La Grande Svolta. Anni '60. Viaggio negli anni sessanta in Italia

Many aspects of today's culture are rooted in the great changes that took place over the course of the 1960s. It is common, in fact, when we tackle the themes and artistic phenomena of our own time, for us to come across precedents, real or ideal, that can be traced back to that extraordinary decade. And so it is almost inevitable that we find ourselves having to come to grips with all the peculiar and innovative things that occurred in those years.
The volume - which accompanies the exhibition staged at the monumental venue of the restored Palazzo della Ragione in Padua - sets out to present a picture of the sixties, intertwining visual arts, design and architecture and carrying out an unprecedented investigation of other fields of expression and communication related to them, such as cinema, television, music, photography and fashion, in a fascinating exploration of the art world of the time.
The decade following the years of postwar reconstruction became the most dynamic of the entire 20th century and the events that took place in those years brought about profound changes in every preexisting order: science, economics, technology and the arts underwent an epoch-making transformation, radically altering our ways of perceiving and communicating reality. The media and consumption became the two pillars on which mass society was built. Advertising set out to make desirable the new products that were rapidly changing patterns of social and cultural consumption. The new world of merchandise was born, drawing its formal motifs and strategies from the rich and ever more varied reservoir of artistic experimentation. Padua and the Veneto were in the front line in shaping the new horizons of form and merchandise in Italy. They contributed, through the efforts of some outstanding figures, to the definition of models that were to set the trend in matters of aesthetic quality and intelligent design.

Thus the volume - which contains essays by, among others, Renato Barilli, Gian Piero Brunetta, Laura Cherubini, Vittorio Gregotti, Mario Luzzatto Fegiz, Marco Meneguzzo, Anty Pansera and Franco Purini - provides an opportunity to relive, intellectually and emotionally, this period of such importance in our recent past, explored through its art and fashion, movies and television, music and design, architecture and more.