Maria Cristina Didero | |
---|---|
Alma mater | |
Occupation | Curator, writer, filmmaker |
Employer |
|
Works | Superdesign: Italian radical design 1965-75, Superdesign: Italian radical design 1965-75, We the others |
Maria Cristina Didero is an Italian curator, historian, author, and design scholar. [1] She is curatorial director for Design Miami. [2] Didero is quoted as saying that, "design is all about people, not about chairs." [3] [4]
Didero grew up in Rimini. She attended and graduated from the University of Bologna, from which she received a degree in literature and philosophy. [5] [6] [7] She lives and works in Milan, where she moved in 1999. [8] She is an expert in Italian design with a focus on the Radical period. [9] [8]
Her curatorial work has involved close collaboration with contemporary designers including Daniel Arsham, the Campana brothers, Richard Hutten, Philippe Malouin, Oki Sato, Bethan Laura Wood, and Michael Young. [10] [11] She has curated exhibitions such as Nendo: The Space in Between and The Conversation Show at the Design Museum Holon, Israel; [12] [13] [8] Al(l) Projects with Aluminum (featuring the British designer Michael Young) at the Centre d'Innovation et de Design [14] at Grand-Hornu in Belgium, [15] [16] [17] and FUN HOUSE by Snarkitecture at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., [13] Take a Seat at the Galleria D’Arte Moderna in Turin; [18] [19] as well as exhibitions at the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg (MK&G), [20] [21] and the Museum of Applied Arts in Dresden. [22] [23] She has also been a guest curator and expert consultant for exhibitions staged by commercial galleries such as SuperDesign at the R & Company gallery in New York. [24] [25] [26] [27]
She worked at Vitra Design Museum for 14 years, after which she became the executive director of the Fondazione Bisazza . [10] [7] She has also worked as a design consultant with companies and organisations such as DesignSingapore Council, Vitra, Fritz Hansen, Lexus, Fendi, Louis Vuitton, and Valextra. [28] [1] She as also served on design panels, mentorship programmes, and juries for awards such as Experimenta Design, Design Anthology, the Dezeen awards, the Lexus Design Award, and the Compasso d'Oro. [29] [30] [31]
In 2022 she was appointed curatorial director for Design Miami. [32] [33] She and fellow curator Annalisa Rosso created a digital virtual exposition platform called Perfettooo which is a venue for designers "to conceive a dream project to be realised in a mutable ideal space, shaped around their needs and therefore perfectly tailored for their collections." [34] [35]
She co-curated (with Richard Hutten) an exhibition for Milan Design Week 2023 called Droog30: Design or Non-design at the Triennale di Milano. [36] [1] Also in 2023, she and Tony Chambers collaborated with the Singapore Design Council for the exhibition Future Impact; [37] and an exhibition about the work of the Greek designers On Entropy (sisters Niki and Zoe Moskofoglou) called A Future for the Past. [38] [39]
In 2024 she curated the inaugural Tohoku edition of the Craft x Tech initiative, first exhibited at Kudan House in Tokyo. [40] [41] [1] The initiative pairs international artists and designers with Japanese master craftspeople and "aims to fuse Japan’s traditional crafts heritage with progressive technology, with the goal of helping endangered artisan techniques survive and thrive in modern times." [42] [43]
Reflecting on the "Golden Age" theme of her Art Basel / Design Miami curatorial debut, she is quoted as saying, "It’s aspirational, a wish and a direct invitation for us to communally consider how we could live more harmoniously with each other and Planet Earth. At the core of the theme is the idea that periods of crisis are followed by periods of great revival and progress. I hope that it taps into an optimism within the society at large. The answers to our current challenges lie in innovation within the arts, design, and, technology and respect for people’s work and lives." [10]
Didero is a prolific writer who has covered topics ranging from disability and resilience; the Radical Italian design movement; contemporary design practice and sustainability; to "how an object comes to be and the creators behind these as storytellers, instead of just the object itself". [3] She has written for Domus magazine [13] and was editor-at-large at ICON Design from 2018 to 2020 [44] She has been the Italian editor for Wallpaper magazine since 2021. [45] [46] [47]
She is the host of a podcast called "Design Forward", which is published by the Salone del Mobile in Milan. [48]
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (July 2024) |
Mario Bellini is an Italian architect and designer. After graduating from the Polytechnic University of Milan in 1959, Bellini pursued a career as an architect, exhibition designer, product designer, and furniture designer during the Italian economic boom of the late 20th century. Bellini has received several accolades in a variety of design fields, including eight Compasso d'Oro awards and the Gold Medal for Lifetime Achievement by the Triennale di Milano. In 2019, the Italian President of the Chamber of Deputies, Roberto Fico, awarded Bellini a career medal in recognition of his contributions to Italian architecture and design.
