The Small Utopia. Ars Multiplicata

The Small Utopia. Ars Multiplicata, curated by Germano Celant, analyzes the dream, handed down from the historic avant-gardes to the artists of today, of achieving the democratic dissemination of art through a multiplication of the work of art as object, in order to favor a different perception and use of it from the aesthetic and social standpoint. Covering a period of 75 years, from the beginning of the 20th century to 1975, the exhibition documents with over six hundred works, including multiples and editions, the transformation of the idea of uniqueness in art and in its perception, through the multiplication not just of the objects themselves but also of the different means used for its distribution, from artist's books to magazines and from experimental cinema to radio. An adventure in which all the principal movements became caught up, from Italian futurism to the Bauhaus, from neoplasticism to dada and surrealism, from nouveau réalisme to Optical and Fluxus, culminating in the explosion in multiplication triggered by pop art, promoter of a genuine "supermarket" of the art object, translated into book, magazine, can, film, clothing, record, dish, furniture, toy and many other forms.