Riccardo Dalisi – Radicalmente

MAXXI | Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome

Exhibition documentation, 2023


This series documented the major retrospective dedicated to architect, designer and artist Riccardo Dalisi, held one year after his death. The commission focused on Studio Novembre’s immersive installation and on how drawings, furniture, objects, sculptures, photographs and archive materials were staged together to reveal Dalisi’s “ultra-poor” design, his workshops with children in Naples and his reworking of Mediterranean mythologies. The photographs also followed the section developed by Vincenzo Castella with a group of young visual artists, tracing how their images responded to Dalisi’s legacy within the exhibition.

Exhibition text by MAXXI | Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo

Architect, designer and artist, and twice winner of the Compasso d’Oro, Riccardo Dalisi was one of the most multifaceted and unconventional Italian designers of recent decades.
A year after his death, this major retrospective presents Dalisi’s work in all its extreme variety and originality: from creative workshops with children in Naples to “ultra-poor” design, from architecture to the reinterpretation of the Neapolitan coffee pot, from urban installations to the reimagining of Mediterranean mythologies.

Through drawings, sketches, furniture, objects, books, sculptures, paintings, photographs, archival documents, films and other materials, the radical and revolutionary character of the “Dalisi method” is revealed.

The exhibition also highlights Dalisi’s fruitful exchanges with artists, designers, architects and critics such as Mimmo Jodice, Alessandro Mendini, Giancarlo De Carlo, Massimo Pica Ciamarra, Mimmo Paladino, Enrico Crispolti, Andy Warhol, Joseph Beuys, Ettore Sottsass and others.

The installation curated by Studio Novembre evokes an upside-down world, immersing visitors in a dreamlike landscape populated by Dalisi’s creations. The exhibition also includes the research project developed by artist-photographer Vincenzo Castella, together with a group of young visual artists (Daniele Marzorati, Davide Barberi, Edoardo Bonacina, Josefine Jyllnor), starting from traces of the Neapolitan architect’s work, in collaboration with NABA, Nuova Accademia di Belle Arti.