My trip to Lisbon has been to catch the exhibition Art on Display 1949-69 before it closes at the end of the month (it then transfers to Het Nieuwe Institut in Rotterdam, but not till July).
It’s based on the premise that the style of display adopted by the new Gulbenkian Museum when it opened in 1969 reflected a style of design and display pioneered in Italy in the 1950s, particularly since an influential advisor to the new museum, alongside Leslie Martin, was Franco Albini. This is quite an esoteric subject, but fascinating for those of us who are interested in how collections have been presented and hung in the past.
It starts with the work of Franca Helg and Franco Albini in the Palazzo Bianco in Genoa (I thought Carlo Scarpa was the pioneer). They went on to design an exhibition in São Paulo in 1954, presumably for Pietro Maria Bardi:-
Scarpa followed their example of taking pictures off the wall and often out of their frame and hung them on elaborately crafted easels:-
Meanwhile, Aldo van Eyck was encouraging the Cobra artists to be more adventurous in the ways in which they displayed art in the galleries of the Stedelijk Museum:-
The system of display used by Alison and Peter Smithson used for Lawrence Gowing’s exhibition Painting & Sculpture of a Decade 54-64 looks relatively tame by comparison, consisting of free-standing white walls standing entirely independently of their classical surroundings – what Alison Smithson called ‘The Milky Way’:-
Last of these pioneers in new systems of display was Lina Bo Bardi, whose husband, Pietro Maria Bardi, was the Director of MASP (the Art Museum of São Paulo). Her system of display in which paintings are hung on glass screens set in concrete blocks has been reconstructed (it inspired Piers Gough’s display of the early twentieth-century collection at the NPG:-
It’s a very good exhibition for the Gulbenkian to have organised to mark its fiftieth anniversary.
This looks like a truly fascinating show. I’m really sorry to miss it now, but thank you for sharing!
See it if you can ! On till March 2nd. Charles
I visited the exhibition last week and thought it was excellent. I did wonder whether Pier Gough was referring to Bo Bardi and you’ve answered my question. Thank you.
You get about ! Charles
Very glad you posted this as it encouraged me to take off my shelves a rather lovely book from the Stedelijk Museum (which I have never visited) documenting the wonderful playgrounds (over 700) which Aldo van Eyck designed in the period 1947-78. The book draws parallels between the way he approached designing these and his museum work. There is a bit about van Eyck’s playgrounds in the current Wellcome Collection exhibition ‘Play Well’ which is well worth a visit.
Thank you – very interesting. I haven’t included the Stedlijk in my book on post-war museums and maybe should have done (nor for that matter have I included the Gulbenkian). Charles
With such exceptional people, Leslie Martin, the Smithsons etc, it’s no wonder that the Gulbenkian is what it is. You really ought to include it.