The Cold War: Art and design in the divided world 1945 – 1970 at MART - Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto on artrepublic.com

The exhibition presents over 250 objects: from a Sputnik to the space-suit of an astronaut from an “Apollo” mission, from the films to Stanley Kubrick to the paintings of Robert Rauschenberg, and from the ceramics of Pablo Picasso to the clothes designed by Paco Rabanne.

Concentrating on the years between 1945 and 1970, the exhibition will bring together objects and works of art from the two blocs of the “divided world”: United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, Cuba, West and East Germany, Italy, Poland, France and Czechoslovakia.

The “Cold war”, the iron curtain, the tensions between the “Atlantic alliance” and the countries within the Soviet bloc today seem like episodes from long ago, but in reality they were a major part of 20th-century history, from the post-war years of the 1970s onwards and, above all, they inspired and animated manifestations of artistic creation.

The exhibition will start in the immediate post-war period showing differing visions for rebuilding devastated cities and competing ideas of modern life. It will focus on rival architectural visions in East and West Berlin: the monumental ‘Stalinallee’ in the Eastern Sector, and the Modernist housing schemes of ‘Interbau’ in the West designed by architects including Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius and Oskar Niemeyer.

Cold War Modern will examine how the competition to be modern entered the domestic sphere, exemplified by the famous 1959 ‘Kitchen Debate’ between Nixon and Khrushchev which took place at the American National Exhibition staged in Moscow, amid displays of the latest American household goods.

A section on the space race and hi-tech triumphs will highlight the first space mission by Yuri Gagarin aboard a Vostok space capsule. On display will be designs of interiors for NASA space craft by Raymond Loewy, experimental spacesuits as well as many examples of furniture, architecture, art and fashion inspired by the space race. Amongst the many technological achievements of the period, a new and distinctive form of architecture emerged, the telecommunications tower, including the Post Office Tower in London and Moscow’s Ostankino Tower.

The exhibition will end with the first photographs of Earth taken from space, which inspired artists and designers in their utopian imaginings and acted as a catalyst to a new environmental awareness of the fragility of the planet.

OPENING HOURS: Tue – Sun:10.00 – 18.00, Fri: 10.00 – 21.00

Image Credits:

Slide Show 1:

Tuta aerospaziale pressurizzata Berkut, USSR, anni sessanta, Tecnica mista, cm 159 x 72 x 35, Collezione privata

Paco Rabanne, Abito “a dischi”, 1967, Paillette in plastica unite da filo metallico, mm 700 x 410 , Victoria and Albert Museum, Londra

Corradino D’Ascanio, Vespa 125CC , Prodotta da Piaggio & Co., 1951, Metallo laccato grigio scuro, mm 940 x 840 x 1780 , Die Neue Sammlung, Monaco

Slide Show 2:

Cesare Leonardi e Franca Stagi, Sedia Dondolo, prodotta da Elco, 1967, Vetroresina bianca sagomata (un unico pezzo curvato), H. mm 750 , Victoria and Albert Museum, Londra

Hedwig Bollhagen, Servizio da caffè, modello 558, prodotto da HB Werkstätten für Keramik, Marwitz bei Velten, Germania Orientale, 1961, Ceramica smaltata di nero, Caffettiera: 210 x 180 x 79 mm; lattiera: 85 x 80 , 51mm; zuccheriera: 60 x 87mm, Die Neue Sammlung, Monaco

“Nixon – Debelliamo il pericolo! (Nixon – La Peste dehors !)”, manifesto francese contro la guerra in Vietnam, 1969, Cromolitografia offset, mm 884 x 695 , Victoria and Albert Museum, Londra: E.137–2004, Donazione degli American Friends of the V&A; da una donazione di Leslie, Judith e Gabri Schreyer e Alice Schreyer Batko agli American Friends of the V&A