La exhibition is part of a multi-year program of initiatives that the Civic Museum of the City of Ivrea and the Olivetti Historical Archive Association will take care to make the works of art in the Olivetti collection usable to the general public, in close relationship with the historical documentation that reconstructs the acquisition processes. It is a cultural heritage of documents, films and photographs, which the Olivetti company has commissioned and purchased over the years and which recognizes the value of culture as a growth factor for the company, from the factory to the local area.
The exhibition is divided into a selection of over 100 works of art by 32 artists and over 100 historical documents from the Archive and Library of the Olivetti Historical Archive Association (posters, playbills, historical films, publications, photographs and correspondence), re-proposed to the general public after the only exhibition occasion in 2002 at the H Workshop in Ivrea, on the occasion of the exhibition "55 twentieth-century artists from the Olivetti collection", giving thus the start of a path of progressive knowledge and full use of multiple segments of this substantial and extraordinary collection.
The exhibition declines, according to a scalar vision, the concept of culture andmeans of culture” through the organization of a system, wanted by the company and its men (primarily the directors of the factory library and the Olivetti cultural center, then under the responsibility of the Cultural Relations, Industrial Design and Advertising Department and of the Olivetti Cultural Services) dissemination and dissemination of opportunities for knowledge and contact with art. A rich program of events, initiatives, exhibitions, publications which is the result of a voluntary action, of an internal, systematic and effective organization at the service of the community and which gradually turns out to become an identifying element of the company, distinctive of public recognition of the company in Italy and in the world.
From the factory to the territory, from Ivrea to the great museums of the world, through progressive insights on a time scale that spans the entire second half of the last century.
The Olivetti Library and Cultural Center have been the generating fulcrum of cultural initiatives in the area at a local level since the end of the XNUMXs and are structured in the Olivetti Cultural Services which operate until the end of the XNUMXs. Posters and photographs of the time restore the context of the factory, the intensity and value of the company's cultural programming in favor of the territory.
From 1950 to 1964, 249 conferences, 71 chamber music concerts, 103 figurative art exhibitions, 52 other events of various kinds, such as debates, book presentations, round tables and the like were organised. Agendas, a cultural rather than an editorial project, since 1969 for over thirty years: an initiative, together with the Strenna books, by Giorgio Soavi. The real peculiarity of the Olivetti agenda lies in the idea of including works by more or less famous contemporary artists every year; works in many cases expressly commissioned and purchased by Olivetti, which thus enriches its artistic heritage. The great exhibitions and restorations. In the relationship between Olivetti and art, a decisive role was played by Renzo Zorzi, who since 1965 has been responsible for the group's corporate image and cultural activities for many years. With his indisputable competence and great passion for art, he has contributed to giving all Olivetti initiatives the connotation of the cultural event, even before the promotional episode.
The Galleria Olivetti is the slowness of the discovery of a common thread given by the name of the client industry and the scope of creations to which the latter has given the go-ahead to offer visitors a broad vision, a glimpse of many decades of "cultural enterprise".
In fact, the element of greatest interest is not given by the particular quality of the works – very different from each other – but by the fact that, with few exceptions, they reconstruct and exemplify decades of initiatives promoted in the field of the arts and created by an industry, not with the aim of patronage and for the passion of collecting, but as something proper to his daily industrial activity or, simply, for having chosen his collaborators - in sectors in which such collaboration was possible - among the most singular and sincere interpreters of his time: the artists. (Renzo Zorzi, Los artists and Olivetti, 1976).
La the origin of the works is diversified: acquisitions from abroad, from art galleries, from literary and painting prizes, from exchanges and gifts, from dedicated works. The result of this diversified and long-lasting acquisition activity over the course of the last century has built over time a very rich heritage of notable historical-artistic value for our country, but also and above all a model of "cultural project" generated within the Olivetti company.
In this way, Olivetti firmly intended to recognize and reaffirm the central role of culture in giving direction to industrial, technological and therefore also economic and social choices.
“Thanks to the work carried out by this Administration, through the historic relationship with Olivetti, in recent years the collaboration with TIM, the largest telecommunications company in Italy. Proof of this is also the release from the vault of the works acquired by the Company over the years and their presentation through a series of exhibitions to citizens and external visitors who will be able to see them, in many cases for the first time, at the Garda Museum . The agreement with Olivetti and TIM provides that these works will be exhibited in Ivrea as its inhabitants with their work and a strong sense of belonging to the Company and to the territory have allowed the success of Olivetti” underlined Stefano Sertoli, Mayor of the City of Ivrea.
Gaetano di Tondo, President of the Olivetti Historical Archive Association and VP, Communication & External Relations Director of Olivetti, declared: “Today is an important day, the
The Olivetti Historical Archive Association and the PA Garda Civic Museum have been collaborating profitably for some years to create exhibitions closely connected to the history of Olivetti, to the revitalization of the territory and in favor of the local community and the country.
