Rome, at the National Gallery the exhibition on fashion designer Monica Bolzoni

From Dec. 14, 2021 to Feb. 27, 2022, the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Rome will host an exhibition dedicated to Monica Bolzoni and her historic brand and performance venue Bianca e Blu to recount her 30-year experience as a “fashion designer,” as she defines herself, with the intention of conceptually exploring the process that has animated her articulate creative experience. The poetics of the simple is the ingredient that has nourished and animated the work of Monica Bolzoni, who has given life to a personal language achieved by making highly selective choices, consistent with her free and independent personality. The object of her research are the archetypes of the feminine, according to a precise study of modular forms to reach the development of a contemporary, sophisticated and synthetic canon of elegance that enhances the real body of women.

The exhibition, curated by Anna Di Cesare, is part of the National Gallery’s long-started path of enhancing the archives, with a view to the transversality of interests that characterizes its cultural offerings. The acquisition of Monica Bolzoni’s paper fashion archive (sketches, publications, photographs) by an institution such as the National Gallery represents a relevant recognition of the cultural role played by fashion design as well as an important piece in the contemporary debate that has recently been questioning fashion archives, which are increasingly real devices of archaeology of the present, shared ideal and collective heritages.

Thefashion archive is a catalyst for a series of creative dynamics and an activator of imaginative processes, a display for an exhibition itinerary that highlights the traces of Monica Bolzoni’s work within the Italian and international fashion scenario. A feminine story of her independence as a designer and her brand Bianca e Blu. Starting from the fable and literature as the starting point of the dress-thought, an ideal synthesis of Monica Bolzoni’s poetics and inspirations, the exhibition allows us to get in touch with the narrative elements that concur to create the constellations that constitute the grammar and language of fashion peculiar to the designer’s vision.

Play, modular dress, geometric shapes, colors as values - themes that Monica Bolzoni develops throughout her career, always rejecting any form of stylism in favor of design, of projectuality as a personal and artistic figure. Design is project: play and creativity that merge with technical research and innovation to give life to pleasant and functional garments, but always and in any case immediately recognizable in their construction of the simple as an indispensable value.

The different rooms of the exhibition itinerary enhance one or more themes dear to the symbolic imagination of the designer, the total look is broken down into all its parts to offer an artistic and sentimental restitution of fashion design. From iconic garments to a selection of shoes and hats, from feathers, collars to delicately hand-painted gloves, the productions of Monica Bolzoni Moda Designer are interwoven here with testimonies from the paper archive, a very rich corpus that collects articles, sketches, writings, fashion editorials, collected during the years by the designer. Also added are fabrics and their textures, an area of research and experimentation that reveals the affectionate and loving relationship with design: pvc, jersey, nylon, lenci.

In Monica Bolzoni’s words, hers are pieces of affection, designed with the intention of being complementary and combinable, defying time with a view to sustainability. A luxury of the simple. Which is also found in the explicit concept of basic, and the attention developed towards the concept of the revisited uniform, with which the designer plays in subverting the given symbolic order. Several collaborations that Monica Bolzoni weaves and interweaves with the world of art are found in the exhibition through images and garments specially created by the designer for performances by Vanessa Beecroft, Letizia Cariello, Fanny & Alexander, Claudia Losi and Cesare Viel. Monica Bolzoni and her Moda Design hatch a particular point of view and investigation into fashion thought and design, which especially today, in the here and now offer fundamental insights into design, planning and creativity as the grammar and syntax of the future.

The exhibition relies on the contribution of the students of Accademia Costume & Moda (ACM), who, alongside Monica Bolzoni, will contribute throughout the set-up phase. In addition, ACM will actively work in the conception of meetings for the public, which will be part of the program of in-depth events on the themes of the exhibition. For all information, you can visit the official website of the National Gallery.

Rome, at the National Gallery the exhibition on fashion designer Monica Bolzoni

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