PAPER DESIGN AT CA’ PESARO 2025
Venice, Ca’ Pesaro – International Gallery of Modern Art, Project room
27 February – 6 April 2025
Exhibition and catalogue curated by Dario Cestaro
In collaboration with Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia
Paper design at Ca’ Pesaro is the fourth edition of the traditionally called “A month of paper” appointment in the Museum. It is a well-established event where are exhibited the best paper design products made by the students of the Paper Technology course at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice held by Prof. Dario Cestaro.
Paper design is an artistic field that has established itself in the last twenty years and includes the production of objects and images made using sheets of paper, cardboard and cardboard as raw materials. The sectors in which paper design works are used are many: publishing, packaging, furnishing, furniture, illustration, scenography and video animation.
In this panorama, a particularly surprising role is played by the production of books equipped with interactive mechanisms capable of creating three-dimensionality and movement known as “pop-up books”, whose tradition has its roots in the thirteenth century. The first evidence of a book with moving mechanisms dates back to 1306 in the book “Chronica Majora” created by the Benedictine monk Matthew Paris in England.
Paper is a material with extraordinary ability, ancient and domestic, with a grainy and organic surface, capable of absorbing light with such softness, returning brilliant colors and crystalline whites. It has accompanied the history of man since ancient times, becoming the support of his testimony. It is a daily presence, a playful tool and an artistic support. This perpetual participation in the human experience gives it the ability to arouse an intimate and confidential relationship with the public, willing to be amazed and moved by refined workmanship, in which it manages to identify technical expertise.
Paper represents a tactile and artisanal dimension that is needed in a society suspended between digital and virtual. Fueling the trend towards the use of paper is also the growing research into eco-sustainable solutions that has changed the perception of it, promoting it from a poor material to a virtuous one.
