IAS Book Launch: Bruno Munari - The Lightness of Art

Dubbed a 'Leonardo Da Vinci and Peter Pan' of the modern world, Bruno Munari played a key role in practices as wide ranging as concrete abstraction, kinetic art, multiples and xerograph art. He also gained international recognition in industrial and graphic design, through signature objects such as his Falkland lamp (1964) and Abitacolo (1971), advertising material for firms including Campari, and editorial work for Domus and publishing houses such as Einaudi and Bompiani. He left an indelible mark as a design theorist (among his many volumes, Design as Art appeared in English with Penguin in 1971) and as a children's author and educator, through the artistic laboratories he toured globally from the mid-1970s.

The exceptional array of critical voices in the new collection of essays Bruno Munari: The Lightness of Art (2017) constitutes a study of unprecedented depth in any language on the artist. Through original archival research and illuminating comparisons with other artists and movements both within and outside Italy (from dada and surrealism to Lucio Fontana, Paolo Gilardi and structural cinema), the essays gathered here offer novel readings of both more familiar aspects of Munari's career (such as his photo-essays of the 1930s and 1940s) and heretofore neglected aspects (including his light projections and performances).

The volume will be introduced by its editors, Matilde Nardelli (UCL/UWL), Pierpaolo Antonello (University of Cambridge) and Margherita Zanoletti (Cattolica University, Milan), who will be joined for a roundtable discussion by Flavia Frigeri (UCL), Grace Lees-Maffei (University of Hertfordshire), Teresa Kittler (University of York) and Giuliana Pieri (Royal Holloway).

With the support of the University of Cambridge.

All welcome. Please register here.