Alfieri devoted much of his career to initiating and collaborating on numerous editorial projects, anticipating by at least a decade the flourishing period of Italian publishing. This period gave rise to many editorial initiatives that defined the space for cultural, artistic, architectural, and critical debates in Italy.
He followed in the footsteps of his father, Vittorio Alfieri, who, until the late 1930s, managed the publishing house Fratelli Treves in Milan and later founded Alfieri Edizioni d’Arte and Libreria Serenissima in Venice. In 1948, the Alfieri family was tasked with publishing Arte Veneta and subsequently entrusted by the Venice Biennale with producing the catalogs for the international exhibitions of 1948, 1950, and 1952. The young Alfieri, trained as an art critic, worked on important monographs, including the first Italian edition on Paul Klee (1948), and others on Piero Dorazio, Osvaldo Licini, Giuseppe Santomaso, and the Peggy Guggenheim collection catalog for the 24th Biennale.
Alfieri's editorial work extended astonishingly to contemporary art, architectural discourse, and automotive culture. He founded numerous journals, including Arte Lombarda (1954), Quadrum (1955), Zodiac (1957), Metro (1960), Pagina (1962), Marmo (1962), and Lotus (1963). By the early 1960s, Alfieri had developed a deep awareness of sector-specific periodicals and introduced novel editorial elements to Italian publishing.
From this foundation, remarkable initiatives emerged, including Metro, an international avant-garde art magazine promoting Pop Art figures such as Rauschenberg, Johns, Lichtenstein, Oldenburg, and Dine in Italy for the first time; Pagina, an experimental graphic design journal featuring collaborations with Massimo Vignelli, Bob Noorda, Bruno Munari, and Max Bill; Marmo, a groundbreaking publication dedicated to corporate culture and applied arts; and Lotus, conceived as an international architecture yearbook with a prestigious scientific committee, aiming to trace new directions in architectural research.
The exhibition traces the most significant 25 years of Alfieri’s career (1948–1973), from his early publications to the transfer of his publishing house. Within this timeline, the key aspects of his work emerge: not just as a publisher but as a director of complex cultural and entrepreneurial operations, marked by his natural ability to create synergies of thought, design, and communication, applying a holistic vision across the disciplines he engaged with.
Given the scarcity of historical and critical readings of Alfieri’s activities, the exhibition aims to highlight two facets: the fertile Venetian cultural context in which Alfieri operated—connecting designers, intellectuals, and entrepreneurs—and the tangible and iconographic value of the editorial products he curated.
Alfieri’s journals exemplify the exceptional integration of curatorial content and photographic production. Photography played a decisive role, introduced as an autonomous artistic project rather than merely a visual counterpart to text. For Metro, Lotus, and Marmo, custom-made photographic reportages constituted a significant part of the visual content. Alfieri even proposed eliminating bylines under articles to create a unified journalistic experience.
Despite these visual priorities, Alfieri's publications featured outstanding critical contributions, bringing together an international array of authors. Many of his publications were bilingual, reflecting his aim to reach a broad, global audience. In his editorials, addressed to “Dear Readers,” Alfieri consistently emphasized independence, graphic and communicative experimentation, and a balanced mix of critical articles and informational features, free from commercial sector constraints.
A central figure in the history of post-war magazines, Alfieri bridged international art and architecture publishing trends with an innovative Italian model. While reflecting on the past, the exhibition seeks to chart future trajectories. Alfieri’s cultural vision balanced entrepreneurial approaches to disseminating thought, a search for “collective wisdom,” and the integration of innovative work systems. These allowed the magazine format to evolve alongside advances in printing and publishing technology.
Ultimately, the exhibition is an invitation to apply innovative and cross-disciplinary thinking to all fields of design.
