del 1968
Quello della grafica editoriale Einaudi
Quello dell'Abitacolo del 1971
Quello dei giochi didattici di Danese
Quello dei Messaggi tattili per non vedenti del 1976
Quello dei bonsai
Quello dei laboratori per bambini al museo del 1977
e di tutti gli altri laboratori in altri paesi
Quello delle Rose nell'insalata del 1974
Quello della Lampada di maglia del 1964
Quello dell'Olio su tela del 1980
Quello del corso di design alla Harvard University del 1967
Quello premiato col Compasso d'Oro,
con una menzione onorevole
dall'Accademia delle Scienze di New York
Quello premiato dalla Japan Design Foundation
per l'intenso valore umano del suo design
Quello del premio Andersen per il migliore autore per l'infanzia
Quello del premio Lego
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He was born in Milan in 1907.
He produced "Useless Machines" in 1930.
He wrote new children's books in 1945.
He produced "Ora X" in 1945.
He produced "Illegible Writings of Unknown People" in 1947.
He produced "Illegible Books" in 1949.
He produced "Positive Negative Paintings" in 1950.
He produced "Mechanical Arhythmias" in 1951.
He produced "Polarized Light Projections" in 1952.
He produced "Fountains" in 1954.
He produced "Talking Forks" in 1958.
He produced "Travel Sculptures" in 1958.
He produced "Twenty-first Century Fossils" in 1959.
He produced "Continuous Structures" in 1961.
He produced "Original Xerographs" in 1964.
He produced "Forefathers" in 1966.
He produced the publisher Einaudi's graphic design.
He produced "Cockpit" in 1971.
He produced Danese's teaching games.
He produced "Tactile Messages for the Blind" in 1976.
He produced "Children's Workshops in the Museum" in 1977 and all the other workshops in other countries.
He produced the "Jersey Lamp" in 1964.
He taught a course in design at Harvard University in 1967.
He received the Compasso d'Oro and Honorable Mention from the New York Academy of Sciences.
He received an award from the Japan Design Foundation for the intensely human value of his creations.
He received the Andersen Award for being the best author of children's books.
Bruno Munari (Milan 1907 – 1998) grows up as an artist in the Second Futurism which influences him with a great interest in the object and its complex definition and identification of features, qualities and meanings.
In 1925 he knows Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, makes friends with Giacomo Balla and Enrico Prampolini, the most influential artists in his early years. From 1927 onwards he participates to Futurist group exhibitions at the Galleria Pesaro (Milan), at the Venice Biennial and at the Rome and Paris Quadriennial exhibitions.
In 1930 he starts to create his first Aerial Machines then called Useless Machines, conceived as abstract, three-dimensional, mobile paintings in space that anticipate his idea of environmental art. These machines, which made him famous in the art circles at that time, are different from those on that amusing book where Munari invents The agitator of tail for lazy dogs and The engine for tired tortoises.
In 1939 he becomes art director of the magazine Tempo. He collaboratess with Max Huber to create the image of the publishing house Einaudi. Ora X, his first kinetic multiple, dates back to 1945; the Illegible Books date from 1948-49. In 1948 he founds with Gillo Dorfles, Gianni Monnet and Atanasio Soldati the MAC (Concrete Art Movement) spread all over the world even today.
In 1947 exploring the issue of a work that interacts with the surrounding space, he probably makes the first installation in art history, Concave-Convex: a metallic net hung on the ceiling of a squared room illuminated by puntiform sources which projects a shadow on the walls through a spontaneous movement. From shadow he comes to conceive light installation: Direct Projections (1950) and then Polarized Light Projections (1953).
The Arhythmias, the three-dimensional Continuos Structures, the experiments Negative-Positive, many experimental movies, the design of kinetic art objects and his famous Travelling Sculptures in cardboard, wood and pliable metal date from 1951. After that he produces the Original Xerographies, the Polariscopes, the flexible objects called Flexy, children games and many other art objects.
With this intensive research on design and visual experimenting goes a constant and fertile activity in editoria graphics, displays and essays. Design and Visual Communication (1968), Art as a craft (1966), Artist and Designer (1971), Obviuos Code (1971) are among his most important writings.
He received prizes and awards from all over the world: the Japan Design Foundation Prize (1985), the Lego Prize for his remarkable contribution to develop children's creativity (1986), the one from the Academy of the Lincei for the graphics (1988), the Spiel Gut Award of Ulm (1971, 1973, 1987) and, in 1989, the honorary degree in Architecture at the University of Genoa.
Bruno Munari (Milano 1907 – 1998)
Italian sculptor, painter, film maker and designer. His artistic ambition was influenced by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti whom he met in Milan in the mid-1920s. Munari formally allied himself with the second generation of Futurists in 1927 and continued to exhibit with them into the 1930s. Few works of Munari’s remain from this period, as most were made from transient materials. One extant work in tempera from 1932 (see Tanchis, p. 13) suggests that Munari had fully adopted Futurist aesthetics. Several other examples from the 1930s, however, show a clear debt to Surrealism.
