Milano: Furniture Fair 2011 - Designers and their products # 1

Dilmos.  At Dilmos, Ron Gilad stands in front of one of his IX Mirrors, a special limited edition made especially for the gallery.

Moroso.  At Moroso, designer Tokujin Yoshioka sits his Moon chair in the haze of his Twilight installation which spreads infinite rays of light in the white space, creating a setting in which one has the impression of light passing through clouds and beams of twilight pouring to the ground.

Moroso.  Producer, Patrizia Moroso stands out in red in the haze of the Twilight installation.

 Grohe.  At Grohe in the Tortona district designer Paul Flowers stands next to his award-winning rainshower from The Natural Colours Collection for Grohe.

Mooi.   At Mooi, Rooms designers Keti Toloraia and Nata Janberidze sit in front of their Position Floor Lamp made in wood for Mooi.

Poltrona Frau.  In the Milan Design Village in the Tortona district, Jean-Marie Massaud sits on his Archibald pale blue leather armchair for Poltrona Frau.

Cappellini.   Giulio Cappellini sits on the shelve of his Burkina Faso a modular storage system, which was inspired by the shapes and vibrant colors of the rural villages in Africa, the micro system is comprised of independent and flexible modules.

Prometeogallery.   In the Prometeogallery di Ida Pisani, in the Lambrate district, Kevin van Braak stands in front of Hilter’s desk.   Van Braak for the exhibition History is Made of Different Shades of Grey, reconstructed four office desks of controversial former world leaders, Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Nixon.  

Prometeogallery.    Van Braak also designed a big lead globe and although it is immediately recognizable as a globe there are no countries on it.   It evokes a story about Hitler having a small globe on his desk on which all the countries in the world were shown in one grey shade and over them was written Deutschland.

 

 

Pin It

Milano: Rotor - Ex Limbo exhibiton at Fondazione Prada

 

Fondazione Prada – Rotor: Ex Limbo exhibition.  Ex Limbo, the project presented by Rotor at the Fondazione Prada (until June 5^th) in Milan, is an investigation of the architectural and scenographic elements realized for the fashion show sets designed by Prada and OMA for more than a decade.  The starting point of this project is a curiosity for the materials used, the reasons why they have been conserved, and how this was practically managed. Rotor’s work consists in bringing forth the ‘remnants’ of a world that after a moment of meaningful splendor is discarded and put in limbo, inviting a second look at the forgotten. The Prada Fogazzaro exhibition space hosts a labyrinth of elements that bear witness, simultaneously, to the amount of work involved in producing each fashion show, and to the silent existence of its materialization beyond the event: ex limbo.  

 Above:  a group of metallic structures made of untreated steel tubes.  

 

Above: green polyethylene foam used for benches.

 

Above:  reflective aluminum film on aluminum frames.

The designers.   Rotor, founded in 2005, is a collective of six people (Tristan Boniver, Lionel Devlieger, Maarten Gielen, Michael Ghyoot, Benjamin Lasserre, Melanie Tamm), based in Brussels, sharing a common interest in the material flows in industry and construction. On a practical level, Rotor handles the conception and realization of design and architectural projects. On a theoretical level, Rotor develops critical positions on material resources, waste, and reuse strategies through research, publications, writings and conferences. During the 12th Venice Biennale of Architecture, in the Belgian Pavilion, their exhibition “Usus/Usures” explored wear in architecture as a reaction to and signs of use.

Above: in the photograph Lionel Devlieger.

Pin It

Milano: Furniture Fair 2011 - Milano Cina Exhibition

Fabbrica del vapore: Galleria Via Farini – Milano Cina Exhibition. Milano Cina exhibition (until May 7th) at the Galleria Via farini in the Fabbrica del Vapore complex, is an attempt to establish a contact between Milanese and Chinese cultures that co-exist in the area surrounding Via Sarpi which represent a relevant settlement of the Chinese community in Italy. They now share the same urban space, but rarely have the chance to collaborate, often acting on parallel planes without communicating with each other.   Un’Esperienza di Design, a project of window dressing which involved via Paolo Sarpi during previous editions of the Salone del Mobile, was curated by do-knit-yourself in collaboration with NABA, Academy of Fine Arts – Fashion and Design departments, and coordinated by Nicoletta Morozzi and Italo Rota.

 

The cake is made to order from the Fa Ji Food Store and the tiara which lights up at night is from Oriente Store.

Balls of Filtoppa cotton yarn is from Paolo Sarpi 27.

The knitted bottle “warmers” where displayed in the windows of Vineria Cantine Isola.

Co-coordinater of the exhibition Milano Cina with Italo Rota, Nicoletta Morozzi, is the Fashion Director of NABA.

  Pin It

Venice: Spring Exhibition at Palazzo Fortuny

Venice: Spring Exhibition at Palazzo Fortuny.   The Palazzo Fortuny museum reopens for the Spring Exhibition, until May 8^th, proposing three simultaneous experiences, always in line with its own connotation of exhibition space as both a museum and a laboratory.

