The Triennale Design Museum Milan opened their exhibition "Dream Factories: People, ideas and paradoxes of Italian design" a week before Fuorisalone
Sadly they didn't use the week to test drive it - and then reduce the volume.
Intended to explore those producers who have contributed to the rise of Italian design since the end of the Second World War "Dream Factories: People, ideas and paradoxes of Italian design" is simply too much input in too small a space.
As Everything Everything so eloquently put it "I can't move my legs and arms. It's too much information"
Or indeed "I can't move my legs and arms. It's too much furniture".
The idea is good and interesting - the execution is ridiculous.
Which is a shame because a visit to the Triennale Design Museum is normally a high point of a trip to Milan.
In our opinion the organisers of Dream Factories have simply been over ambitious and/or saw their exhibition as a form of location marketing for Milanese design rather than a critical exploration of the subject.
Conceived as being an Alice in Wonderland adventure, Dream Factories can certainly claim to have created a world where no one can truly understands what is happening. But not much else.
Aside from covering the walls with information to the 12 - that's 12 - themes, there is a description of each and every one of the objects the organisers have crammed into the hopelessly inadequate space. Plus lightboards with background information on important producers and designers.
The press release claims that Dream Factories is "... an extraordinary occasion to discover some of the most famous objects of Italian design from new points of view"
We don't doubt that for a minute. But if you want to do that - plan two days.
We gave up after about 10 minutes.
Before arriving in Milan we imagined Dream Factories as presenting a wonderful compliment to Zoom. Italian Design and the Photography of Aldo and Marirosa Ballo at the Vitra Design Museum.
Similar theme - different perspective.
However, where Zoom presents everything in a clear, considered and unhurried manner - Dream Factories is just a cluttered mess.
Unfortunately.
As Alice would no doubt have, wearily, put it. "'I think you might do something better with the time than waste it in conceiving exhibitions that have no clear focus"
"Dream Factories: People, ideas and paradoxes of Italian design" can be viewed at the Triennale Design Museum Milan until 26.02.2012
More information can be found at: http://www.triennaledesignmuseum.it/
