It is called 'Of/Sign' the new exhibition format, inaugurated by Pianca&Partners at design district by Brera.
A project dedicated to design, creativity and the discovery of the creative process of designers and architects, the contamination of genres and the arts.
In the Milan showroom, starring until 30 July, the exhibition ORMEdedicated to the work of the designer Simone Bonannicurated by architect Massimo De Conti. A celebration of 'form as an activating element of emotions'.
ORME focuses on the perception of matter beyond matter itself. Bonanni's work is told through 10 illustrations of large format, accompanied by objects, small prototypes and evocative texts, telling the idea of memories and new sensations, of new desires precursors of projects, in an uncalculated process in which form is a direct consequence. Watercolours, pantones, pencils, graphics become shapes, curves, nuances, matter, aiming to arouse a precise sensation, which evolves subjectively. The true value of design finally acquires a visible and concrete meaning. Like furrows, strokes traced by the comings and goings between thoughts and memories, the mixed-media depictions represent a graphic visualisation as spontaneous as it is without patterns of an inner quest, in which the sphere of perception counts more than the merely material one.
"Designing has first and foremost to do with understanding and listening. - explains Simone Bonanni - One of the fundamental aspects of my approach to design concerns the insight into the value, meaning and role we attribute to objects in our lives. It is a mysterious and complex investigation in which I constantly try to imagine a relationship between the product and its user, affective rather than material. I feel admiration for the communicative power of objects and consider them to be activators of emotions before they are performance machines."
With the designer exhibition, a very interesting format kicks off. 'Di/Segno' is a periodic event that will feature some of the designers who collaborate with the Pianca & Partners network. Each exhibition is conceived as a small solo show, to accompany visitors on a discovery of the creative process that characterises the designer's work, attempting to restore the evocative power and research path in the sum of the signs on display.
Each event showcases the designers' design poetics and aesthetic and narrative sensibilities, emphasising the relationship between sign, word, thought and form.
THE THEMES IN THE EXHIBITION
SUNDAY and KYOTO - Bed and night group, Pianca, 2021
Between rigour and sinuosity, an essentiality that is never superfluous and measured compositions, a new collection for the sleeping area composed of bed and sleeping group is born. The Domenica bed is an invitation to idleness, to a material embrace, where a single continuous line gives rise to an organic and delicate silhouette and the visible hinge, sometimes in contrast, sometimes camouflaged, characterises the profile. The complements of the Kyoto night group, encounters of surfaces and geometries, enclose the drawers and the top within a more marked and deeper external frame, giving rise to a discreet and elegant niche.
"A dreamlike journey. It involves sensual carnality, enjoyment. One sleeps, one thinks, one lazes about. I put everything in order, precise, and start travelling. Everything must fit, but done well, ethically, with passion. Simplicity is the arrival, working twice as hard to reach the goal which is half as much'.
HANA - Armchair, MOOOI, 2018
Details, curves, volumes and signs: aesthetic elements capable of transmitting tranquillity and security, jotted down for months in a notebook. Suggestions born from objects and people, which became the design cue for a cosy and reassuring armchair, with a wide and enveloping backrest to take refuge in. A comfort zone, even before being a physical object. A sum of emotions translated into signs.
"The female figure was familiar, opulent and reassuring. There is a thunderstorm that motivates an intimate embrace in the cool air that comes in through the slightly open window and brings the smell of grass. It's OK, I can sleep now. Of course, the memory is not sharp and remains an enveloping snapshot; for aesthetics I have to rely on the emotion in me."
OBON - Side tables, MOOOI, 2018
A careful process of subtraction and simplification of forms. Reassuringly pure and irregular shapes, with a beauty inspired by the Japanese wabi-sabi vision, characterise the Obon coffee tables. Somewhere between irony and rigour, spontaneous and genuinely imperfect complements; gentle.
With authentic beauty concealing its original function. "A riverbed scattered with pebbles and gravel. The terracotta-coloured pebble stands out in the white and silent expanse of the grave. Is it used for writing or is it just a pebble? A function that only becomes such when discovered and interpreted, detached from reality. A light and casual function, not evident and less still conscious. Unconscious beyond form. I didn't realise you were a table."