Palazzo Fortuny: Roberta di Camerino – The Revolution of Color. In the evocative setting that highlights the interplays between the colors of the clothes and the paintings on display in a perfect harmony of intent between her “world” and that of Mariano Fortuny the Roberta di Camerino, The Revolution of Color exhibition, is mounted.

Above: The long dress in the center is called Califfa, 1974, it is in heavy woolen jersey with a trompe-l’oeil effect. 

Palazzo Fortuny: Roberta di Camerino. The “total look” of clothes, and above all accessories, through which the great Venetian designer, Giuliana di Camerino, in art Roberta (after the film that included the song “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”, which stirred deep feeling for her), is recognized for having effected a genuine revolution in the 1950s: the celebrated “revolution of color.”

Above:  The long dress at the front is called Clan, 1974, and has a trompe-l’oeil shirt, jacket, skirt and belt effect printed on it.

Palazzo Fortuny: Roberta di Camerino. Roberta di Camerino is Giuliana’s daughter; she also takes her name from the famous film so dear to Giuliana.

Palazzo Fortuny: Roberta di Camerino – a detail. A detail of a collection of four charm bracelets belonging to the designer and worn by her daughter round her neck.   All the charms were gifts from Roberta to her mother, over the years, and portray antique handbags. 

 Photograph by Manfredi Bellati

Palazzo Fortuny: Roberta di Camerino. The 1970s marked the years when the whole range of products were born with the trademark “R”, umbrellas, scarves, perfume, etc.

 Palazzo Fortuny: Roberta di Camerino.  Via a few very clever inventions, above all the use of velvet and unusual color combinations for women’s handbags, as well as fun and quirky shapes like the “Bagonghi” traveling case (much loved by Princess Grace of Monaco), the Roberta style brought a breath of fresh air and novelty in the world of fashion.

Palazzo Fortuny: Roberta di Camerino – detail. A detail of one of the sixty handbags dating from the 1950s until the 1970s that are present in the exhibition. Belts and buckles are recurring themes in Giuliana’s collections.

 Palazzo Fortuny:  Paolo Ventura – Automation. L’Automa or automation is an unpublished visual narrative journey set in Venice during the Second World War, created by photographer Paolo Ventura, who lives and works in New York.  The city of Venice and its components are described and interpreted via a score of photographs, a model and a selection of drawings and watercolor studies of characters and environments, presenting a reality at the same time faithful and fanciful, if not fundamentally dream like.

Photograph by Manfredi Bellati

Palazzo Fortuny:  Paolo Ventura. A set of Paolo Ventura’s New York studio is mounted in the palazzo. The ambivalent and antithetic nature of a theatre’s story is necessarily the result of the “modus operandi” of the artist who, with theses words illustrates his own work: “I reconstruct in my studio very realistic sets that then, once individuated the right point of view, I photograph with natural light.  This way of working enables me to give shape to my imaginary worlds and to create a relationship of ambiguity with who is watching them. What I do photograph doesn’t exist, but I try to make it look the truest possible.”

Palazzo Fortuny:  Paolo Ventura. The plot unfolds in 1943, under the German occupation.  Venice is an empty city, permanently shrouded in a thin, surreal mist that flattens the surfaces and turns it into a kind of theatrical backdrop.  Here an old Jew, by now all alone.  As well as his books he is passionate about automations”, and decides to build himself one….

Palazzo Fortuny:  Paolo Ventura. The model for the automation featured in the photographs.

Palazzo Fortuny:  Michelangelo Penso – Genetic Circuit RSBP.  Circuito Genetico RSBP or genetic circuit is the title of the exhibition by the Venetian artist Michelangelo Penso; a series of recent works developing the research based on scientific observation of the universe, which characterizes his most recent works.

 Photograph by Manfredi Bellati

Palazzo Fortuny:  Michelangelo Penso.  The observation and analysis of the images of micro-organisms leads to the creation of sculptures which have the titles and structures of complex mathematical formulas.  The distance and the dichotomy between image and reality is “bridged” thanks to science, which is used as a vector for staging the invisible: thus the work leaps the frontiers between Art and Science and joins itself to myth and the spiritual dimension.

Above:  The heart of the exhibition is the site specific installation Genetic Circuit RSBP inspired by the genetic circuits and created in oil-resistant rubber.

Palazzo Fortuny:  Michelangelo Penso. Other works in the exhibition are created using colored polyester straps in various forms complete the exhibition.

 

Palazzo Fortuny.    At the opening of the Spring Exhibition at Palazzo Fortuny, the Prosecco di Valdobbiadine was offered by Bisol and served in the courtyard.

Naïf  artist, Liselotte Hohs.

Venetian artist, Fabrizzio Plessi.

