At Salone del Mobile, Art and Design Intersect
Hello Milano! Salone is finally back in April, and the city is abuzz with the excitement of spring and all of the creatives that will be touching down in the Milanese capital. And while there may be so much to see and do, especially as Miart ends and Fuorisalone beings, here at SCALE we’ve decided to round up a series of projects which struck us because of their crosspollination with the world of art. By Elisa Carassai
Teatro Albers by Josef and Anni Albers Foundation and Amo
Taking place in the theater space of a nunnery and school, the Istituto Marcelline Tommaseo, AMO – a new platform by Ambra Medda and Veronica Sommaruga launching during design week and celebrating experimental design and the handmade – is presenting Teatro Albers, its first and unique partnership with the Josef & Anni Albers Foundation. For this first presentation, AMO invited London-based designer Marco Campardo to reinterpret the Albers Archive through a new seating collection. Campardo will be accompanied by live-weaving from Pisa-based master weaver Laura de Cesare. Also shown are large-scale woven panels inspired by Anni’s room dividers created for her 1949 solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
WHERE: Teatro Istituto Marcelline Tommaseo, Via Francesco Petrarca
Corner Piazza Tommaseo
Milano
WHEN: 17 20 April 2023
10 – 5 pm
GUBI Salone 2023
Unfolding in one of Milan’s most magical places – The Bagni Misteriosi – Danish design company GUBI will be celebrating the first 10th anniversary of the Beetle Chair, a chair created in 2015 by the Italian-Danish duo Gam Fratesi that has become a true design classic. The company will be presenting an exhibition curated and conceived in collaboration with design critic and curator Marco Sammicheli called TEN: BEYOND THE BEETLE, that will be bringing together creative minds from all over the world with the prompt of reinterpreting the Beetle in their own way and spanning multiple disciplines – from sculpture and ceramics to installation and illustration to light and sound design.
WHERE: Bagni misteriosi
Via Carlo Botta 18
Milano
WHEN: 18 to 22 April 2023
9 – 10 pm
Peres Projects presents BD Barcelona
In celebration of its 50-year anniversary, BD Barcelona is teaming up with Peres Projects to present a special retrospective showcasing the best of 50 years in design by Salvador Dalì, Ettore Sottsass, Pepe Cortés, Oscar Tusquets, and many other colleagues, along with some prototypes that were never developed and hard-to-find pieces. This exhibition also marks the first step in leading the Spanish company that has been producing and marketing furniture and other objects to the announcement of a new group of young creatives that will be joining and leading the brand to the future. Given the strong interest in art and design thanks to limited edition collateral project “Functional Art”, Peres Projects will also be presenting with BD Barcelona a new series of works by Canadian artist Beth Letain that will open up a visual dialogue on colours and geometric compositions bringing new light in the spaces of Palazzo Belgioioso.
WHERE: Peres Projects, Piazza Belgioioso, 2
WHEN: 17 -22 April 2023
11.00 am – 7.00 pm
Capsule Plaza: Byredo Presents Dozie Kanu
Popping up in one of Milan’s hottest bonafide design destinations, Spazio Maiocchi, a decade on from its launch, perfume brand Byredo has invited multidisciplinary artist Dozie Kanu to reinterpret their best-selling fragrance, Bal d’Afrique, through an installation in partnership with Adjoa Armah’s Saman Archive. The installation is part of Byredo’s retrospective annual series celebrating their most loved scents by way of multi-part collaborations with creatives from different disciplines, inviting them to tell their own memories of the fragrance, through their preferred medium. Through these new ‘memories,’ the scent’s emotional essence is re-contextualized and given a new life.
