This is Tomorrow
Curated by Luca Massimo Barbero, the project renews the Company’s traditional collaboration with renowned illustrators and compares the works of great artists from the past with those of contemporary artists dealing with key themes and values for the Group. To narrate the future that is born in the present, evolving from its own roots
Six posters to celebrate 190 years of Generali’s history, renewing the century-old tradition of graphic art by the Group, as seen through the eyes of six young emerging artists, both Italian and international. Six posters that interact with some of the works by the most gifted poster artists who collaborated with the Company between the 19th and 20th centuries, including Marcello Dudovich, Gino Boccasile, Achille Beltrame, and Gian Luciano Sormani.
“This is Tomorrow”, one of the projects conceived to mark 190 years since Generali’s foundation, celebrates and renews the Company’s traditional collaboration with renowned artists to depict society and interpret both reality and change through the art of posters.
Curated by Luca Massimo Barbero, art curator and director of the Fondazione Cini Institute of Art History, “This is Tomorrow” sees young international artists take on the mantle of the great illustrators of the past.
The project’s main goal is the reinterpretation of the values and themes that Generali holds dear and that are linked to the Group’s sustainability commitment: from protection of the climate and biodiversity to consideration for the communities – including through the initiatives of The Human Safety Net’s Foundation -, from the relationship between generations to that with technology, and the ambition to be a Lifetime Partner to customers.
A highly evocative exploration of the contemporary world, confirming Generali’s commitment to disseminating its core values and interpreting reality in an always up-to-date manner.
The “This is Tomorrow” project was presented during an official event on 14th June 2022 in Milan’s Piazza Tre Torri, near the Generali Tower. The art installation conceived by Migliore+Servetto provided an exhibition frame to the posters.
Read the full press release and find the pictures of the event here.
Discover the six posters
USA
CARING FOR PEOPLE’S LIVES
The clasped hands are fragile, intense, ready to construct a possible and safer future and symbolize unity, commitment to humanity and ‘holding with strength and tenderness’. For our purpose, ‘enable people to shape a safer future by caring for their lives and dreams’ is the ‘why’ behind our 190 years as insurers.
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THE AUTHOR
The work of San Francisco-based artist Tim Lahan is the product of his ability to assimilate, digest and then illustrate concepts, visual suggestions and paradoxes, taking inspiration from the world around him. Tim's instantly recognisable style is clear, enviably simple, as well as memorable and striking. His archetypal images referring to humanity's social responsibility as a slogan, a strong message that comes through in the simplicity of his illustrations, brilliantly express the mission given to him. The artist's most important partnerships include campaigns for Nike, Google, Facebook, Dropbox, Verizon, Kenzo, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Elle, Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Cosmopolitan.
UK / USA
SOLUTIONS FOR A BETTER WORLD
The prevention and mitigation of climate risks is built by strengthening the resilience of communities now and in the long-term. This is represented by a bust constructed out of symbols of engagement and technology. That of the duo is a vision, an expression of belief in the immensity of the world and in our responsibility to make sure that it is always improving.
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THE AUTHORS
Craig Redman and Karl Maier are an artistic duo of illustrators who cooperate across the Atlantic, with Craig based in New York and Karl in London. Their highly distinctive graphics, typography, and expression of modern visual pop culture have led them to create murals, typefaces, set designs, packaging and editorial illustrations for prestigious clients, publications and brands. Their work is bold, full of simple messages executed thoughtfully and entertainingly, whose international look sees them as the chosen illustrators for this globally significant mission. This artistic duo have received major international recognition and commissions, including The New York Times, New York Magazine, LVMH, Google, Air France, Nike, Apple, Vogue, Microsoft, Converse and MTV.
FRANCE
FOR THE FUTURE TOGETHER
The fantastic interplay between generations: it is about building a solidarity pact between older and younger generations in a world where we must plan now for the future we want, while taking care of an ageing population.
