It’s about an endless historical movement
a cura di Giorgia Antonini and Giulia Ferlito
In the field of design, counterculture was the sum of visionary experiences and innovative projects which, at a given historical time – say roughly between the 1960s and 1970s – ran counter to the dominant thought i.e. the hegemony of rational and functional design, as well as of merely utilitarian market interests, causing the culture of design to be flooded with emotions, dreams, the abnormal, the odd, the non-conformist, the non-standard (in the manner of Pesce), the excessive (in the manner of Branzi). Counterculture in my view was and is all that is explosive, that breaks the mould, changes direction, sets new standards. Caravaggio, for instance, was counterculture with regard to his times. He was the symbol, in my view, of the explosive force that innovative thought can have on the art and culture created by a given society.
Today it’s hard to say. Sometimes we find countercultural elements in the system, too. You can find this innovative strength also where you least expect to. But you must always pay attention to the ‘here and now’: what may be seen as counterculture nowadays in Teheran or Hong Kong may not be so in Milan or Zurich. In any event, in order to be able to speak of counterculture, there needs to be a view of the world and society which doesn’t conform to the dominant one.
As I said, the signs are all around us. Counterculture is part of action-reaction-counteraction cultural movements. It’s a cyclical trend that allows for moulds to be broken and for new ones to assert themselves. In advertising, art, music and the visual arts. Seeds of counterculture may be found in every form of contemporary expression.
When we opened the Triennale Design Museum in 2007 we decided that it would a different kind of museum. The idea came after studying existing design museums internationally. I understood that a museum which does not display works of art according to the canon, but artefacts and projects whose value comes from historicizing the object, its technical evolution, its ability to be both a functional and aesthetic project, needed to be treated in an innovative, different, unique way. I didn’t want it to be a mere sequence of objects. I didn’t want visits to happen just once in a lifetime. I didn’t want a single viewpoint. I didn’t want to have a roundup of icons. I wanted instead an emotive museum which would recount various features of the history of design and therefore our country’s history. A museum that would ask questions and set new paths. That would tell many tales whilst trying to put together a new account of Italian design, and that would meanwhile outline new historical interpretations. Right from its first edition, set up by Italo Rota with contributions by Italian and foreign film directors – from Greenaway to Olmi and Martone to name a few – I built up tales not only from the world of design but also from different other fields.
I’d like to think that it would have brought about what it has generated at present: debates, discussions, controversy, too. I think it would have been enthusiastically welcomed by some and ferociously criticized by others: just as was the case in 2007. In its 11 years, the Triennale Design Museum has been able to make people think, discuss and measure itself against other standards. At a time of absolute absence of discussion and critical practice, the proactive and non-conformist energy of the Triennale Design Museum seems to me perfectly synergetic with the humus of counterculture.
I think that in design you can bring back to the notion of counterculture all those movements that after 1968, in the wake of student and social unrest, gave rise to planning practices that disrupted conventions and dominant hierarchies. I’m thinking, for instance, of Radical design and its willingness to oppose the rule of rational and functionalist design to enable the emotional dimension to also break into the culture of design. It’s a strand of cultural antagonism that would then be resumed and revived by groups such as Alchimia and Memphis, united in rejecting dominant models and therefore characterised by a genesis that would make them almost necessarily “innovative”. The fact that some exponents of these movements would later become institutionalised, conform to or be integrated into the system is a fate that designers have shared with the exponents of many 20 th century vanguards. As someone said: “you were born an arsonist and will die a firefighter…”. I believe however that the system has a built-in need – if it’s a healthy system – to draw from what was born “outside” and perhaps even “against” to renew itself. A system that does not, cannot, or does not wish to do so, is set to decline and become outdated.
I think they should be sought in cracks. In cracks in the system. In enclaves working with a view to self-production and who reject market needs, rightful though these are. But they are niche experiences, at times they are individual testimonies, there are no movements nor is there a network of opposing experiences as may have been the case in the 1970s. I have a feeling that nowadays there’s more willingness around to be part of the system than to fight or change it…
A museum born out of an institution is in itself an expression of the system. But a formula that attempts to unhinge dominant museological and museographic axioms is also an expression of counterculture. It’s this hybrid character – I think – that gave strength and uniqueness to the “transformative museum”: its being inside and outside, institutional and countercultural at the same time.
Study the masters.
Be aware of history. Get to know not only the history of art, but also graphic and visual arts, advertising. And then try to come up with an original thought.
The 1968 Triennale. The theme tackled by the 14th Triennale was that of The Greater Number (Il Grande Numero): in art, architecture, urban design, crafts, industrial production. An anticipatory theme which was the precursor of developments that are still current today. But nobody saw that International Exhibition, important though it was. Students broke into the institution. They prevented it from opening. They turned it into ground for discord against the system.
Counterculture never dies. The mechanism of action-reaction leads to progress. Every revolutionary movement has its reaction. Every conservatism leads to a rupture and successive restoration. It’s about an endless historical movement.