Superstudio was an architectural firm, founded in 1966 in Florence, Italy by Adolfo Natalini and Cristiano Toraldo di Francia. Gian Piero Frassinelli, Alessandro, and Roberto Magris, Alessandro Poli later joined.
Gaetano Pesce was an Italian architect and a design pioneer of the 20th century. Pesce was born in La Spezia in 1939, and he grew up in Padua and Florence. During his 50-year career, Pesce worked as an architect, urban planner, and industrial designer. His outlook is considered broad and humanistic, and his work is characterized by an inventive use of color and materials, asserting connections between the individual and society, through art, architecture, and design to reappraise mid-twentieth-century modern life.
Antonio Citterio is an Italian architect, furniture designer and industrial designer who lives and works in Milan.
Richard G. J. Hutten is a Dutch industrial designer, art director, and artist who is active in furniture design, product design, interior design, and exhibition design.
The Milan Furniture Fair is a furniture fair held annually in Milan. It is the largest trade fair of its kind in the world. The exhibition showcases the latest in furniture and design from countries around the world. It is considered a leading venue for the display of new products by designers of furniture, lighting and other home furnishings. The show, also known as "Salone", "Milano Salone" and "Milan Design Week", is held every year, usually in April, in the FieraMilano complex in the Milan metropolitan area town of Rho. Besides the Salone, in April every odd year Euroluce exhibition takes place and every even year EuroCucina and the International Bathroom Exhibition are held along the Milan Furniture Fair.
In Italian design, the Radical period took place in the late 1960s, with a shift in style among the avant-garde. Probably the most notable result of this avant-garde period is the installation called "Superarchitettura", made in Pistoia in 1966. Another important exhibition dedicated to radical design in Italy was held at MoMA in 1972.
Alberto Meda is an Italian engineer and designer. His work is held in museums around the world. He works and lives in Milan.
Gufram is an Italian furniture manufacturer known for avant-garde, conceptual, witty, and Pop-art influenced designs; the unconventional use of industrial materials; collaborations with well known architects and designers; and the contribution its products made to the aesthetics of the 1960s Radical period of Italian design.
Michael Young is a British industrial designer and creative director based in Hong Kong. He works in the areas of product, furniture and interior design with studios in Hong Kong and Brussels. He is known for unconventional use of materials and manufacturing processes, and collaborations with brands such as Brionvega, Cappellini, KEF, La Manufacture, and MOKE International. He is interested in "how disruption in society always has a design response, because it usually creates a need for things that perform."
The École cantonale d'art de Lausanne (ÉCAL) is a university of art and design located in the Renens suburb of Lausanne, Switzerland. It was founded in 1821 and is affiliated with the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Western Switzerland (HES-SO). The designer Alexis Georgacopoulos is the director of ÉCAL.
Maria Cristina Finucci is an artist, architect and designer based in Rome. She is the founder of the Garbage Patch State.
Grazia Varisco is an Italian visual artist and designer.
Paola Navone is an Italian architect and designer. She was born 1950 in Turin, Italy.
Studio 65 (Studiosessanta5) is an Italian architecture studio. It was founded in 1965 in Turin as an avant-garde experimental collective of architects, designers, poets and artists. Its founders were Franco Audrito, Roberta Garosci, Enzo Bertone, Paolo Morello, and Paolo Rondelli.
Osvaldo Borsani (1911-1985) was an Italian architect and furniture designer.
Inimfon "Ini" Joshua Archibong is an industrial designer, creative director, artist and musician who is active in product design, furniture design, environmental design, architecture, watch design, and fashion.
Sabine Marcelis is a Dutch artist and designer. She has worked with brands and companies such as Céline, IKEA, Isabel Marant, Stella McCartney, and Renault. Her style typically includes pastel colours, minimalist shapes, and materials such as resin and glass, while her work focuses on themes of transparency, reflection, and translucency. She has described her work as “an investigation of light, how it can create effects and atmospheres."
Marva Griffin is an arts administrator, curator, and founder of the SaloneSatellite exhibition at the annual Milan Furniture Fair in Italy. She has been described as, "the mastermind behind the world’s largest design fair [and] an outspoken friend to undiscovered designers."
Beatrice Galilee is a British curator and international writer on design and architecture. She is the co-founder and executive director of The World Around, and the author of Radical Architecture of the Future.