MEZZALUNA - Kitchen Tool, Personal Edition, 2017
Elevating a purely technical tool to a decorative object. Working on aesthetics and material to transform an artefact generally relegated to a drawer into an element to be exhibited. The herb chopper crescent is rethought in a limited edition, handcrafted in polished bronze, brushed bronze, polished aluminium and brushed aluminium. Each piece is unique, different from the next. To be exhibited as a small sculpture. "His hand draws sinuous and essential shapes to which he gives the third dimension by choosing precious and refined materials. Objects of everyday use that differ in form and substance. A work that goes beyond time, with echoes of musical instruments and ancient tools, which would not disfigure in the hands of some pagan god. A revenge that smacks of elevation in the name of beauty'.
KANDINSKY - Concept faucets, ALESSI by HANSA, 2019
A growing population means a more limited space for each individual and that the rooms of the home begin to dissolve. Kandinsky is a faucet, but also a sculpture of volume and material, for a kitchen with fluid boundaries that expands into other rooms of the house, such as the living room. Clear geometric shapes and colour combinations born from the juxtaposition of different materials conceal in apparent simplicity an extendable shower head, a silicone hose and sensors for touchless operation.
"The future is the living room tap. Changing the scene out of place changes the perception of an object but not its essence. The architecture remains as it is, even if it looks like something else. An unexpected form has emerged, welcome in a new environment'.
DUET - Pair of rings, Personal Edition, 2017
Two particles that interact with each other for a certain period of time and are then split apart can never again be described as separate systems.
The physical phenomenon of Quantum Entanglement becomes the inspiration for a pair of gold rings: two pieces of jewellery, of different sizes but with the same flat surface generated by the same cut, are made from the same original solid. A shared sign that keeps alive the sense of belonging to a single primordial body, symbol of a special and indissoluble bond. "Today tomorrow or forever? Never becoming forever. Two particles that never stop interacting even light years apart, in spite of space and what Albert [Einstein] says. A single body that never separates even though it divides, with a strong bond that remains compact. "Where are you? Where will you be? It doesn't matter..."
MOSAICS - Decorative Plates, Personal Edition, 2017
Destructuring and recomposition. The mosaic technique, typical of the Udine province in Friuli Venezia Giulia, gives rise to decorative ceramic objects for centrepieces.
The monochrome pixel, as a drop of colour, expands from the centre towards the edge in a composition of progressive gradients. The changes in tone follow the shape of the ceramic support: as it approaches the edge, the colour of the tiles fades and merges with the white of the ceramic.
"My roots are in Friuli, a flat land of long, borderline sunsets. Fragments, tesserae and waves of colour that evolve and trespass. There is a serene, concealed melancholy that is a rediscovery. It is nostalgia and it is mine. A mysterious letting go. A luxury that belongs to me'.
VOLUMES - Personal Edition, 2021
Study of light and reflections, design research on shapes and volumes. "The light bounces off the volume but not immediately, in a process of observing things in which one has to familiarise oneself, get used to, understand. He wanted to have fun and bare himself, just like in love. It was time to do for pleasure with a spontaneous, unarmed impulse'.
THEO - FIAM table, 2019
Like a painting of neoplasticism that conquers three dimensions. The space is delimited by a metal profile that frames the air, creating multiple wings characterised by lightness and depth, enriched with light and reflections thanks to the use of fused glass. Few and precise perpendicular signs draw an architecture reduced to the essential that welcomes an interplay of transparencies, colours and refractions that only high-temperature fused glass is capable of providing. "Where has van Doesburg gone? Two superimposed surfaces create a colour that was not there as in a painting of neoplasticism. A chromatic illusion of framed light. Space and light are the most precious things. The headquarters of transparent, intersecting conversations, bounded by politeness, bon ton, respect. Pure symbolism, without secrets'.
Ph. Andrea Martiradonna
