Carlo Mollino
by Paolo Frello
The extravaganza of Carlo Mollino: designer, architect, genius obsessed with drugs, sex and extreme decoration.
Crazy, artistic, stingy, obsessed with taxes. Sex maniac, master architect,
drug addict, genius. Carlo Mollino (1905-1973) is one of the most colorful
figures in the world of architecture and Italian design.
He spent his life in the tranquil city of Torino, where a character such
as he had few hopes to fit in. Even today, 20 years after his death, there
has been little effort made to keep the memory of this extraordinary person
alive. Quite to the contrary, many of his architectural works have fallen
into a state of disrepair.
As so often is the case, Mollino has found success abroad, being greatly
appreciated in other countries. Auction houses have sold some of his pieces
at head-spinning prices and it seems that a famous American collector has
accquired a good part of "erotic polaroids" made by Mollino during
his nocturnal diversions. Over the coming months, two galleries in London
and New York are presenting retrospectives of this unusual man' work.
Graduated with a degree in architecture with highest marks in 1931, Mollino
immediately distanced himself from his father' s legacy: Eugenio Mollino
was the proprietor of a prominent engineering company who built an incredible
number of stately buildings as well as Torino's main hospital.
His first apartment, in 1936,was splendid: realized with the walls covered in colored
velvet, ceilings draped with fine cloth, draperies of perforated fabric,
a lighting system which consisted of a single lamp running along a track
across the ceiling in a great arc. Apart from his great attention to the
decorative aspects of his work, Mollino based his work on the idea of enabling
the occupant to manipulate volumes at whim.
An avid skier, Mollino designed a strange device for walking on snow, and
several racing cars. Paola and Rossella Colombari, two Milanese gallerists
have produced, in the course of their exhaustive research into the field
of design, several of Mollino's design objects using contemporary construction
criteria. One such example is the Cadma lamp, worked in parchment, brass
and marble, along with the Devalle sofa done in red and green velvet .
A legacy of legends recounting tales of Mollino's quirky personnage remains,
while as a designer, his unmistakeable style and philosophy remain something
that still inspires many present designers.
Carlo Mollino was an architect born in Italy at the turn of the century. He died in 1973. This show of his photographs, curated by Rob Beyer, focuses on his relationship to women. In large gold toned black and white prints, women glamorously dressed in 30's and 40's evening wear feature introspective expressions on their faces. What they are pondering is clarified by two close-ups of a woman's face near a miniature wood dummy cowered in fear. Jump cut to small polaroids of nymphettes with 60's and 70's hairdos. Where the women of Mollino's youth seem absorbed in self contemplation, with threatening consequences for the harmless male, the girls of his maturity flaunt their sexuality in outlandish poses and costumes whose references span the history of pop art. While the nudity displayed is minimal, the pictures are erotic. The catalyst of the threat to men, mollino hints, is palyful seduction.
IMAGINE that Salvador Dali had set out to be an architect and had been a champion skier, and a racing driver able to win the Le Mans 24-hour race in a car he had designed, and you have a reasonable idea of what to expect from Carlo Mollino, the bad boy of Italian design, whose career is celebrated in an exhibition at the Pompidou Centre in Paris until the end of next month. The title--L'Etrange Univers de Carlo Mollino--says it all. Mollino, born in 1905, was at heart a wealthy dilettante with a highly original talent that took him from brilliance to kitsch. He was interested in the occult, and to judge by his collection of lingerie catalogues and the photographs he took of women, something of an erotomane. Not the sort of thing puritanical modernism was meant to encompass. What made him so disturbing and disruptive was that it was impossible to write him off. He was capable of producing architecture of brilliance. The car he designed is an astonishing piece of bravura--half bullet, half aircraft wing. In 1937 he produced the dazzling Turin Riding School, now demolished. Few of his interiors survive. His furniture has had the greatest longevity and is beginning to command enormous prices.-Deyan Sudjic, The Independent, 17th November 1989.
Carlo Mollino was an architect born in Italy at the turn of the century. He died in 1973. This show of his photographs, curated by Rob Beyer, focuses on his relationship to women. In large gold toned black and white prints, women glamorously dressed in 30's and 40's evening wear feature introspective expressions on their faces. What they are pondering is clarified by two close-ups of a woman's face near a miniature wood dummy cowered in fear. Jump cut to small polaroids of nymphettes with 60's and 70's hairdos. Where the women of Mollino's youth seem absorbed in self contemplation, with threatening consequences for the harmless male, the girls of his maturity flaunt their sexuality in outlandish poses and costumes whose references span the history of pop art. While the nudity displayed is minimal, the pictures are erotic. The catalyst of the threat to men, Mollino hints, is playful seduction.
