Ron Arad: In Reverse

Fiat 500 – in carved and polished stainless steel, flattened and hung on the wall – is the focus of two new works by Ron Arad, that can be seen in December at Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin.

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“In Reverse”, the new exhibition about Ron Arad that will be inaugurated December, 20 at Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin, will focus on a major new project exploring, through physical experiments and digital simulations, the way in which automobile bodies, specifically the Fiat 500, behave under compression.

On clean white walls of the spaces designed by Renzo Piano at the 4th floor of the Pinacoteca Agnelli, Arad will install Dried Flowers (2013): six crushed Fiat 500s, each flattened to resemble the outcome of a scenario in a cartoon or a child’s drawing that lacks a sense of depth. The crushed vehicles will surround a curved wooden forming buck, a mould that was used to shape and fit the metal panels of the 500, which is on loan from the Fiat Archive and Museum. Nearby, Arad will present Roddy Giacosa (2013), a new sculpture created by positioning hundreds of polished stainless steel rods on a metal armature in the shape of a Fiat 500. Each contoured section takes the shape of one of the vehicle’s panels and the parts fit together to form the body of the car. The mould for this work will also be shown.

Alongside the walls displaying the crushed Fiats will be a group of Arad’s designs, primarily chairs made from steel, tracing his experimentation with the medium from his earliest works in the 1980s and a number of crushed objects, such as a toy police car that he found forty years ago in the street in Tel Aviv, as well as other objects that were studies and tests, including a bottle rack that he had flattened by a steamroller.

In Reverse will also feature Slow Outburst (2013) Arad’s digital simulation of the crushing process, using the most recent model of the Fiat 500, as well as a sculpture derived from one frame of the film Drop (2013) that has been made by a 3D printing technique. Digital prints on paper (Lets Drop It, OK? (2013)) capture the results of simulated digital compressions of the Roddy Giacosa.

From December 20, 2013 until March 30, 2014
In Reverse by Ron Arad
Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli
via Nizza 230, Turin

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Ron Arad: In Reverse

Fiat 500 – in carved and polished stainless steel, flattened and hung on the wall – is the focus of two new works by Ron Arad, that can be seen in December at Pinacoteca Agnelli, Turin.

Wood: a key resource for south tyrol

Stitching Wood: Lissoni’s Latest Creation

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