Italo Rota Collection on View at Fondazione Ragghianti in Lucca

The exhibition 'Pianeta città. Arti cinema musica design nella Collezione Rota 1900-2021' is on display until October 24 at the Fondazione Centro Studi sull'Arte Licia e Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti in Lucca. Curated by Paolo Bolpagni with Aldo Colonetti and collector-architect Italo Rota, the show presents Rota's personal collection as a journey through 20th and early 21st century urban vision. Rota describes the collection not as a formal assemblage but as a method of absorbing what seems important. The exhibition is divided into ten sections, from the early 1900s to the horror of Nazism, from East Berlin to new perspectives. It features small architectures, Archigram images, early ecological signals, and Scandinavian housing revolutions. Objects include books, artworks, posters, films, record covers, design products, magazines, and comics. A highlight is Richard Avedon's 1967 psychedelic portraits of the Beatles and Josef Hartwig's 1923-24 Bauhaus chess set. Rota defines the city as a 'we,' emphasizing that people animate urban spaces and that a city's identity shapes its inhabitants and artists.