The autumn season of events of the Design for Tutti opens with a talk focused on the country of the rising sun and its influence on the arts and culture of the West. The event is on October 25th at 8pm in LevelHUB, La Valletta Brianza.
The History of Japan is Bonded to Kimono
“There are frequent themes in the history of art, traced and reassuring furrows, to be explored and cultivated without too many surprises. And then, suddenly unexpected short circuits are discovered and new perspectives open up”. These are the words of Raffaella Sgubin, director of the research service of the Museums and Historical Archives of Friuli Venezia Giulia published on the catalog of the exhibition “Kimono, reflections of art between Japan and the West”, open until 19 November 2023 at the Prato Textile Museum and sponsored from the Embassy of Japan. The exhibition, organized in Prato in collaboration with the Museum of Fashion and Applied Arts of Gorizia, showcases the inspirations that Western artistic expression had in Japanese art through the best-known object: the kimono.
The sentences of the professor and researcher Raffaella Sgubin push the public to focus on the theme of the East, describing the relationship between Japan and the West: so distant in geographical terms, but at the same time close thanks to fruitful economic and cultural relations. The traces and influences Japan has exerted on fashion, on the production of everyday objects and on graphics are in fact clearly visible and traceable: a fascination that comes from afar and hasn’t stopped exercising its enchantment
Japan is Upon Us! The Event
Level Office Landscape has collected this rare and precious suggestion, convinced that the topic, proposed to a wide and heterogeneous audience, is an enrichment to the knowledge of the history of Western art and a contribution to aesthetic education and the refinement of taste.
Thus, the first autumn evening of the series of free Design per Tutti lessons, will be dedicated to the land of the rising sun. On October 25th at 8.00pm, the appointment is at LevelHUB in Valletta Brianza, with “Japan is Upon Us” for the analysis and discussion on different Japanese works: paintings, fabrics, applied art artefacts and architecture from the second half of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century.
The evening is organized in two parts. Firstly Massimo Gianquitto and the art and architecture historian Francesca Filippi will address the topic of Japonism and its relevance in Europe and the United States. Subsequently, Professor Lydia Manavello is talking about how the kimono bears witness to the profound changes experienced by Japan in the first half of the twentieth century, thanks to its extraordinary and unique collection of these clothes, obi and other objects of applied art.
The appointment is in October, to explore the fascinating world of Japan with an artistic and cultural perspective.
Francesca Filippi
Graduated in Architecture and PhD in History of Architecture and Urban Planning, she writes about architecture, art and design and lectures at public and private universities. She was editor of the «Giornale dell’Architettura» (2001 – 2009) and curator of the virtual museum MuseoTorino, kicked off in 2011 on the occasion of the 150th Anniversary of the Unification of Italy. She has published books for schools, scientific articles on architecture between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and tourist guides. She is co-author (with Francesco Poli) of the History of Art course “Beauty remains” (Bruno Mondadori Scholastic Editions, 2022), and of “A for Architecture. Visual historical dictionary, in two volumes”. She is also the author of the art history course CreArte, for lower secondary schools (Paravia, 2023).
Lydia Manavello
Lydia Manavello graduated in Conservation of Cultural Heritage in Udine. She has been involved in cataloging artistic and archival assets, teaching the History of Art, Architecture and artistic techniques (glass, ceramic, fabric, furniture) for cultural associations, institutions and professional firms. For over twenty years she has taught History of Art in secondary schools and accompanies visitors and travelers to discover the territory in which she lives, as a tourist guide. For a long time she has been interested in the study of Japanese art, which she explored in depth in the textile aspect, creating a prestigious collection of vintage kimonos. In this context she collaborates with museums and private bodies, holding conferences and promoting the diffusion of Japanese culture also with national thematic exhibitions.