Denis Santachiara

Denis Santachiara was born in Campagnola in the province of Reggio Emilia in 1950. He started his career in the early seventies, attracted by the potential of new technologies and the poetic-aesthetic processes associated with different industrial environments.

His works, which move on the border between art and design, have been shown at the MoMa in New York, the Musèe des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, the National Museum of Art in Tokyo and at the Triennale in Mlan, among others. In 1984 the exhibition manifesto "The Neomerce, the invention and artificial ecstasy" begins, which is shown at the Triennale in Milan and in the Center Pompidou in Paris. In 1986 he curated the exhibition "Signs of Habitat" shown at the Grand Palais Paris and the Berlage Museum in Amsterdam. Between 1988 and 1992, in collaboration with the French Ministry of Culture, he designed the interiors of the Avignon Charterhouse and the Blois Magic Museum. In 1993 the Toyama Square in Japan was designed and in 1994/95 the interior of the Art Hotel in Dresden was designed. In 1996 he won the international ZIP competition for the city of Saarbrücken; in the same year he curates the installation of the exhibition "The New Man" for the Florence Biennale. In 1998 he helped set up a new electronic banking system for Assicurazioni Generali and worked on the conception of a "playful animal children" commissioned by the French Ministry of Culture for the Year 2000 celebrations. In 1999 he received the Good Design Award from the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design and in April 2000 he received "The Design World" award. He has worked and collaborates with Italian and foreign companies to design and research new products such as Artemide, Baler Italy, Bang-Olufsen, BPT, Campeggi, De Padova, Fiat, Foscarini, Mandarina Duck, Marutomy, Montedison, La Murrina , Nintendo, Panasonic, Rosenthal, Sector No Limits, SNIA Viscosa, Superga, Swatch, Vitra, ZERODISEGNO to name a few.