1 October 2008 - 8 February 2009




GAMeC – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo will hold the exhibition Pio Manzù. When the World was Modern, curated by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio, Beppe Finessi and Enrico Fagone, from 1 October 2008 to 8 February 2009. The exhibition will follow the career of Pio Manzù, the internationally renowned designer, at the same time as the solo exhibition is held dedicated to his father, the sculptor Giacomo Manzù.
The Pio Manzù archive, currently held at GAMeC, permits a full examination of Manzù's creative work to be made, which, in its short duration, spanned design, photography and graphics. The exhibition will be arranged thematically in the four rooms on the second floor at GAMeC, and relate his work to that of other international designers and artists.
The first room will display Manzù's early work while he was studying at Ulm, and will exhibit his designs, notes, sketches and theories in relation to his work for lecturers and professors Max Bill and Tomas Maldonado, colleagues Giovanni Anceschi and Mavigner, and artists and designers Getulio Alviani, Enzo Mari, Gruppo T (Giovanni Ancheschi, Davide Boriani, Gabriele De Vecchi, Grazia Varisco) and Gruppo N (Alberto Biasi, Edoardo Landi, Manfredo Massironi, Ennio Chiggio, Toni Cosata)
The second and third rooms will be devoted to the central plank of Manzù's work – the car designs that brought him international prizes and honours. Drawings, designs, photographs and models will be displayed relating to the Fiat 127 and tractors, and the projects for Autonova vehicles, taxis and buses, many of which were produced and met with commercial success. All his vehicles were pioneers in one way or another, and the invention of the enclosed cockpit for a tractor – which had until then always left the driver open to the elements – immediately reduced driver deaths by 30% by protecting him if the tractor overturned.
The fourth room will host original objects, prototypes, designs and designer products of household items that have become classics in our homes.

The catalogue, published by Electa Milano, includes contributions by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio, Enrico Fagone, Beppe Finessi and Mario Cresci. Text and images are dedicated to the conception and development of a wide selection of Pio Manzù's projects.


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Biographical notes
After schooling in Milan, Manzù (1939–1969) was the first Italian to graduate in Industrial Design at the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm. His dissertation was a design for a "safe tractor" based around the driver's needs and safety. This was the origin of the protective roll bar in tractors which, like in racing cars, rises above the driver's head. In 1962, with his friend Conrad, Manzù won the international "Année Automobile" design competition for a car, the prize for which was that it would be manufactured by Carrozzeria Pininfarina and exhibited at the London and Turin car shows. The following year Manzù won the prize in the cultural section of the German Industrial Association for the prototype of a mid-sized engine vehicle, the Austin Healey 3000 Coupé. In 1965 he produced a design for a family car, the Autonova Fam, and two years later, once again with Conrad, he won the City of Hamburg competition for the design of a city bus.
In 1967 he was appointed a consultant to Fiat with the freedom to design and experiment freely. For the Turin company he designed the City Taxi and Autobianchi Coupé, both of which were displayed at the Italian Car Show. During this period he also designed domestic objects, such as the first Italian transistor radio, the Cronotime, manufactured by Ritz Italora and exhibited at the MoMA in New York.
Pio Manzù's rigorous approach to design required the solving of functional problems based on ergonomic methodology, i.e., the functional design of the man-machine interface and all its related psychological and physical factors.
His car designs not only provided the required functionality but took into account the broader question of traffic and its flows, which, Manzù claimed, no designer could ignore.
In short time frames and with few resources Manzù produced many designs and became known internationally. He was already considered a rising talent in the world of car design when he was killed in a car accident before the age of thirty.

Curator
Giacinto Di Pietrantonio, Beppe Finessi, Enrico Fagone

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GAMeC – Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo
Via S. Tomaso, 53
24121 Bergamo
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www.gamec.it