The Lightness of Art Bruno Munari – Book launch & Panel

By Center for Italian Modern Art

Sep 18  |  Culture

Bruno Munari: The Lightness of Art

A book launch and conversation with co-editor Pierpaolo Antonello, contributing authors Nicola Lucchi, Ara H. Merjian, Maria Antonella Pelizzari, and panel discussants Greg D’Onofrio and Steven Guarnaccia

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18 / 6 – 8pm

Dubbed a ‘Leonardo Da Vinci and Peter Pan’ of the modern world, Bruno Munari played a key role in practices as wide-ranging as concrete abstraction, kinetic art, multiples and xerograph art. He also gained international recognition in industrial and graphic design, through signature objects such as his Falkland lamp (1964) and Abitacolo (1971), advertising material for firms including Campari, and editorial work for Domus and publishing houses such as Einaudi and Bompiani. Munari left an indelible mark as a design theorist and as a children’s author and educator, through the artistic laboratories he toured globally from the mid-1970s.

Bruno Munari: The Lightness of Art (Peter Lang, 2017) constitutes an unprecedented study of the artist. Through original archival research and illuminating comparisons with other artists and movements both within and outside Italy (from Dada and surrealism to Lucio Fontana, Paolo Gilardi and structural cinema), the essays gathered in this volume offer novel readings of both more familiar aspects of Munari’s career (such as his photo-essays of the 1930s and 1940s) and heretofore neglected aspects (including his light projections and performances). Pierpaolo Antonello will introduce this evening, which coincides with the twentieth anniversary of Munari’s death; his discussion will be followed by short presentations from the evening’s panelists, Nicola Lucchi, Ara H. Merjian, and Maria Antonella Pelizzari, Greg D’Onofrio, and Steven Guarnaccia. More information here.

Free; RSVP required.

Please note this event will be livestreamed on CIMA’s Facebook page and copies of Bruno Munari: The Lightness of Art will be on sale before and after the panel discussion.

The Center for Italian Modern Art (CIMA) is a 501c3 public nonprofit exhibition and research center established in 2013 in New York City to promote public appreciation and advance the study of modern and contemporary Italian art in the United States and internationally.