Night Fever Designing Club Culture 1960 – Today
07.06 — 13.10.2019
an exhibition by the Vitra Design Museum and ADAM – Brussels Design Museum
Centro per l’arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci is delighted to present Night Fever. Designing Club Culture 1960 – Today, an exhibition produced by the Vitra Design Museum and ADAM – Brussels Design Museum that arrives at Pecci as the only Italian venue. The polyhedral and multidisciplinary project, with a specific focus on architecture and design, represents once again the attention of the Centro to the many languages of contemporaneity, and the more recent aim to investigate the non-conventional areas of knowledge to collect and deepen the testimonies of counter-culture.
Nightclubs are epicenters of contemporary culture. During the 21st century they questioned the prefix codes of collective leisure and allowed to experiment alternatives lifestyles. In nightclubs we see the most advanced design, graphic and fashion, lights, sound and special effects manifest as one to create a modern Gesamtkunstwerk.
Night Fever. Designing Club Culture 1960 – Today considers the history of clubbing, with examples ranging from Italian clubs of the 1960s, created by the protagonists of Radical Design, to the legendary Studio 54 created by Ian Schrager in New York (1977-80); from the Les Bains Douches by Philippe Starck in Paris (1978) to the more recent Double Club in London (2008), by the German artist Carsten Höller for Fondazione Prada. The exhibition features films, vintage photographs, posters, clothing and artworks, as well as a series of light and sound installation, which will take visitors on a fascinating journey through a world of glamour, subcultures and in search of the night that never ends.
Represented artists, designers and architects (selection):
François Dallegret, Gruppo 9999, Halston, Keith Haring, Arata Isozaki, Grace Jones, Ben Kelly, Bernard Khoury, Mark Leckey, Miu Miu, OMA (Office for Metropolitan Architecture), Peter Saville, Studio65, Roger Tallon, Andy Warhol.
Represented clubs (selection):
The Electric Circus, New York 1967; Space Electronic, Firenze 1969; Il Grifoncino, Bolzano 1969; Studio 54, New York 1977; Paradise Garage, New York 1977; Le Palace, Parigi 1978; The Saint, New York 1980; The Haçienda, Manchester, 1982; Area, New York 1983; Palladium, New York 1985; Tresor, Berlino 1991; B018, Beirut 1998; Berghain, Berlino, 2004.
Curators:
Jochen Eisenbrand, capo-curatore; Meike Wolfschlag e Nina Steinmüller, assistenti curatrici (Vitra Design Museum) | Catharine Rossi, co-curatrice (Kingston University London) | Katarina Serulus, co-curatrice (ADAM – Brussels Design Museum).
Elena Magini, associate curator (Centro Pecci)