The extravaganza of Carlo Mollino: designer, architect, genius obsessed with drugs, sex and extreme decoration.
Collage is an art form in which the artist creates or takes a number of items and places them together within the boundaries of paper, frame or screen. The goal is to craft a message or feeling by the very patterns, content and often unexpected interaction
Collage DaDa
Art
MoJo DaDaist collage 89
Art
MoJo DaDaist collage1989
Art
MoJo DaDa collage1992
Art
DaDa 1991
Art
DaDa collage1995
Art
Pure DaDa collage
Art
DaDa 1991
Art
1991 DaDa
Art
Collage 1990
Art
Collage 1991
Art
Friends
Running Dialogue Collage DaDa
Art
Running Dialogue 2
Art
Running Dialogue 3
Art
Collage 1988
Art
Collage a
Art
1986 DaDa part II
Art
DaDa 1986
Art
Collage b
Art
Collage 1988 dada
Art
Collage 1988 Dada Part 4
Art
Collage C
Art
Collage 1991-90
Art
Collage 1991-90 Part 2 b
Art
Collage 1991-90 Part 3
Art
Collage 1991-90 Part 4
Art
Collage M 1991 Dada
Art
Collage DaDa
Art
Collage 1991 - 1992 B
Art
Collage 1991 - 1992
Art
Collage 1988
Art
Collage 87 a
Art
Collage 87 b
Art
Collage 1987
Art
Catskill Mountains Photographs
Art
- Daily DreamTime
- Art Resume
- Work Resume
- Photographic Memories
- Addict Review
- Sifnos Review
- Samantha's story
junkie java quiz
super cool links
Chris keeley's resume
secret surrealist society artwork
dead friends
newest sss art
Chris keeley's art galleries
rationalize,minimize and denial statements
the Intervention Organization
five and ten press - consulting iconoclast
Chris Keeley's Social Documentary Photography
activism
Art links
Big brother
Blinded by Science
Darkside / Gothic
Dharma Road
G E E K
Maul
Music
Pirate
radio
W E I R D O
What's Mailart
Mailart List
Scanner Links
Drugs
Photographs
Art
Out of the Dark
Art
In to the Light
Art
Collage DaDa
Art
Send me email!
Return to Intervention Organization
Carlo Mollino
by Paolo Frello
The extravaganza of Carlo Mollino: designer, architect, genius obsessed with drugs, sex and extreme decoration.
Crazy, artistic, stingy, obsessed with taxes. Sex maniac, master architect, drug addict, genius. Carlo Mollino (1905-1973) is one of the most colorful figures in the world of architecture and Italian design.
He spent his life in the tranquil city of Torino, where a character such as he had few hopes to fit in. Even today, 20 years after his death, there has been little effort made to keep the memory of this extraordinary person alive. Quite to the contrary, many of his architectural works have fallen into a state of disrepair.
As so often is the case, Mollino has found success abroad, being greatly appreciated in other countries. Auction houses have sold some of his pieces at head-spinning prices and it seems that a famous American collector has accquired a good part of "erotic polaroids" made by Mollino during his nocturnal diversions. Over the coming months, two galleries in London and New York are presenting retrospectives of this unusual man' work.
Graduated with a degree in architecture with highest marks in 1931, Mollino immediately distanced himself from his father' s legacy: Eugenio Mollino was the proprietor of a prominent engineering company who built an incredible number of stately buildings as well as Torino's main hospital.
His first apartment, in 1936,was splendid: realized with the walls covered in colored velvet, ceilings draped with fine cloth, draperies of perforated fabric, a lighting system which consisted of a single lamp running along a track across the ceiling in a great arc. Apart from his great attention to the decorative aspects of his work, Mollino based his work on the idea of enabling the occupant to manipulate volumes at whim.
An avid skier, Mollino designed a strange device for walking on snow, and several racing cars. Paola and Rossella Colombari, two Milanese gallerists have produced, in the course of their exhaustive research into the field of design, several of Mollino's design objects using contemporary construction criteria. One such example is the Cadma lamp, worked in parchment, brass and marble, along with the Devalle sofa done in red and green velvet .
A legacy of legends recounting tales of Mollino's quirky personnage remains, while as a designer, his unmistakeable style and philosophy remain something that still inspires many present designers.
