COLUMBIA COLLEGE EXHIBITION: Workwear (Abiti da Lavoro)

MEDIA ALERT: May 25, 2016
Media Contact: Meg Duguid, 312-369-8687
Image: MELLA JAARSMA, The Senses Cheat You (left) NACHO CARBONELL, Time to Work (right)
Photos: Delfino Sisto Legnani © Triennale di Milano
COLUMBIA COLLEGE EXHIBITION:Workwear (Abiti da Lavoro)
Columbia College Chicago’s Center Space is pleased to present Workwear (Abiti da Lavoro), June 23–July
30, 2016.
This exhibition investigates work clothes made for imaginary professions. Originally produced by the
Triennale di Milano and curated by Italian designer Alessandro Guerriero, Workwear (Abiti da Lavoro)
features objects generated by an interdisciplinary set of creatives coming from the disparate fields of art,
architecture, design, and fashion. Many of the garments on display are actually not meant to be worn, but
instead are intended to be an exploration of how labor, industrialization, globalization, fashion, and the
individual intersect.
Guerriero explains, “This exhibition is not a display of ‘work clothes’ but of garments for hypothetical,
invented, coveted, imaginary jobs that actually invent new jobs for a new and different society. Today’s
designers, including the thirty-nine in this exhibition, work amid epochal changes—the decline of the myth of
great masters and of the small factories of fine Italian design on the one side, and on the other, between the
giant global entities of eastern virtual design and the complete subversion of centres of post-economic and
post-industrial geography.”
Guerriero originally engineered the exhibition to support Arkadia Onlus (www.arkadiaonlus.it), an educational project
that
works with
organization
thatyoung people with disabilities. Fifteen designers in the initial exhibition provided sketches of
imaginary work clothes, which were then sewed by the young people of Arkadia Onlus. The exhibition was
then expanded in the traveling exhibition on view at Center Space.
Participating artists and designers include Afran, Rodrigo Almeida, Alberto Aspesi, Gentucca Bini, Denise
Bonapace, Andrea Branzi, Cano, Nacho Carbonel, Klaudio Cetina, Coop Himelblau, Dea Curic, Nathalie Du
Pasquier, Elio Fiorucci, Nuala Goodman, Matteo Guarnaccia, Daniele Innamorato, Mella Jaarsma,
Toshiyuiki Kita, Guda Koster, Colomba Leddi, Antonio Marras, Franco Mazzucchelli, Alessandro Mendini,
Angela Missoni, Issey Miyake, Amba Molly, Frédérique Morrel, Margherita Palli, Lucia Pescador,
Clara Rota, Andrea Salvetti, Nanni Strada, Tarshito Strippoli, Faye Toogood, Otto von Busch, Vivienne
Westwood, Allan Wexler, Erwin Wurm, and Melissa Zexter.
The Chicago edition of Workwear (Abiti da Lavoro) was designed by Meg Duguid in conjunction with Erika
van Veggel and Ty Wubbenhorst, students from Columbia College Chicago, and created with the support of
the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago.
WHEN:
June 23–July 30, 2016
Opening Reception: June 23, 6–8pm
WHERE:
Center Space
1104 S. Wabash Avenue
Chicago, IL 60605
Columbia College Chicago
Exhibition Contact: Meg Duguid, Gallery Director, [email protected], 312.369.8687
Gallery Hours: Tues.–Sat., 12–5pm; Thurs., 12–7 pm, or by appointment.
Columbia College Chicago is an urban institution that offers innovative degree programs in the visual, performing, media and
communication arts for nearly 10,000 students in 120 undergraduate and graduate programs. An arts and media college committed
to a rigorous liberal arts curriculum, Columbia is dedicated to opportunity and excellence in higher education. For further
information, visit www.colum.edu.
La Triennale di Milano is an international cultural institution with over 90 years of history behind it (it was established in Monza in
1923) that stages exhibitions, conferences and events on art, design, architecture, fashion, cinema, communication and society. It
organizes exhibitions devoted to contemporary art, to nationally and internationally acclaimed architects and designers, to the great
fashion designers who have changed tastes and customs, to social themes. It is a laboratory of ideas that speaks not just to
enthusiasts, students and professionals, but also to the public of the future, children and teenagers, through experimental and
interactive activities focused on the culture of design. It is involved in an intense dialogue with the rest of the world on the themes of
Italian culture and Italian products. For more information, visit http://www.triennale.org.
The Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago, directed by Alberta Lai, is the cultural office of the Consulate General of Italy in Chicago.
Founded in 1985, the Institute is one of five cultural agencies of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International
Cooperation in the United States. It is located in the heart of Chicago along the Magnificent Mile. The Institute serves as a
convenient source for information about Italian life and culture that showcases Italy’s classic and contemporary heritage with
particular reference to art, music, cinema, design, architecture, science, and technology. The Institute is also home to a school of
Italian language and culture, as well as a venue for art exhibitions and film screenings. The Institute works alongside the Consulate
General of Italy in Chicago to forge relationships with local universities and research institutions. For further information, visit
www.iicchicago.esteri.it.
###