In his sculpture from 1930 Munari adopted a different attitude. Aerial Machine (1930; see Tanchis, p. 21), for example, indicates a move towards a Constructivist aesthetic. This elegant object is a precursor of his Useless Machines, the first of which was executed in 1933. Constructed of painted cardboard and other lightweight materials, they served to liberate abstract forms in three dimensions. Moreover, they were meant to integrate with the surrounding environment through their kinetic action.
After World War II Munari concentrated on industrial design. An early example is X Hour (1945; see Tanchis, pp. 72–3), an alarm clock with rotating half-discs in lieu of hands. In 1963, as part of an effort to bring the best in design to the Italian public, X Hour was produced as a multiple. Other objects by Munari that were not strictly utilitarian were also mass-produced, such as the Flexy (1968; see 1986 exh. cat., pp. 82–3), a flexible metal wire structure that could be set in any number of positions. After 1949 Munari began to investigate Gestalt theory through a series of experimental works entitled Negative Positive, in which he attempted to achieve absolute parity between figure and ground. In Negative Positive (1950; see Tanchis, p. 55), for example, the areas of dark and light are equal.
As early as the 1930s, Munari had been trying out radical innovations in graphics and typography, but it was not until after World War II that he began to design and produce book-objects. His children’s books were simple, provocative learning tools. His books for adults, on the other hand, were useless objects, Unreadable Books, which were meant to challenge the very concept of a book. In 1950 Munari began to experiment with light projection through coloured plastic to create coloured-light compositions. The use of polarized light, special lenses and motorization enabled him to achieve more complex and variable results and led to the production of his first coloured-light film, I colori della luce (1963) with electronic music.
The principle of public access to the means of visual communication was very important to Munari, who believed anyone could produce objects of aesthetic value, given the proper technological advantages. Following this principle, in 1964 Munari began to install photocopiers at exhibition sites, including the Central Pavilion of the 35th Venice Biennale in 1970.
Bruno Munari: Opere, 1930–1986 exh. cat., ed. M. Meneguzzo and T. Quirico; Milan, Palazzo Reale, 1986
A. Tanchis. Bruno Munari: Design as Art Cambridge, MA, 1987
source: MoMa NY
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Bruno Munari, xerografia originale 1990
Autoritratto da una foto di Ugo Mulas
coll. priv.
Bruno Munari (Milano 1907 – 1998)
È stato uno dei massimi protagonisti dell'arte, del design e della grafica del XX secolo, dando contributi fondamentali in diversi campi dell'espressione visiva (pittura, scultura, cinematografia, design industriale, grafica) e non visiva (scrittura, poesia, didattica) con una ricerca poliedrica sul tema del movimento, della luce e dello sviluppo della creatività e della fantasia nell'infanzia attraverso il gioco. Bruno Munari è figura leonardesca tra le più importanti del novecento italiano. Assieme allo spaziale Lucio Fontana, Bruno Munari il perfettissimo domina la scena milanese degli anni cinquanta-sessanta; sono gli anni del boom economico in cui nasce la figura dell’artista operatore-visivo che diventa consulente aziendale e che contribuisce attivamente alla rinascita industriale italiana del dopoguerra. Munari partecipa giovanissimo al movimento futurista, dal quale si distacca con senso di levità ed umorismo, inventando la macchina aerea (1930), primo mobile nella storia dell'arte, e le macchine inutili (1933). Verso la fine degli anni ‘40 fonda il MAC (Movimento Arte Concreta) che funge da coalizzatore delle istanze astrattiste italiane prospettando una sintesi delle arti, in grado di affiancare alla pittura tradizionale nuovi strumenti di comunicazione ed in grado di dimostrare agli industriali la possibilità di una convergenza tra arte e tecnica. Nel 1947 realizza Concavo-convesso, una delle prime installazioni nella storia dell'arte, quasi coeva, benché precedente, all'ambiente nero che Lucio Fontana presenta nel 1949 alla Galleria Naviglio di Milano. E' il segno evidente che la problematica di un'arte che si fa ambiente e in cui il fruitore è sollecitato, non solo mentalmente, ma in modo ormai multi-sensoriale, è ormai matura. Nel 1950 realizza la pittura proiettata attraverso composizioni astratte racchiuse tra i vetrini delle diapositive e scompone la luce grazie all'uso del filtro Polaroid realizzando nel 1952 la pittura polarizzata, che presenta al MoMA nel 1954 con la mostra Munari's Slides. È considerato uno dei principali protagonisti dell’arte programmata e cinetica, ma sfugge per la molteplicità delle sue attività e per la sua grande ed intensa creatività ad ogni definizione, ad ogni catalogazione.
source: Wikipedia it
Autoritratto da una foto di Ugo Mulas
coll. priv.
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