Bruno Munari

© 2017 Merrill Berman C. Collection © 2017 BRUNO MUNARI WORKS FROM THE MERRILL C. BERMAN COLLECTION BRUNO MUNARI WORKS FROM THE MERRILL C. BERMAN COLLECTION Published by the Merrill C. Berman Collection Concept, introduction and annotations by Nicola Lucchi Design and production by Joelle Jensen Photography by Jim Frank and Joelle Jensen Printed and bound by www.blurb.com Images © 2017 the Merrill C. Berman Collection Images courtesy of the Merrill C. Berman Collection © 2017 Merrill C. Berman Collection, Rye, New York Nicola Lucchi wishes to thank Luca Zafarano for his help in tracking Munari’s engagement with the journal L’Ala d’Italia (The Wing of Italy). Cover image: Munari and Filippo Masoero Senza titolo (Untitled), before 1934 Photomontage, gelatin silver print 9 1/4 x 7 inches (23.5 x 17.7 cm) by sight The Merrill C. Berman Collection (see pp. 20-21) Table of Contents Introduction 9 Plates Photographs and Photomontage 14 Photocollages for L’Ala d’Italia (The Wing of Italy) 34 Commercial Brochures and Maquettes 48 Posters 72 Books 78 Letterhead 84 Selected Bibliography 89 5 Introduction 8 Bruno Munari: Forging the Aesthetics of Consumer Culture The work of Bruno Munari (1907-1998) resists sim- Fortunato Depero in their 1915 manifesto, Futurist ple categorizations. With an artistic career spanning Reconstruction of the Universe. Whereas the mani- over seven decades, Munari engaged with every festo encouraged artists to invest themselves in all major European and extra-European avant-garde ields of economic activity—suggesting, for instance, movement, with modern and postmodern aesthetics the manufacturing of toys alongside clothes and fur- and languages, and with an incredible range of artis- niture—most of these attempts remained squarely in tic media. Munari placed his signature on paintings, the ield of highbrow artistic production. On the con- sculptures, photocollages, artistic photographs, trary, Munari paired the visual impact of contempo- xerographs, typographic experiments, advertising rary art with the practical needs of industrial product campaigns, toys, children books, and a substantial design and mass advertising, while turning the vitriol corpus of theoretical pronouncements on art and of both Futurist and Fascist propaganda into an in- design. Munari’s work, while particularly well-known strument for product placement and public relations. in Italy, has also been recognized around the world The Munari works in the Merrill C. Berman Collection through countless exhibitions, as well as acquisitions precisely map the aesthetic, historical, and intellec- by museums and private collectors. tual coordinates of this multifaceted commercial production, which developed in dialogue with Munari’s With greater success than most Futurist artists, Mu- own artistic and intellectual growth. Through objects nari developed an original approach to the avant- such as posters, photographs, and commercial bro- garde dicta promulgated by Giacomo Balla and chures, Munari quenched the insatiable thirst for 9 powerful images that characterizes advertising since ation Futurists. He engaged with Futurism at a time the inception of industrial production and mass con- when the group began its turn towards the so-called sumption. aeropittura—Futurist Aeropainting—a technologi- cally and spiritually-driven aesthetic that brought the Munari’s multi-decade engagement with the adver- avant-garde movement ever closer to a compromis- tising industry began in the mid-1920s, when the ing political entanglement with the Fascist regime. artist moved to Milan from the Veneto region where Some of Munari’s work from the 1930s, such as his he had spent his youth. At irst, collaborations with aeronautical-themed photo-collages and his col- advertising agencies served him primarily as a reli- laboration with the Fascist-inluenced magazineL’Ala able source of income in an extremely competitive d’Italia (The Wing of Italy), demonstrates the extent art world but soon Munari realized how work in ad- of these political tensions and accommodations. At vertising could play a key role in his development the same time, Munari maintained high formal and as an artist. Many Italian companies at the time vied compositional standards in most of these political- for an original and daring advertising language that ly-tainted engagements, while the frequent use of would position them at the forefront of a sophisti- sarcasm derived from Dada and Surrealist motifs— cated visual culture, and Munari understood how which Munari employed in his aeronautical-themed these commercial projects would allow him to ex- work during the 1930s—points to a veiled critical plore freely the aesthetic and semantic correlation distance from the bombast that characterized both between images, words, and objects. Fascist and Futurist rhetoric. By 1931 Munari had inaugurated his own advertis- Munari’s artistic sensibility, however, does not end ing agency, Studio R+M, alongside his colleague with his observation of Futurism. The photo-collag- Riccardo (Ricas) Castagnedi. Working independent- es, brochures, and posters in the