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THE AUTHOR
Gérard DuBois is a French artist living and working in Montreal, Canada. His work is based on a variety of styles with a startling, surreal idea and an only apparently 'retro' graphic style that gives his illustrations an original and recognisable 'classicity'. An excellent interpreter of this work in dialogue between the past and the future. His work features in major North American and European publications and advertising campaigns and in more than twenty illustrated books. He boasts prestigious commissions such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, GQ, Rolling Stone and The New Yorker.
ITALY
INNOVATION FOR HUMANITY
Referring to the importance of the human touch for an evolving technology, the artist joyfully constructs one of the columns in Venice’s St. Mark’s Square, the place from which Generali has emanated for decades its interest in society and its development, with its gaze turned on tomorrow.
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THE AUTHOR
Elena Xausa was born in Vicenza, has lived in Berlin, Milan, and Venice and is now based in Brooklyn, New York. She works with different media and creative languages that have allowed her to develop a fresh and unique style marked by a design that synthesises the complexity of concepts. She creates essential shapes and lively subjects with a recognisable stroke and a joyful but never banal approach that has successfully represented this very contemporary mission. Her illustrations have been selected for international campaigns by Teatro La Scala, Nike, Yoox, Enel, Fendi and Feltrinelli, and her illustrations have appeared in international magazines such as The New York Times, The New Yorker, Reader’s Digest, Le Monde, Monocle, Il sole 24 ore, Die Zeit, Rolling Stone, Vice and many others.
CANADA / RUSSIA
The HUMAN SAFETY NET
The artwork is about our contribution to the community, The Human Safety Net, a global network of people helping people that found in Venice its home. That is why it focuses on people, as individuals and as a community, in order to create points of encounter, collaboration, discovery and union. And that is how the artist draws dreamy lagoons in which humanity unites the islands, forging a link between environment and human being.
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THE AUTHOR
Alëna Skarina is a Siberian artist working in illustration and art in Toronto, Canada. Her style stands out for its hyper-precise strokes and hand-made typography revealing a unique graphic sensibility. The organic contours of Venice and social themes play out in her work with the naive touch of her illustrations. Her socially engaged work has earned her major international awards and commissions for prestigious organisations including: Save The Children Foundation, the Alzheimer Society, The New York Times, Die Zeit, Adobe, L’Internazionale and Uncle Ben’s.
GERMANY
SHARING GLOBAL CHALLENGES
By symbolically uniting the world of work with the responsibility and awareness that every action and idea fosters with a view to sharing, the artist tells how everyone is engaged every day in the effort to give concrete expression and make desired visions of daily participation in social challenges and social enterprises possible and responsible. It represents the role truly sustainable companies can play, together with the public sector, to tackle the big issues of our time.
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THE AUTHOR
A Berlin-based designer, Guther uses a unique three-dimensional aesthetic to bring his hyperrealist illustrations to life. Creating worlds, focusing on interior and exterior design, he chronicles the social phenomena of recent years with an analytical, non-critical eye, capturing a greater truth about human behaviour. In his work, he offers a broader view of the scene he depicts, leading the viewer to a perspective that allows them to grasp the totality of what is happening. Internationally renowned clients have chosen the artist's work, including The New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, WeTransfer, Google, Zeit Magazin, Balenciaga, Highsnobiety, Stanford University, Elephant Magazine, GQ, Der Spiegel, Harvard University and Wired.
The art curator
Luca Massimo Barbero is a scholar and art critic, Associate Curator of Intesa Sanpaolo's Collections of Modern and Contemporary Art, former Associate Curator of the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, member of the scientific committee of the Farnesina Collection and Director of the Giorgio Cini Foundation's Institute of Art History.
As a consultant for various modern and contemporary art institutions, he has worked with national and international institutions such as the Venice Biennale, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm and the Kunsthaus in Zurich. Author of numerous publications and exhibitions devoted to American and Italian art from the post-war years to the present.