From heaven to home
2023 | Connections and intermittencies in Argentine material culture | Malba, Latinoamerican Museum of Art | Buenos Aires, Argentina.
One of the great pieces that opens the exhibition Del Cielo a casa (From Heaven to Home) is a reconstruction of the window display made in 1956 by artist Juan Batlle Planas for Harrods. In 1940, the renowned British department store launched in its Florida Street branch -the first and only store abroad- the proposal «Art in the Street».
Throughout the decade, Harrods commissioned the design of its spring and autumn windows to the most renowned artists in the country. Batlle Planas was one of them, and in the scene he presented, art and merchandise converge: a dreamlike world that dialogues with the yearnings and fantasies characteristic of consumer society.
As in an archive of everyday life, the exhibition brings together more than 600 pieces, including objects, works of art and documents, that make up Argentina’s daily life. It is committed to an ethnographic look that, beyond authorship or processes, invites us to approach material culture from the uses, customs, rituals and symbolisms that things generate in a society.
«The interweaving of objects, living spaces and work, weaves an extended network of meaning: it connects us emotionally with what is our own from a portion of that archive of common life in which design, art, industry and history are hybridized. They summon us to travel to the near past, to conjure anew the events and longings for the future that were inscribed there,» emphasizes the curatorial team, a multidisciplinary group made up of historians, graphic and industrial designers, architects and editors in charge of the exhibition’s concept and layout.
A series of thematic constellations articulates the tour where things are grouped together without chronology, hierarchies, or distinction of disciplines, thus transgressing the limits of use and blurring the boundary between art and design. The exhibition covers three major areas: the identity of the territory, the design outside the canons and the political, social and economic vicissitudes of our country.
Del cielo a casa does not propose a historiography of Argentine design, but rather an essay on life in common condensed in things: from the great utopian visions to everyday life, from a helicopter to a slipper, from the Stent to the Octopus ball. «Things for life», according to the definition of the avant-garde designer Gerardo Clusellas (1929-1973).
The pieces come from different archives and public and private collections in the country. The collection of the Museum of Modern Art of Buenos Aires stands out, a pioneer institution that in 1963 gave design a public life by exhibiting it as a cultural production and as a tool for development. The IDA Foundation (Research in Argentine Design), a non-profit foundation created in 2013 and dedicated to research, recovery, conservation, dissemination and enhancement of national design, also joins the collection.
Completing this selection is a set of audiovisual materials: institutional shorts, commercials and period films from the archives of the Filmoteca Buenos Aires, chosen by Fernando Martín Peña (director of Malba Cine), and from the archives of the Museo del Cine «Pablo Ducrós Hicken», selected by specialists Raúl Manrupe and Andrés Levinson.
The opening of Del cielo a casa takes place sixty years after the first design exhibition in Argentina (CIDI, 1963), and coincides with the fortieth anniversary of the return of democracy in the country, a turning point in our social and institutional life.
Curatorial team: Adamo Faiden, Leandro Chiappa, Gustavo Eandi, Carolina Muzi, Verónica Rossi, Juan Ruades, Martín Wolfson and Paula Zuccotti.
Del cielo a casa no propone una historiografía del diseño argentino, sino un ensayo sobre la vida en común condensada en las cosas: de las grandes visiones utópicas a la vida cotidiana, de un helicóptero a una zapatilla, del Stent a la pelota Pulpo. “Cosas para la vida”, según la definición del vanguardista proyectual Gerardo Clusellas (1929-1973).
Las piezas provienen de diferentes archivos y colecciones públicas y privadas del país. Se destaca la colección del Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, institución pionera que en 1963 dio al diseño vida pública al exhibirlo como producción cultural y como herramienta de desarrollo. Se suma además la Fundación IDA (Investigación en Diseño Argentino), fundación sin fines de lucro creada en 2013 y dedicada a la investigación, recuperación, conservación, difusión y puesta en valor del diseño nacional.
Completa esta selección un conjunto de materiales audiovisuales: cortos institucionales, publicidades y filmes de época, pertenecientes a los archivos de la Filmoteca Buenos Aires, elegidos por Fernando Martín Peña (director de Malba Cine), y del archivo del Museo del Cine “Pablo Ducrós Hicken”, seleccionados por los especialistas Raúl Manrupe y Andrés Levinson.
La apertura de Del cielo a casa se concreta a sesenta años de la primera muestra de diseño en la Argentina (CIDI, 1963), y coincide con el cuarenta aniversario del regreso de la democracia en el país, un punto de inflexión en nuestra vida social e institucional. Equipo curatorial: Adamo Faiden, Leandro Chiappa, Gustavo Eandi, Carolina Muzi, Verónica Rossi, Juan Ruades, Martín Wolfson y Paula Zuccotti.
