La (nuova) moda della moda

by Gillo Dorfles

"La moda è come l'olio e non come il vino; invecchiando non migliora ma peggiora. Nessuno crede che un abito si possa conservare in banca in attesa che il suo valore aumenti." Eppure, per quanto effimera e per sua natura in continuo (innovamento, la moda non cesserà mal di influenzare il nostro vissuto quotidiano, più in generale le relazioni umane e i molteplici aspetti della società da essa direttamente coinvolti. Ma quali sono le motivazioni profonde della moda, i suoi reali artefici e promotori, le sue costanti, i suoi risvolti più genuinamente umani e quotidiani? Gli interrogativi sollevati quasi dieci anni fa da Gillo Dorfles sul significato artistico e sociale del fenomeno ricompaiono in questa riedizione di saggi e articoli dell'autore, arricchita da nuovi capitoli relativi ai fenomeni più recenti e alle manifestazioni più peculiari e stravaganti della moda.

142 pages, Paperback

Published February 4, 2008

About the author

Born in Trieste to a Gorizian father and a Genoese mother, Dorfles graduated in medicine, specializing in psychiatry. He was a professor in aesthetics at the University of Trieste, Milan and Cagliari and, in 1948, established the MAC (Movimento per l'arte concreta) with artists Atanasio Soldati, Galliano Mazzon, Gianni Monnet, and Bruno Munari. His paintings were displayed in two personal exhibitions held in Milan in 1949 and 1950 and also in numerous collective MAC exhibitions in the 1950s. In 1956 Dorfles co-founded the ADI (Associazione per il disegno industriale).

Having stopped painting, he devoted himself to the study of aesthetics and art criticism, dealing with the problem of the vanguard, the relationship between art and industry, analizing artistic phenomena, and tastes in the contemporary society. According to Dorfles, aesthetics should focus on culture as a whole, which combine elements of fantasy, symbolic, metaphorical and even mythical suggestions. Among his major works, L'architettura moderna (1954), Kitsch (originally published in Italian in 1968 and translated in English the following year), La moda della moda (1984), Il feticcio quotidiano (1988), Horror pleni. La (in)civiltà del rumore (2008). In the same period, however, Dorfles continued to hold personal exhibitions: in 1986 his works were displayed in Milan, in 1988 in Aosta, and in 1996 in Rome.[3]

In 2010, for his 100th birthday celebrations, L'avanguardia tradita took place at the Royal Palace of Milan. Another exhibition was held in 2012 at the Milan Triennale, organized by Dorfles itself, entitled Dorfles. Kitsch - oggi il kitsch.[4]

At 103, Dorfles published a new book (Poesie, Campanotto Editore, 2013), containing previously unpublished poems written from 1941 to 1952.[5] In 2013 he was among the artists that designed the Tibetan pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale.[6]