Artist lecture: Paola Antonelli 4/21/10

Notes from artist lecture featuring Paola Antonelli, an Italian woman curator at the Modern Museum of Art in New York:

*Being a designer and curator can be the same thing.

*The design method can be applied to pretty much anything.

*She couldn’t have been this curator had she not had been taught in architecture.

*Two years of economics; hated it and moved to architecture. Just wanted to be free; not necessarily to become an architect. The path found it self. Keeping her mind open and following the things she liked to do.

*The right direction for her was to become a writer.

*In Italy writers aren’t trained in journalism; they are trained in whatever writing they wish to do, like fiction.

*Worked for Domus magazine that was formed in 1929. Was a housewives magazine. Was at Domus for four years.

*Started coming to America for the Aspen conferences.

*Had landed a teaching position at UCLA and kept traveling between Milan and California. Ended up seeing an ad for a job position at the MoMa in a magazine and got the job. Her job was already set up for her.

*First exhibition she did in ’95 at the MoMa dealt with idea of reality. Wanted to celebrate objects that were made of innovative materials or from old materials in an innovative way.

*Her shows are really relaxed; you can sit down and rest. She tries to make them a much sexier place than any other exhibition around it.

*Her first exhibition you could touch most of the objects. Replicas of objects: one far away and one you could touch.

*Every exhibition is an opportunity to drop into another world.