As a class, we got to see the the Museo Kartell. The space when you initially walk in is open and you are encompassed by clean and stunning exhibitions and window displays. Kartell was initially started by selling car equipment and lab materials, but as time progressed Kartell’s goal was to introduce plastics into people’s homes. This was at the same time as “the Beatles reached number one in the charts in 1963, so young consumers sought out design artifacts to express shared youth culture and identity.” With the emergence of this new type of interior furniture, I couldn’t help connect the new concepts to the rise in Popular culture. In one of the readings for class, they defined the shift in 1960s-70s, as “This appreciation of popular culture grew enormously in the 1960s, with the emergence of Pop Art, and the relationship between design and popular culture went from strength to strength. The motifs, forms, and cultural references of popular culture are now integrated into our understanding of contemporary fashion, graphics and advertising.” Kartell began to pick up speed in the 1960s and was a crucial part of Italian Interior Design. In the 1970s, there was a shift. Kartell was invited to be apart of an exhibition at the MOMA. The exhibition was called “Italy, the new domestic landscape” which was dedicated to Italian furnishing design. This exhibition at the MOMA resulted in Kartell gaining much more world wide publicity. This relationship of design and art is good example of the Modernist Movement and how popular culture as we know it, is defined by art and what encompasses us daily. Pop design “particularly in graphics, was also characterized by a revival of Victorian and Edwardian forms”, and the main staples that Kartell produce are a modernized version of these classical art time periods. For example, The Bougie lamp, designed by Laviani is a baroque-like styled mix of modernity, that has a classic appearance but is also ironic and funny. Similarly, the LaMarie chair by Phillipe Stark is timeless, but it was also the world’s first completely transparent chair, its a combination of robust exterior at the same time having a new kind of lightness that has never been made before in interior furniture. Kartell continues to create and be influenced by the ever-changing world around us. They continue to work with famous musicians, and designers to keep their name and quality high, as there is more competition with cheaper products that are less timeless. Kartell has also dabbled in place settings and fashion, and they are continuing to shift their brand as the popular culture is continuing to change.
