In honor of the 50th Anniversary of the Milan Furniture Fair, special exhibitions and events presented by The Italian Trade Commission kick off worldwide celebration of Italian Design.

The events will celebrate the excellence of Italian Design with a series of special exhibitions and cultural events throughout New York City beginning in December. The 6-week program will include dynamic multi-media art installations by artists Peter Greenaway and Bob Wilson and events by 20 Italian Furniture Showrooms throughout the city.

“As the creative capital of the world, we could think of no better place to begin our yearlong celebration of Italian Design,” said Carlo Guglielmi, President of COSMIT.

The celebration will kick off the week following Thanksgiving with the launch of Italian Design Streetwalking – a self-guided tour of Italian Design featuring 20 of the leading Italian furniture showrooms in the city. From November 29th – January 8th each showroom will host Italian Christmas, to include special offerings and events, to be announced.

The inaugural week will continue with the opening of artist and director Robert Wilson’s Perchance to Dream, an exhibition that transforms a half century of iconic objects of design into objects of desire through a collaboration with internationally renowned Italian ballet dancer Roberto Bolle, leading dancer for La Scala ballet and now for the American Ballet Theater in New York City. The exhibition will be on view to the public at Center 548 in Chelsea from Tuesday, November 30th – December 18th.

The inaugural week’s events will culminate on Thursday, December 2nd, with an invite-only gala dinner at the Park Avenue Armory where British artist and filmmaker Peter Greenaway’s video installation Leonardo’s Last Supper will be revealed for the first time since it was presented during the fair in Milan in 2008. The full scale light, sound and video projection that brings DaVinci’s masterpiece to life will be on view to the public from December 3rd, 2010 – January 8, 2011.

“We are proud to come to the United States with such a worthwhile project, offering our businesses the opportunity to promote the Italian home furnishing system in the American market – a strategic market for Italy that today amounts to 551 million euros in exported furnishing products,” said Rosario Messina, President, FederlegnoArredo. “Our presence in Manhattan with the circuit of Italian showrooms and cultural initiatives curated by two great artists, Greenaway and Wilson, represents Italy’s system of combining product with artistic expression, two ways of interpreting the excellence of ‘Made in Italy’.”