From February 19th to February 25th 2019, Tommaso Calabro presents the exhibition of Italian designer Andrea Incontri Le Tipe Umane, first of a series of interdisciplinary projects with which the art gallery aims at valorizing Milan’s established excellence in fashion and design, fostering original dialogues with the world of visual and applied arts. On the occasion of the upcoming Milan Fashion Week and curated by Caroline Corbetta, it combines fashion, visual arts, digital communication and applied arts. Referring to Honoré de Balzac’s Comédie Humaine, Caroline Corbetta coined the term ‘le Tipe Umane’ in 2016, when she curated the first show dedicated to Incontri’s creations at Il Crepaccio in Milan. On that occasion, the designer’s works were exhibited as digitally printed images. The exhibition Le Tipe Umane, which renews the collaboration between the curator and the designer, explores a further development of Incontri’s research, which today combines digital communication with artisanal quality.Andrea Incontri delved into his passion for art and illustration when, in 2016, he started creating his now iconic Tipe Umane. Drawn freehand by the designer on his Instagram account on videos and photos of his daily life, they are female figures, which come alive as rapid yet detailed sketches following no preparatory study. Executed by using the entire Instagram colour palette, le Tipe Umane embody Incontri’s personal representation of a feminine universe. Ladies walking with their dogs or young girls going out for shopping – women of different ages and attitudes, these characters wear an infinite variety of outfits, curated in every detail, that reveal their diverse personalities and show their creator’s attentive observation of aesthetic and social norms. The marble staircase leading to the gallery will host the screening of videos posted by Incontri on the Instagram account dedicated to Le Tipe Umane. Also along the stairs, the designer’s archetypical yet contemporary figures will materialize in front of our eyes, wearing outfits created by their author specifically for the exhibition. On the first floor, entering a series of rooms dedicated to the show, over one hundred Tipe Umane, embroidered and framed with precious fabrics and materials, will be displayed as an array of the most varied female types – those that can be encountered along the streets or that embody an ideal, originating from both the real world and that of imagination. Each character bears a name automatically generated by Instagram from two casual letters. The social network’s geolocation software then randomly associates Sally, Cassandra, Victoria and all the other ones to a place. In the last room of the exhibition – enriched by Neoclassical fresco decorations and open to the public for the first time – a site-specific installation will dialogue with the female figures of the walls and ceiling frescoes.ANDREA INCONTRI Andrea Incontri is a designer with over fifteen years of experience in the design and fashion industries. Incontri received an interdisciplinary education, which combined art studies with a subsequent degree in architecture. The world of fashion and industrial design have been fertile territories for his creativity. He collaborated with international fashion and design brands. In 2009, Andrea Incontri founded his homonymous brand, which initially focused on the production of accessories and later specialised in both men and women’s fashion.
