m.a.x. museo – Chiasso – Canton Ticino – Switzerland
MARCH 31, 2025 – JULY 20, 2025
The exhibition is part of the multi-year study that the m.a.x. museo has cyclically dedicated to means of transport, starting with the automobile (the exhibition Auto che passione, in 2018, is a reminder) and subsequently with means of locomotion on the railway (with the exhibition Treni fra arte, grafica e design, in 2021).
In the second half of the nineteenth century and in the early twentieth century, the industrial revolution brought with it a whole series of discoveries and changes that still today influence our way of living, in the name of movement and speed. In this discourse, the bicycle and the motorcycle also played an important role. These means of transport represent a fascinating world: the exhibition, through the images of the graphics of posters, flyers and leaflets, traces their history and investigates their social, cultural and artistic values. Through the display of graphic materials and models that have made the history of two wheels, the exhibition tells how graphics and design have intertwined within the various historical phases that have characterized the development of these means, up to the contemporary, with an eye also to future scenarios.
In fact, bicycles and motorcycles can be investigated not only from a historical and technological perspective, but also from an aesthetic, symbolic and sociological point of view, all aspects that are typical of the modern industrial product. In fact, the exhibition traces a path that explains how bicycles and motorcycles over time have dictated stylistic trends and contributed to building various myths of modernity.
The four rooms of the museum display graphic advertising materials commissioned by the owners and managers of the companies, by great masters of graphics: from Leopoldo Metlicovitz to Marcello Dudovich, from Aleardo Villa to Plinio Codognato, from Achille Luciano Mauzan to Gino Boccasile, from Aleardo Terzi to Gian Emilio Malerba, from Elio Ettore Ximenes to Osvaldo Ballerio, from Aldo Mazza to Jean-Marie Michel Libeaux, from Erberto Carboni to Armando Testa. Within the graphics section, a specific section is reserved for periodical publishing, with the exhibition of Italian and foreign magazines that offer a specific approach to the world of bicycles and motorcycles.
The exhibition is made possible thanks to important loans from the Museo Nazionale Collezione Salce in Treviso, as well as many private Italian and Swiss collectors. The exhibition boasts the patronage of the Consulate General of Italy in Lugano.
Exhibition curated by Stefano Pivato, Giorgio Sarti and Nicoletta Ossanna Cavadini.
