A carte blanche was given to the talented furniture designer and architect Charles Zana to put together an exhibition confronting Italian design and art from the end of the Second World War to the beginning of the 1970s. An unprecedented dialogue between two fields who have much more in common than we think, especially at a time when the lines started to blur between what was considered home decor and what was considered works of art. The middle of the 1940s in Italy was something of a pivotal era where people were eager to distance themselves from the past while still cherishing it. It was a moment when rooms were thought of not as a whole but as living spaces with different components in them. Furniture could now clash freely, taking on different values and aesthetics. Art and design are normally separated by the duality of uniqueness and seriality. But designers were starting to rethink that traditional divide…

Charles Zana is no stranger to that subject and especially to Italian design, which he works with on a daily basis when designing apartments and rooms for the most prestigious art collectors and intellectuals all over the world. He evens teaches a class at the Camondo school called « Art and design: the collection in the project », tracing parallels between those two worlds and reminding students of the importance of art as a cultural reference. The exhibition opens tomorrow on the occasion of the FIAC art fair in Paris and confronts works from Lucio Fontana, Carlo Mollino, Gino Sarfatti, Paolo Scheggi, Michele De Lucchi, Alberto Burri and many more. Rediscover a defining era through the art that made it, from October 18th through December 21st at the Passage de Retz. (Opening on October 17th)