by Alessia Ganzerla, Illustration and Visual Media
During the 60s a new movement was born, which was called anti-design. Anti-design means that everything that artists believed before was gone. This movement was born in Italy in 1966, during the neoclassical era where art was inspired by classical antiquity, such as Greek and Roman. The Neoclassical period was highlighting the use of straight lines, rectilinear forms and restrained geometric ornamentation, while the anti-design used scale distortion, eccentric colours and irony. The way I perceive the meaning of anti-design is that the anti-design movement believes that the art values during the neoclassical, were considered extremely unfunctional. Anti-design artists revolutionized the way of thinking, by breaking down the boundaries between what was classical and what is now a personal way of thinking. Anti design artists never discredited the neoclassical art movement, they just had a different perspective of design and art. The anti-design period shows that we do not need to meet the criteria of Greek or Roman art, which is perfection, but we can subvert their concepts with something new and unusual and still make it perfect. Breaking rules does not mean that what we are doing is necessarily wrong, but it is just a way of expressing what we believe. The concept of making art by disrupting the equilibrium of what we had before, shows how artists and generations are changing and moving in a new direction; this process is fundamental for society because it teaches people that revolution can bring positive changes into our life. People need to allow themselves to absorb the change. The anti-design movement is one of the best examples to bring up because, during that time everything looked perfect, aligned, and too stable. The anti-design movement changed the way of thinking of art in terms of perfection, everything can be perfect if the work ethic and creativity are leading our thoughts. Without two stronger points, you can't classify yourself as an artist or a designer. The anti-design shows how a chair could be functional even if we are not following the guidelines of how a chair should be: four legs, a back stand and a seat. Anti design thinks that a chair that does not have four legs could be still called a chair even if it has been made with just two legs, the back stand has round shapes and the seat is following the surrealism current. As long as the chair is stable and functional people should buy it. Sottsass, the father of Anti-Design, said “design needs to be useful not necessarily beautiful”. I believe that Sottsass is right for the simple fact that some objects or art designs could look to some as absurd but, they might be more functional and easy to use than others. Today, we are surrounded by anti-design as most of the objects are created by using colours, shapes and are extremely unique. I like the way the designers are not thinking about selling in mass production but they are thinking of the functionality and practicality of an object instead. From my point of view, this makes sense because I would rather buy or use something that makes my life easier instead of using or ever wearing something that will make my life a nightmare just because it looks beautiful. I truly believe that even if this movement lasted from 1966 till 1980 the impact that we received out of it is massive. Nowadays most of the modern art reminds me of anti-design with the only difference that anti-design stood up for its bizarreness and uniqueness.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
February 2023
Categories |