You may have noticed that we talk an awful lot in this blog about the decades of the 60’s & 70’s. Perhaps it’s the nostalgia that those were the decades of my youth, or perhaps because they were so darn cool. The 1980’s is often to referred to in not-so-glowing terms characterized by big shoulder pads and even bigger hair.

Ettore Sottsass, a Milanese architect, is one of the coolest things about the 80’s. Sottsass pioneered what came to be known as the Memphis Group. The name comes form the Bob Dylan song “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” which was playing all through night while Sottsass and his cohorts were creatively putting their heads together. Memphis style is considered Postmodern furniture, characterized by colorful decorations, often made in plastic laminate, and asymmetrical shapes. It is both playful and fairly bizarre at the same time.

This month New York’s Friedman Benda Gallery is introducing Ettore Sotsass: 1955-1969, featuring rare furniture, ceramics and objects (some never seen before in the United States) produced when the designer was still refining his radical point of view.

Regardless of whether you love it or hate it, the upcoming exhibition is an ode to a design icon of whom it can be rarely said, was a true original.

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