Merrill C. Ber- ly as well as on subcontracts from other important man Collection reveal a wealth of inluences and advertising irms such as Milan’s celebrated Studio crosspollinations: besides the aforementioned reli- Boggeri, Munari came into contact with Italy’s major ance upon Dada and Surrealist motifs, Munari also industrial and commercial concerns of the interwar engaged with the visual language of Russian Con- era. His work in advertising and graphic design in structivism and with the typographic experiments of the 1930s helped advance the corporate image of Northern and Central European avant-garde groups, textile and pharmaceutical companies, aeronautical a connection that has been explored with great ac- factories, and the food and beverage sector. By the curacy by scholars such as Alessandro Colizzi in time of Italy’s “economic miracle” in the early de- his recent dissertation (University of Leiden, 2011), cades after World War II, Munari had secured com- among others. Furthermore, Munari’s use of pup- missions and working relationships with some of Ita- pet-like igures, classical fragments, and deserted ly’s most prominent companies, famous not only for landscapes recalls the atmosphere of Metaphysical the commercial success of their products but also Art, while the playful interactions prompted by many for their innovative corporate strategies and advertis- of his brochures and books point to a creative, com- ing campaigns. I refer to industrial entities such as mercial reinterpretation of kinetic art. Olivetti, Pirelli, Agip, and Campari. In terms of scholarship, attention to Munari’s graphic Munari stepped into Milan’s interwar art and design design and advertising projects has progressively in- world with the enthusiasm of a young, self-trained creased during the last few decades (see Selected artist accepted among the ranks of second-gener- Bibliography in this volume). For many years, given 10 the nature of Munari’s eclectic career in a multiplicity onstrate just how crucial photography, graphic de- of ields, scholars had found it necessary to subdi - sign, and advertising proved to Munari’s remark- vide a critical analysis of his work along disciplinary able career both as an artist and to his towering lines. The main museum exhibitions dedicated to status in the history of twentieth-century industrial Munari focused on his production as a painter and and graphic design. Photocollages, original ma- sculptor, while his work in the ields of children lit- quettes for brochures, posters, books—examined erature, typography, and industrial design received both together and individually—chart the emer- praise and recognition in trade-speciic venues. gence and evolution of Munari’s artistic language: Some of these separations may have been prompt- from his early engagements with Futurism, to his ed by the fear, among art critics, that a contamina- dialogue with Constructivism and Dada; from his tion between Munari’s strictly artistic oeuvre and his ironic and quasi-Surrealist experiments with photo- more commercial ventures would have diminished collage, to his fascination with machine aesthetics the status of the former, and given undue attention and the world of labor. In addition to revealing the to the latter. vast and stratiied network of Munari’s visual and -in tellectual sources, the Merrill C. Berman Collection On the contrary, it is now clear that Munari’s design also paints a portrait of Italy’s economy between the aesthetics should be read in direct dialogue with, world wars, and of the birth of a capitalistic con- and frequently in anticipation of, his artistic pursuits. sumer culture—a culture whose visual dimensions Munari himself never thought of his career in adver- Munari contributed to delineate. tising and industrial design as a lesser endeavor: in fact, his vast corpus of theoretical writing on the Nicola Lucchi matter points to highlighting the crucial role that de- October 2017 sign plays in the difusion of artistic values and sensibility across civil society. These beliefs are at the center of countless books, magazine and newspa- per articles, poems, and even a substantive series of lectures Munari gave at Harvard University during the 1960s. In light of these theoretical and aesthetic conti- nuities, the study of Munari’s interwar career as a graphic designer and advertiser allows us to trace a compelling portrait of his artistic and intellectual qualities. Despite the distance between Munari’s conceptual art, mobile sculptures, and the projects for brochures that may entertain the customers of a furrier shop, these disparate objects reveal formal mimicries, a consistent aesthetic sensibility, and an overarching desire to place art at the service of society, to mediate the workings of economic ex- change through the lens of creativity. The works in the Merrill C. Berman Collection dem- 11 Photographs and Photomontage Senza titolo (Untitled), 1934 Verso: Gelatin silver print 8 3/4 x 6 3/4 inches (22.2 x 17.2 cm) Marks and inscriptions: Verso: Signature: Munari, in pencil In ink: Su 2 col.

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