Angelo Eugenio "Gillo" Dorfles (12 April 1910 – 2 March 2018) was an Italian art critic, painter, and philosopher.

Biography

Born in

Trieste Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into prov ...

to a

Gorizia Gorizia (; sl, Gorica , colloquially 'old Gorizia' to distinguish it from Nova Gorica; fur, label= Standard Friulian, Gurize, fur, label= Southeastern Friulian, Guriza; vec, label= Bisiacco, Gorisia; german: Görz ; obsolete English ''Gori ...

n father of Jewish descent and a Genoese mother, Dorfles graduated in

medicine Medicine is the science and practice of caring for a patient, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care pr ...

, specializing in

psychiatry Psychiatry is the specialty (medicine), medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psych ...

. He was a professor in

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...

at the

University of Trieste The University of Trieste ( it, Università degli Studi di Trieste, or UniTS) is a public research university in Trieste in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region in northeast Italy. The university consists of 10 departments, boasts a wide and almos ...

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

and Cagliari and, in 1948, established the MAC (''Movimento per l'arte concreta'') with artists Atanasio Soldati, Galliano Mazzon, Gianni Monnet, and

Bruno Munari Bruno Munari (October 24, 1907 in Milan – September 29, 1998 in Milan) was an Italian artist, designer, and inventor who contributed fundamentals to many fields of visual arts (painting, sculpture, film, industrial design, graphic design) in ...

. His paintings were displayed in two personal exhibitions held in Milan in 1949 and 1950 and also in numerous collective MAC exhibitions in the 1950s. In 1956 Dorfles co-founded the ADI (

Associazione per il disegno industriale ADI (Associazione per il Disegno Industriale) is an association of about 1.100 designers, manufacturer Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological p ...

). Having stopped painting, he devoted himself to the study of aesthetics and art criticism, dealing with the problem of the vanguard, the relationship between art and industry, analyzing artistic phenomena, and tastes in the contemporary society. According to Dorfles, aesthetics should focus on culture as a whole, which combine elements of fantasy, symbolic, metaphorical and even mythical suggestions. Among his major works, ''L'architettura moderna '' (1954), ''Kitsch'' (originally published in Italian in 1968 and translated in English the following year), ''La moda della moda'' (1984), ''Il feticcio quotidiano'' (1988), ''Horror pleni. La (in)civiltà del rumore'' (2008). In the same period, however, Dorfles continued to hold personal exhibitions: in 1986 his works were displayed in

, in 1988 in Aosta, and in 1996 in

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

. In 2010, for his 100th birthday celebrations, ''L'avanguardia tradita'' took place at the

Royal Palace of Milan The Royal Palace of Milan (Italian: ''Palazzo Reale di Milano'') was the seat of government in the Italian city of Milan for many centuries. Today, it serves as a cultural centre and it is home to international art exhibitions. It spans through ...

. Another exhibition was held in 2012 at the

Triennale di Milano The Triennale di Milano is a design and art museum in the Parco Sempione in Milan, in Lombardy in northern Italy. It is housed in the Palazzo dell'Arte, which was designed by Giovanni Muzio and built between 1931 and 1933; construction was fi ...

, organized by Dorfles himself, entitled ''Dorfles. Kitsch – oggi il kitsch''. At 103, Dorfles published a new book (''Poesie'', Campanotto Editore, 2013), containing previously unpublished poems written from 1941 to 1952. In 2013 he was among the artists who designed the Tibetan pavilion at the 55th

Venice Biennale The Venice Biennale (; it, La Biennale di Venezia) is an international cultural exhibition hosted annually in Venice, Italy by the Biennale Foundation. The biennale has been organised every year since 1895, which makes it the oldest of ...

. Gillo Dorfles died in

on 2 March 2018, six weeks before his 108th birthday.

Selected bibliography

* Gillo Dorfles, ''L'architettura moderna'', 1954 * Gillo Dorfles, ''Il Kitsch. Antologia del cattivo gusto'', 1968 * Gillo Dorfles (with John McHale), ''Kitsch: The World Of Bad Taste'', New York, Bell Publishing, 1969 * Gillo Dorfles, ''La moda della moda'', 1984 *Gillo Dorfles, Elogio della disarmonia, 1986 * Gillo Dorfles, ''Il Feticcio quotidiano'', 1988 * Gillo Dorfles, ''Horror Pleni. La (in)civiltà del rumore'', Castelvecchi Editore, 2008 * Gillo Dorfles, ''Conformisti. La morte dell'autenticità'', Castelvecchi Editore, 2008 * Gillo Dorfles, ''Fatti e fattoidi. Gli pseudoeventi nell'arte e nella società'', Castelvecchi Editore, 2009 * Gillo Dorfles, ''Irritazioni. Un'analisi del costume contemporaneo'', Castelvecchi Editore, 2010 * Gillo Dorfles, ''Dal significato alle scelte'', Castelvecchi Editore, 2010

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dorfles, Gillo 1910 births 2018 deaths Italian centenarians 20th-century Italian Jews Physicians from Trieste 20th-century Italian painters Italian male painters Italian art critics Artists from Trieste Writers from Trieste Men centenarians 20th-century Italian male artists Compasso d'Oro Award recipients Philosophers of art