Falce e martello – The Hammer and Sickle

Falce e martello: tre dei modi con cui un artista può contribuire alla lotta di classe (‘Hammer and Sickle: three of the ways an artist can contribute to the class struggle’) by Enzo Mari was the little catalogue that accompanied his exhibition at the Galleria Milano in 1973. Today, the exhibition is re-proposed, with the same display and in the same historical Milanese gallery; the anastatic reprint of the catalogue is enriched with photographs and documents from the archives of the Gallery and from the Mari Archive, along with an essay by Bianca Trevisan which retraces the planning itinerary undertaken by the Milanese artist and designer, and an essay by Riccardo Venturi outlining the historical, artistic and political debate that the project was part of, and which was accompanied by a film that sparked a degree of controversy at the time. A snapshot of that tinderbox which was 1970s Italy, and a reflection on the hammer and sickle: the most iconic symbol of the whole of the twentieth century.