Art and culture constitute a formidable driving force behind development of both companies and society. For this reason, we conceived the project ART FACTOR – The Pop Legacy in Post-War Italian Art, which takes its initial form in the book of the same name, and will go on to become an exhibition that will tour Europe.
The project features a selection of works by Italian artists, taken from the contemporary art collection that BFF has been putting together since the 1980s – one that is an homage to the art of the second half of the 20th century, and has also been an integral part of the history and growth of the group that has assembled it over the years.
It was specifically the “art factor” that – about forty years ago – provided the genesis for what was to become a collection of over 250 artworks, spanning the years from the immediate post-war period right through to the early 2000s, created by artists as Valerio Adami, Enrico Baj, Alberto Burri, Hsiao Chin, Mario Schifano, Arnaldo Pomodoro, and Joe Tilson. The project takes in a selection of works that describe the Italian path through Pop Art, as embodied by the output of Valerio Adami, Franco Angeli, Enrico Baj, Lucio del Pezzo, Gianfranco Pardi, Mario Schifano and Emilio Tadini.
From the mid-1960s onwards, these artists engaged with a longstanding iconographic tradition, re-casting and transcending the avant-gardes and stylistic techniques of the past, while making use of a rich variety of resources, often deployed for purposes of social and cultural activism.
