The Triennale di Milano presents an exhibition entitled The Seventies: a long decade in a short century.
Curated by Gianni Canova, this magical mystery tour takes you back in time to one of the most intense, complex and contradictory periods in our recent history.  This is no nostalgia trip, but at the same time there is no airbrushing or writing off of the past, simply the intention to let visitors reflect on a key decade from a current perspective.
The exhibition looks back at the 1970s by means of various installations based on keywords (travel, body, conflict, march, etc) or key Italian figures (Moro, Pasolini) from that decade.
At the same time, there are many exhibits devoted to the contamination and hybridisation of language and discourse that occurred at the time, with the focus on what the Seventies produced in the way of cinema, literature, design, music, figurative art, comics, theatre, fashion, mass media, technology, communication, sport and so on.

The display is arranged on two floors and covers a total surface area of 2834 m2.
It has been staged by Mario Bellini in a neutral space, white with clouds on the ceiling.  In contrast, the rooms are an explosion of creativity, a blaze of colour, evocative atmosphere and emotions that prompt visitors to choose their own personal routes rather than follow any set path.

Not only does the exhibition narrate the history of the period, it actually lets the visitor get “hands-on experience” of it.  On the first floor is a reproduction of a typical Italian bar at the time of the Italy-Germany World Cup semi-final in 1970, the radio studios from where the funerals of Fausto and Iaio were broadcast, and an installation by Chiara Dynys dealing with political protest marches.  There is much food for thought, confirming the great creativity and profound changes of those years that continue to exert an influence on us today.

On the ground floor, in addition to the sections on comics, graphic design and fashion, art in the Seventies is presented through a selection of works by various artists from Mario Schifano to Alighiero Boetti, to name just a couple.
The theme of the art-body relationship, from the 1970s to the present, is investigated through the work of artists such as Andres Serrano and many others.

The exhibition entitled Italy. The New Domestic Landscape, held by the MoMA in New York in 1972, and a milestone in terms of the recognition abroad of Italian design, is the starting point for the reconstruction of Mario Bellini’s Kar-a-sutra and Gaetano Pesce’s installation Habitat for Two People created specially for that 1972 showcase and exhibited now for the first time in Italy, along with works by Riccardo Dalisi, Ugo La Pietra and Enzo Mari.

Two artists have contributed works revolving around two of the defining events of the decade in question:  the tragic deaths of Pier Paolo Pasolini and Aldo Moro.  Elisabetta Benassi presents an installation dedicated to Pier Paolo Pasolini, while Francesco Arena has made a life-size replica of the cell in which Aldo Moro was held prisoner.
The entire display is enhanced by chronological references and informative panels highlighting the most important historical and cultural events.

A large number of scholars, experts, artists and academics have acted as consultants and contributors to the various exhibits; they include Francesca Alfano Miglietti, Silvana Annicchiarico, Francesco Arena, Giancarlo Basili, Luca Beatrice, Marco Belpoliti, Elisabetta Benassi, Chiara Dynys, Gian Piero Brunetta, Elio Fiorucci, Fulvio Irace con Alessandro Mendini e Franco Purini, Elena Marco, Filippo Mazzarella, Peppino Ortoleva, Mauro Panzeri, Luigi Pedrazzi, Stefano Pistolini, Oliviero Ponte di Pino, Italo Rota, Massimo Rota and Fabrizio Vagliasindi.


The Seventies:
a long decade in a short century
Triennale di Milano
27 October 2007- 30March 2008
Curated by Gianni Canova
Staged by Mario Bellini