The Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art opens 2026 with the first monographic exhibition in the United Kingdom dedicated to Alessandro Mendini, on view from 16 January to 10 May. The exhibition marks a significant step for the London institution, traditionally focused on twentieth-century Italian visual art, and acknowledges Mendini’s role as a central figure in redefining the boundaries between design, art and architecture in the second half of the twentieth century. The exhibition brings together a substantial group of works spanning the entirety of Mendini’s career, from his early critique of functionalism to his full international recognition. Furniture, design objects, drawings, paintings and experimental works reveal the complexity of a practice that made the crossing of disciplines its defining feature. Mendini challenged the idea of neutrality in industrial design, introducing narrative, decorative and symbolic elements as legitimate tools of the project. Among the works on display are some of his best-known projects, including the Proust Armchair, alongside lesser-known pieces that document his sustained interest in art history, the avant-gardes and twentieth-century visual culture. The exhibition also highlights Mendini’s structural relationship with the Italian manufacturing system, through collaborations with companies that helped transform design into a field of cultural experimentation as well as industrial production. Particular attention is given to Mendini’s role as an intellectual and cultural mediator. His editorial work at the helm of magazines such as Domus, Casabella and Modo emerges as an integral part of his broader cultural project, one that shaped generations of designers and architects well beyond Italy. In this sense, the exhibition is not limited to a retrospective survey, but offers a critical reading of his contribution to the international debate on design. The presentation at the Estorick thus portrays an author who used colour, quotation and excess as analytical tools for engaging with the present, anticipating issues that are now central, including the hybridisation of languages and the symbolic value of objects. It is a necessary reappraisal that situates Alessandro Mendini within a fully European and international perspective.
.jpg/jcr%3Acontent)
