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Alfa Romeo… is it art or design?

When Rudi Fuchs made it director for the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, one of the first acts was to fund his exhibitions with promotional activities by commercial industries. One of the first that got a chance to show his new products within the museum was Alfa Romeo who showed their new models Alfa Romeo GTV and the Cabrio version.

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Sketches , clay models and the end product . Every aspect of the creation of these models was shown. Special poster and some leaflets with the exhibition made this a true museum exhibition , but was this the right place for such an event….personally i do not think so.

alfa sm a

Although a car can be a “piece of art” it does not belong in an art museum , but certainly can be presented in a car museum. But still it must have been good for the museum funding, because since many other commercial activities have taken place , but none as outspoken as the one for ALFA ROMEO.

Because of my personal interest in cars www.ftn-books.com has some publications on the subject.

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Ettore Sottsass (1917-2007) ,first retrospective in the Netherlands in April-October 2018

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Ettore Sottsass was one of the founding members of the Memphis group in 1981. He made some iconic designs for Alessi and Artemide and now is announced that a large retrospective will be held in the Stedelijk Museum in the April-October period in 2018 Prepare your self for this exhibition and look at the books available on Sottsass at www.ftn-books.com