WHERE: Capsule Plaza at Spazio Maiocchi
Via Achille Maiocchi 7
WHEN: 18- 23 April
10am–8pm
Maison Matisse by Faye Toogood
Faye Toogood is the latest creative – after Studio Formafantasma, Jaime Hayon and Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec – that has been tapped by Maison Matisse, the design studio established by Henri Matisse’s great-grandson to celebrate the late artist’s ‘joie de vivre’ to re-interpret his legacy and create a special collaboration for Milan Design Week 2023. Inspired by Matisse’s lesser known black and white drawings, 1943’s Dessins: Thèmes et Variations most of all, Toogood played with these shapes to design her own library of shapes which were then incorporated in a collection of tapestries, soft wool blankets and hand-knotted rugs, and into three-dimensional furniture, which she then named the ‘Esquisses’ collection. Her designs will be on show all week at the Maison Matisse showroom in the 5vie District.
WHERE: Maison Matisse showroom, Studio Nerino, Via Santa Marta, 21
5 Vie, 20123, Milan
WHEN: 17th-22nd April
ISOLA DESIGN FESTIVAL
Isola Design Festival 2023 within the Isola Design District is another venue that brings together more than 50 exhibitions and installations, lively events, and a series of talks, involving almost 300 international designers, design studios, creators, and manufacturers.This year the realm of regeneration is it the main focus of Isola Design Festival. A call to start a chain reaction of change. Inspiring all to rethink, regenerate, and remediate by gathering designers and design studios that have a common mission of going further beyond the sustainable, to make something really happen.
Under Design Lebanon is a group exhibition curated by Ghassan Salameh and commissioned by Isola Design District at the 2023 edition of Salone del Mobile featuring Lebanon based designers, designer collectives, traditional and contemporary craftsmen and design sector supporting associations. The Crafts and Design sectors in the Cultural & Creative Industries (CCI), in the context of Lebanon have a significant importance where small and medium scale design, crafts and artisan specialized businesses, remain the main sources of income for many families. Preserving the continuity of this specific class of labor that is independent and operates within its own micro-economy, allows deeper and more meaningful connections with the immediate social ecosystem and ecology presenting fields for innovation in techniques, materials, resource preservation and relevant objects adapted to the current needs and realities.
WHERE: Via Carlo Farini, 35, Milano
WHEN: 17- 23 Aprl 2023
FROMM.
This is a Qatari-Italian design platform that will be exhibiting during the Milan Design Week,showcasing their newest heritage design collections by Qatari, Italian, and Turkish designers.
WHERE: Via Savona 35, Milan
WHEN: April 17 – 23, 2023, from 10am to 8pm.
CC-TAPIS
Formafantasma, Objects of Common Interest, Patricia Urquiola, and Bethan Laura Wood
cc-tapis presents in its showroom the new collaborations with Formafantasma and Objects of Common Interest, alongside the 2023 collections by Patricia Urquiola, Bethan Laura Wood. A site-specific installation at Chiesa di San Celso will feature the new Le Arcs collection by Charlotte Perriand for the first time in Milan.
Telegram, the new collection designed by Formafantasma, where the designer duo saw some pictures of cc-tapis’ production process where random colours and words are knotted into the negative space of the rug – intended to be removed to create freeform rugs and thus a blank canvas for craftsmen to express themselves on. This was taken and maintained in the final design giving the hand behind the making of the rug a nod of respect.
The Euroluce 2023 Exhibitions
HELENE BINET. Nature, Time and Architecture
Exhibition and exhibition project by: Massimo Curzi
The original and unmistakable poetry of a 35-year career in photography, using analogue technique and rigorous approach, and “demonstrates just how much better this artform lends itself to evidencing the specific qualities of designed and built spaces than many others,” according to the curator Curzi.
The space for this retrospect is also an opportunity for pause and reflection during the rushed and exciting though varied trade fair experience. A double architectural volume with a structure is made out of wooden boards, the outside covered with brushed aluminium, and the inside with sheets of midnight blue felt, all making for a powerful contrast between the interior and exterior of the exhibition space. A perfect backdrop for an exceptional work.
WHERE: EUROLACE, PAVILLION 11,
WHEN: 18- 23 April
