Vito Noto Forty years of Graphics and Design. The Meaning of Ideas

The Vito Noto exhibition belongs to the strand of “contemporary graphics”. The m.a.x museo in Chiasso is presenting the first anthological exhibition devoted to the forty-year career of the Swiss designer Vito Noto (1955), whose studio is at Cadro at the foot of Monte Boglia.

The exhibition traces the artist’s creative and professional development, revealing the conceptual evolution that has shaped the projects characterising his career. On display, organised on chronological and thematic principles, are over a hundred exhibits including models, prototypes, technical drawings, preparatory sketches, studies of logos, products and machinery. His extensive output includes visual design,  product design  and industrial design.

Before starting his specific training in design, Vito Noto met Max Huber and sought advice about the Scuola Politecnica, where Huber taught with other renowned international figures, including Alberto Rosselli, Isao Hosoe, Narciso Silvestrini, Bruno Munari, Achille Castiglioni, Bob Noorda and Gillo Dorfles, the teachers of the young designer. After graduating from the Scuola Politecnica del Design, he  continued his training in Zurich, Paris and Hamburg, and then returned to Canton Ticino. Here he opened his office, considering it the ideal region to enable him to stay in touch with the rest of Europe. He established his practice at Cadro, devoting himself to significant projects especially in the industrial field of textiles, working for Swiss companies and in the field of laboratory medicine. Multifaceted and very reflective, as a designer Vito Noto ventured into the most varied fields of design, dealing with corporate image branding and visual identity for companies in the Ticino region. In product visual design, Vito Noto has also devoted himself to the design of Swiss postage stamps and the creation of commemorative coins for the Swiss Confederation. Several of his projects have been nominated for the Compasso d’Oro and he won the Design Preis Schweiz award in 1995 with his F.A.M.E. Hamilton project.

The artist has donated his whole archive to the m.a.x.  museo; consequently his works form part of the museum’s art collection. The exhibition has also been made possible thanks to loans of other works by public institutions and private collectors.

exhibition curated by Mario Piazza and Nicoletta Ossanna Cavadini