The Great Mother
Publication, Brochure
Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, Palazzo Reale
2015
Milan

The Great Mother, curated by Massimilano Gioni and produced by the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi in partnership with Palazzo Reale, is devoted to analyzing the iconography of motherhood in the twentieth century. In his essay in the accompanying catalogue by Goto Design, Gioni refers to the exhibition of images and portraits from over 120 artists from Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn to Cindy Sherman as a “great and tormented family album” and writes that it “presents an image of the mother that is perhaps less reassuring but far more complex and powerful a figure onto which Western society as a whole has projected individual and collective desires, anxieties, and aspirations for over a century.” Reflecting this dichotomy and the time span of the images presented, the design of this large, soft cover volume is a hybrid of two styles—old and new—in layout, fonts, and even page color. This split personality can be seen in the exhibition’s surrounding collateral and in the logo, which combines a new, san serif typeface by Dinamo Typefoundry with an ancient mother archetype cave symbol.