Lamya Bottazzo and Doge. Note her Roberta di Camerino handbag.

 

Pin It

VENICE: Erica Jong - poetry reading

Venice - Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana: Erica Jong – poetry reading.  The venue for Erica Jong’s intimate poetry reading took place in the vestibule of the library of the Sala Sansoviniana of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Piazza San Marco.  The Library room’s ceiling is covered by a vault decorated by works of seven different artists, chosen by Titian and Sansovino and on its walls are portraits of philosophers, amongst which are some by Tinoretto and Veronese.

Erica Jong – poetry reading.  The well-known American novelist, poet and essayist, Erica Jong is photographed before her poetry reading in the vestibule of the Sala Sansoviniana.

Erica is looking forward to: the publication of her book Sugar in my Bowl: Real Women Write About Real Sex, published by Ecco on June 14.

In Venice Again with You

by

Erica Jong

In this great ghost of cities,

the dreams rise

from the murky lagoon

and you dream

you kill your father

and I dream again of my bad reviews.

Seen at the Erica Jong – poetry reading. Marina and Vittorio Gregotti.

Vittorio is looking forward to: the publication of his book, Architectura e Post Metropoli published by Giulio Einaudi  Editore on April 1^.

A dagger hovers

In the air –

or can it be a pen?

The ghosts

are restless.

 

Seen at the Erica Jong – poetry reading. Professor of American studies at Venice University, Rosella Mamoli Zorzi, who introduced, translated and read in Italian Erica’s poetry.

Rosella is looking forward to:  the exhibition, opening April 2, at the Istituto Veneto di Scienza, Lettere ed Arti, called Il Veneto di Hemingway, to which she wrote the essay in the catalogue.

Lord Byron limps

across the Grand Canal

walking on the water.

Seen at the Erica Jong – poetry reading.  The president of The Venice International Foundation, Franca Coin.

Franca is looking forward to: the exhibition at Ca Rezzonico, Barry X Ball, opening on June 2^.

The doges mumble

in the baths of blood;

and Tintoretto, painting, painting,

asks: “What matter

if I paint a Christ

or a satyr

as long as the chiaroscuro

is mine, all mine?”

Seen at the Erica Jong – poetry reading.   The Manera family, Manfred with Ulysse, Caroline and Maia.

Manfred is looking forward to: the opening of his art and textile gallery called The Merchant of Venice on April 30 in Campo Sant’Angelo.

Caroline is looking forward to: he exhibition at The Merchant of Venice during the Venice Biennale.

At San Marco

the pickpockets dance,

fluttering stolen bills

like New Years’ Eve

confetti.

The Vestibule of the Sala Sansoviniana.  The ceiling of the vestibule of the Sala Sansoviniana was painted by Titian in 1560 and represents La Sapienza (Wisdom).  The very thin Japanese paper tape on the ceiling is placed in specific places to monitor any cracks that may appear.

and the old assassins
from the past
dash through
the alleyways
transformed into cats.

The poet.  Erica Jong.

The dogs sniff history

through their muzzles

and find it stinks.

The pigeons wheel and dip

making black holes

in Turner’s luminescent sky.

The poet.  Erica Jong is very charming and expressive when she explains her poetry before a reading.

It is all a stage set

for our dreams

as we wheel  and turn

thrashing up our pasts.

Erica Jong – poetry reading.  Erica read some poems from her book of collected poems, Love Comes First and from her other book Becoming Light, Poems, New and Selected.

Is this why lovers

come to Venice,

city of cemeteries

 and black burial boats?

Seen at the Erica Jong – poetry reading.   Photographer Mark E. Smith.

Mark is looking forward to: the launch of the book Labirinto Ducale written by Federico Moro, photographed by Mark Edward Smith and published by Elzeviro in April.

To set the ghost

To rest

and build their lives

upon the dark lagoon

of death?

Seen at the Erica Jong – poetry reading.   The vice-director of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Maurizio Messina, Erica Jong and artist Liselotte Hohs.

Maurizio is looking forward to: the opening of the exhibition Aspettando L’Unita 1850-1866, Venezia Verso L’Unificazione nelle Collezioni della Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana.

Liselotte is looking forward to: her exhibition of tapestries and carpets entitled Animal Magnetism at the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana due to open on August 30.

O my lover,

I have walked through

the crumbling palaces

with you

promising things

history teaches

 that we cannot promise.

The Venice Poem – In Venice with You Again.  An extract of the poem featured above, In Venice Again with You, by Erica Jong (copyright Erica Jong) is used by kind permission of the author and is taken from the book, Gondola Signore Gondola, Venice in 20^TH Century American Poetry, curated by Rosella Mamoli Zorzi with the collaboration of Gregory Dowling and published by Supernova.

The ghosts

are laughing.

They leer and pronounce

dire warning

from behind

their terrifying masks.

 
Pin It