On the evening of Oct. 9th, famous Italian architect and designer Mr. Stefano Boeri, world famous master of literature and art Mr. Hans Ulrich Obrist and several outstanding artists visited Shanghai & Florence, Sino-Italian Design Exchange Center (Florence Base). Sino-Italian Design Exchange Center made STROZZI Villa take on an entirely new look, and organized a special art exchange and communication activity for those outstanding people in art and creative fields.
Mr. Stefano Boeri is a world famous architect, curator, critic and educator. As a senior professor of Urbanology in Politecnico di Milano, Mr. Boeri once taught in Harvard University, Columbia University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology in USA and other world famous schools of architecture. Moreover, Mr. Boeri also worked as the Chief Editor of famous design magazine Domus and international architecture journal Abitare. From 2011 to 2013, Mr. Boeri took the office of Deputy Mayor of Milan and began to take charge of the city’s construction in culture and fashion fields. During this period, he took the positions of Chief Planner and Theme Setter of EXPO Milano 2015. The “Summer of Florence” Art Festival successfully held last summer made the world witness the extraordinary talent of Florence Mayor’s Chief Urban Culture Adviser.
Another super star in this exchange activity was Mr. Hans Ulrich Obrist, an independent curator, art critic and leader in art circles from Switzerland. The man from Zurich who is honored as “Hans Junior” in Chinese art circles once was rated by British art magazine Art Review as the Most Influential Person in Art Circles in 2009, and was ranked among the Most Powerful 100 People in Global Art Circles. So far, Mr. Obrist has curated over 200 international exhibitions and group exhibitions. The 1st Manifesta, the 1st Berlin Biennale, the 1st Moscow Triennale, the 2nd Guangzhou Triennale, and Switzerland Pavilion of Venice Biennale 2014 were all curated by this master. In addition, this art master who likes traveling around the world and interviewing celebrities has nearly 2,000 hours of interview records. He has interviewed over 300 artists, writers, curators, architects, and various celebrities worldwide, published 28 books of Dialogue Series based on the interview content, and personally edited over 70 academic works.
The visiting art masters firstly listened to the center’s representative’s introduction of Shanghai & Florence, Sino-Italian Design Exchange Center. During the introduction, everyone reviewed the efforts made by Shanghai government and Florence government in the process of founding the center and their high expectations for this transnational platform at first. Next, through real cases, the center’s staff explained how the center helped the two countries’ cultural and creative industries to exchange, and provided designers and enterprise in cultural and creative fields with value-added services. At last, accompanied by the staff, the visitors admired the artistic and modernized renovation of STROZZI Villa by Sino-Italian Design Exchange Center-through ingenious planning and elaborate repair, oriental elements were harmoniously blended into western classical architecture, making this over 400-year-old historic site show new vitality.
The artists present showed deep interest in this creative combination and gasped with admiration from time to time during the visit. Mr. Obrist always pays high attention to China’s art development. He has been devoted to building a bridge for Eastern and Western art exchanges since 1990s. This time, Mr. Obrist made a positive appraisal of the role of Sino-Italian Design Exchange Center from a professional angle. In his opinion, a good exhibition should reflect the urgent demand of the times. From this point, in the big context in which Sino-Italian exchanges become frequent day by day, Sino-Italian Design Exchange Center has very high curation value. In addition, the 400-year-old historic site turned into a unique creative park that enjoyed tranquility in a noisy district, and found the best balance point among the building’s historic value, aesthetic value and practical value. It can be regarded as a case worth encouragement in architecture field. Sino-Italian Design Exchange Center not only achieved cultural communication between the West and the East, but also realized the comparison of historical and contemporary aesthetic values. This is a trans-time-and-space multi-dimensional communication deserving to be praised. It not only agrees with Mr. Obrist’s idea of art exchange, but also proves the foresight of the governments, enterprises and talents of Shanghai and Florence.
In the subsequent talks, Mr. Boeri also agreed with Mr. Obrist’s view. He said Sino-Italian cultural exchanges were growing vigorously, and the Milan Vertical Forest Project designed by him also would be exhibited in DOBE E-manor of Changning this year. Mr. Boeri was glad to participate in the two countries’ exchanges and cooperation in art and creative fields. Mr. Obrist’s idea enlightened Boeri. He suggested Mr. Obrist set up a special file display space in STROZZI Villa, to be used for collecting and sharing Mr. Obrist’s interview materials, books and magazines. It was quiet and elegant both inside and outside the villa, and the landscape was also pleasant, which was very suitable for artistic creation. Mr. Boeri suggested artists present to open their studios or hold small exhibitions here.
Those suggestions got responses from many artists present. Afterward, Mr. Obrist expressed his wish to have further cooperation with the center. He expected to share his work achievements with more people through the platform of Sino-Italian Design Exchange Center.
