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A2B – Campari, art in a bottle

The Embassy of Italy in London yesterday hosted the second event in the Art2Business (A2B) series, which was launched last year by the ambassador, Raffaele Trombetta, with two aims: to promote Italian art, culture and creativity, and to celebrate links between the world of business and the world of art.

Yesterday’s event featured the Campari group, which has collaborated with the art world for over a century. Five artworks done for Campari by influential artists were on display for the occasion. Presentations were given by Anita Todesco, the curator of the Campari Gallery in Sesto San Giovanni, and Nicol Degli Innocenti, the London correspondent for the newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. In his opening address, the ambassador said that Campari, one of the best-known Italian brands in the world, is emblematic of the marriage between business and art. The artists and designers engaged by Davide Campari – a list that included Leonetto Cappiello, Marcello Dudovich and Adolfo Hohenstein – for the Campari campaigns that began at the beginning of the 20th century blurred the borders between art and advertising to the point of making them indistinguishable.

Todesco explained that the company deliberately chose artists of diverse styles to appeal to a wide range of consumers.

Campari’s relationship with the futurists had a particularly notable impact, as they appreciated the immediacy of slogans and the potential for applying art to concrete products through advertising. Perhaps the most noteworthy collaboration was with Fortunato Depero, who designed the conical Campari Soda bottle in 1932. The iconic bottle proved to be an elegant combination of beauty and functionality, as its shape and the lack of labelling greatly facilitated transport and distribution.

The brand also collaborates closely with the world of cinema: in 1980 Federico Fellini made an advert for Campari, and Matteo Garrone has recently made a short film, Entering Red, to celebrate the hundredth anniversary of the creation of Negroni.

All Campari’s artworks and objects can be viewed by the public at the Campari Gallery, a building that formerly housed the Campari factory. (The factory was later transferred to Novi Ligure). Some of them were also exhibited last year at the Estorick Collection in London.

The Art2Business series will continue in 2019 with further events dedicated to art, fashion and music.

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