Carlo Mollino was an architect born in Italy at the turn of the century. He died in 1973. This show of his photographs, curated by Rob Beyer, focuses on his relationship to women. In large gold toned black and white prints, women glamorously dressed in 30's and 40's evening wear feature introspective expressions on their faces. What they are pondering is clarified by two close-ups of a woman's face near a miniature wood dummy cowered in fear. Jump cut to small polaroids of nymphettes with 60's and 70's hairdos. Where the women of Mollino's youth seem absorbed in self contemplation, with threatening consequences for the harmless male, the girls of his maturity flaunt their sexuality in outlandish poses and costumes whose references span the history of pop art. While the nudity displayed is minimal, the pictures are erotic. The catalyst of the threat to men, mollino hints, is palyful seduction.
IMAGINE that Salvador Dali had set out to be an architect and had been a champion skier, and a racing driver able to win the Le Mans 24-hour race in a car he had designed, and you have a reasonable idea of what to expect from Carlo Mollino, the bad boy of Italian design, whose career is celebrated in an exhibition at the Pompidou Centre in Paris until the end of next month. The title--L'Etrange Univers de Carlo Mollino--says it all. Mollino, born in 1905, was at heart a wealthy dilettante with a highly original talent that took him from brilliance to kitsch. He was interested in the occult, and to judge by his collection of lingerie catalogues and the photographs he took of women, something of an erotomane. Not the sort of thing puritanical modernism was meant to encompass. What made him so disturbing and disruptive was that it was impossible to write him off. He was capable of producing architecture of brilliance. The car he designed is an astonishing piece of bravura--half bullet, half aircraft wing. In 1937 he produced the dazzling Turin Riding School, now demolished. Few of his interiors survive. His furniture has had the greatest longevity and is beginning to command enormous prices.-Deyan Sudjic, The Independent, 17th November 1989.
Carlo Mollino was an architect born in Italy at the turn of the century. He died in 1973. This show of his photographs, curated by Rob Beyer, focuses on his relationship to women. In large gold toned black and white prints, women glamorously dressed in 30's and 40's evening wear feature introspective expressions on their faces. What they are pondering is clarified by two close-ups of a woman's face near a miniature wood dummy cowered in fear. Jump cut to small polaroids of nymphettes with 60's and 70's hairdos. Where the women of Mollino's youth seem absorbed in self contemplation, with threatening consequences for the harmless male, the girls of his maturity flaunt their sexuality in outlandish poses and costumes whose references span the history of pop art. While the nudity displayed is minimal, the pictures are erotic. The catalyst of the threat to men, Mollino hints, is playful seduction.
The extravaganza of Carlo Mollino: designer, architect, genius obsessed with drugs, sex and extreme decoration.
Collage is an art form in which the artist creates or takes a number of items and places them together within the boundaries of paper, frame or screen. The goal is to craft a message or feeling by the very patterns, content and often unexpected interaction
Collage DaDa
Art
MoJo DaDaist collage 89
Art
MoJo DaDaist collage1989
Art
MoJo DaDa collage1992
Art
DaDa 1991
Art
DaDa collage1995
Art
Pure DaDa collage
Art
DaDa 1991
Art
1991 DaDa
Art
Collage 1990
Art
Collage 1991
Art
Friends
Running Dialogue Collage DaDa
Art
Running Dialogue 2
Art
Running Dialogue 3
Art
Collage 1988
Art
Collage a
Art
1986 DaDa part II
Art
DaDa 1986
Art
Collage b
Art
Collage 1988 dada
Art
Collage 1988 Dada Part 4
Art
Collage C
Art
Collage 1991-90
Art
Collage 1991-90 Part 2 b
Art
Collage 1991-90 Part 3
Art
Collage 1991-90 Part 4
Art
Collage M 1991 Dada
Art
Collage DaDa
Art
Collage 1991 - 1992 B
Art
Collage 1991 - 1992
Art
Collage 1988
Art
Collage 87 a
Art
Collage 87 b
Art
Collage 1987
Art
Catskill Mountains Photographs
Art
junkie java quiz
super cool links
Chris keeley's resume
secret surrealist society artwork
dead friends
newest sss art
Chris keeley's art galleries
rationalize,minimize and denial statements
the Intervention Organization
five and ten press - consulting iconoclast
Chris Keeley's Social Documentary Photography
activism
Art links
Big brother
Blinded by Science
Darkside / Gothic
Dharma Road
G E E K
Maul
Music
Pirate
radio
W E I R D O
What's Mailart
Mailart List
Scanner Links
Drugs
Photographs
Art
Out of the Dark
Art
In to the Light
Art
Collage DaDa
Art
Send me email!
Return to Intervention Organization