From 29 October 2014 to 31 March 2015, Porta di Milano hosts the exhibition Mysterious Objects, curated by Salvatore Licitra, who presents three works by Gio Ponti, the installation 'Espressioni' of the Ideal Standard showroom in Milan (1966), the “Cathedral of Los Angeles” (1967), the floors for the offices of the Salzburger Nachrichten in Salzburg (1976).
The Porta di Milano of the Milan Malpensa airport reinforces its unique identity in the panorama of global airports, as a functional structure for accessing the airport and as a highly suggestive exhibition space.
After the success of the initiatives linked to two masters of XNUMXth century art, such as Fausto Melotti and Marino Marini, here is the third appointment which will feature Gio Ponti, one of the most important and influential personalities of international architecture and design.
The initiative, promoted by SEA - Aeroporti di Milano in collaboration with the Gio Ponti Archives, thus consolidates the project studied by SEA to propose the airport, a crossroads of emotions linked to the travel experience, as the ideal venue to give voice to expressions artistic in their infinite forms and enrich the already important cultural offer of Milan, proposing art initiatives on a regular basis.
"I am delighted with this collaboration between SEA and Gio Ponti Archives - says Salvatore Licitra - also because I am sure that Gio Ponti would have liked to compete with an exhibition in a space like the "Porta di Milano", and experience the impact with the gaze of travelers who cross places and times suspended between arrival and departure. For these places of passage and metamorphosis, I thought of collecting three truly unusual "expressions" (as Ponti called them), special points, which seem to collect and unite different themes, prefiguring a path that will take place later.
The metamorphoses suggested by Ponti with these Mysterious Objects – a floor that could be a painting, an angel that could be a church, and many white obelisks that contradict their traditional, solitary, severe monumentality – tell a lot about his creative freedom. A quality that has animated his work since the early years, but which from the mid-60s takes the field with works where the client, if there is one, increasingly becomes an opportunity to give substance and life to projects that are no longer caught between functional needs. The works presented at Malpensa are to be considered as starting points that over time have led to the creation of masterpieces such as the Cathedral of Taranto, the Denver Museum, or the "Chair with little seat"
The exhibited works:
“Espressioni” installation in the Ideal Standard showroom, Milan, 1966
Ponti inaugurates the Ideal Standard showroom in Milan, filling it completely with white obelisks of different heights. Ponti writes: "The obelisk teaches Architecture, it is perhaps the very symbol, and pure, of the expression of architecture, from which starts a "singing" when its lines do not rest, they do not just stand but are "statically in motion ”.
The space had been designed by him to host the free expressions of architects, artists and designers. Temporary and experimental expressions, designed for a short duration and for a specific place, open to the public and with shop windows overlooking the street, creating a show for passers-by.
Los Angeles Cathedral, 1967. Sculpture in stainless steel 4,20 meters high and 2 meters wide, made up of three thin overlapping sheets in the shape of an angel, cut to play with light. Presented at the De Nieubourg Gallery in Milan, it is a tribute to Los Angeles dedicated "to poets, children, pure young people and Ray and Charles (Eames) accustomed to miracles" A symbolic vision, which already tells the masterpiece of Ta- rant of the '70s. The hexagonal shape of the diamond, the code of the "finished form" theory that inspired Ponti's work in the 50s, becomes a tunnel in an increasingly dematerialized architecture, made up of plays of light and surfaces.
Floors for the offices of the “Salzburger Nachrichten”, Salzburg, 1976
With the glossy, colorful and beloved ceramic, Ponti composes an extraordinary floor, transforming a traditionally anonymous surface into the true protagonist of the space. Floors (and ceilings) in Ponti's work have always been an opportunity to give character, vigor and unity to the composition of spaces, but in this case, where the architecture was inexpressive and not his, the floor "steals the stage" and becomes the true, first and only protagonist.
JOHN BRIDGES. MYSTERIOUS OBJECTS
Milan Malpensa Airport, Porta di Milano (Terminal 1)
October 29, 2014 - March 31, 2015
