D’DAYS x CHARLES ZANA “VASI E FIORI” AT MUSÉE DELACROIX

For DDays 2014, Charles Zana is presenting a collection of vases from Andrea Branzi, Alessandro Mendini, Michele De Lucchi and Ettore Sottsass in the Musée Delacroix in Paris. Their work offers a very personal and responsive vision of society and the contemporary environment.

With this exhibition, under its poetic title, Charles Zana wants to show design’s ability to examine our emotions in sanctifying domestic objects. Since 1970s design has disrupted its codes, creating new forms of expression. To the everyday consumer objects have been added those called “exceptional”, those that defy the laws of design, playing with form, material and perception, rather than being concerned only with function. In flirting with the codes of contemporary art, these objects shift the boundaries of the discipline. Thus a new genre appears, in an area traditionally linked to industry and serial production, a kind of bridge spanning art and design, which designers confidently traverse, passing from one bank to the other and producing objects of strong artistic vocation.

Ettore Sottsass liberated design of its functionalist and formalist conventions.
Andrea Branzi associated theoretical reflection with a complex practice, where design simultaneously included function, aesthetics, meaning and emotions.
Alessandro Mendini chose re-design, mixing, somewhat provocatively, high and decorative arts.
Michele De Lucchi focused on a self-production approach, a way of preserving his deep convictions, the fragility of the craftsman’s process.