PRESS: INTERNI MAGAZINE
SIMONE BONANNI: FOOTPRINTS THAT BECOME FORMS
The solo show dedicated to the Italian designer celebrates form as an inspirer of emotions through his drawings. To be seen at the Pianca & Partners space in Milan until 30 July
Orme is the solo show dedicated to Simone Bonanni which opens on May 18th (until July 30th). The second in a series of exhibitions hosted at the Milanese space Pianca & Partners, the exhibition coincides with the first five years of the career of the 31-year-old designer graduated from the IED Istituto Europeo di Design (Milan) and trained in the Dutch studio of Marcel Wanders, who already active collaborations with brands such as Alessi, Moooi, MDF Italia, Fiam, Falper, Mingardo and many others. The space of a luster represented in a series of large-format drawings intended as grooves, traits traced by the comings and goings between thoughts and memories.
Orme it is first of all a collection of emotions, through 10 mixed-technique representations, accompanied by evocative objects and writings treated as Haiku, the short poems of the Japanese tradition, curated by the architect Massimo De Conti. It is the graphic visualization as spontaneous as it is free of patterns of an inner search, in which what matters most is the sphere of perception.
“What surprises about Simone Bonanni is his intimate poetic imagery. These drawings are nothing more than the transposition of previous thoughts, feelings, experiences; the genesis, often irrational and unconscious, sometimes even an end in itself, of those that will evolve into forms of design”, says the curator De Conti.
Like the research on the typical mosaics of the Friulian area between Spilimbergo and Udine, the designer's homeland, shown on a plate made with the mosaic artisans Carraro Chabarik; the memory of a family embrace that is found in the enveloping shape of an armchair, the memory of a childhood game is realized instead in a terracotta coffee table (both designed for Moooi), and so on, with this modus operandi that becomes practice.
Watercolors, pantones, pencils, graphics become, curves, shades, matter aiming to arouse a precise sensation, while allowing it to mature in the interpretation of the beholder. An uncalculated process in which the form is direct - almost mere - consequence. “Designing has to do first of all with understanding and listening”, says Bonanni, who teaches Product Design to the students of the three-year course and of the master at the IED Istituto Europeo di Design.
On the occasion of the solo show, his new night collection designed for Pianca is presented, consisting of a bed and chest of drawers. The Domenica bed is an invitation to idleness, to a material embrace in which a single continuous line gives rise to an organic and sinuous silhouette, while the Kyoto accessories enclose the drawers and the top with the tray within a rigorous frame. giving rise to a private niche.
“Over time, I shifted the focus of my work from the technical design of the object to the design of the emotion that this can arouse”, explains Bonanni. This is why Orme is a path that must be looked at by the visitor in an absolutely subjective way.
photo © Andrea Martiradonna, © Davide di Tria
images courtesy of the artist
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DESIGNERS DRAW ON MEMPHIS AND POP ART MOVEMENTS TO REINTERPRET DE ROSSO FURNITURE
Designers including Adam Nathaniel Furman, Richard Hutten and Paola Navone have created seven laminated furniture designs for Italian brand De Rosso that reimagine both archival pieces and previously unpublished works.
The limited collection saw De Rosso task five designers with reinterpreting objects from the company's archive, or updating pieces that already existed but hadn't been published up until now.
Joining Furman, Hutten and Navone is Italian artist Ugo Nespolo and French designer Martine Bedin, who was a founding member of the Memphis Group in the 1980s.
Each of the designs have been brought to life as renders before they are produced as one-off pieces.
Together, the five creatives designed a bookcase, two chairs, two tables and two sideboards, each reflecting the personal style of their creator, but united by the same "exuberant use of colour".
This is in keeping with De Rosso's design language, which the company describes as a crossover of pop art, the Alchimia movement and the Memphis movement.
"The main aim was to celebrate the heritage and flair of the company while also adding the right design and designers to blend and continue it in the future," said company consultant Massimo De Conti.
Made in collaboration with laminate brand Abet Laminati, each of the limited edition furniture items is made from high-pressure decorative laminate, with the exception of the bookcase by Bedin, which also incorporates Belgian black marble.
Bedin's Slate bookcase is constructed from pieces of laminate that have been made into cubic boxes and stacked on top of each other, with longer sections of the material being used to form shelves and a base.
While some of the boxes have been printed with bold, block colours, others feature animated patterns resembling marbling-ink effects.
Furman designed the Chomp chair and the Lounge Hog coffee table for De Rosso, which both boast "zoomorphic" shapes and bright hues of pink, green, yellow, orange, purple and blue.
With a backrest and seat made up of two sections of laminate that have been cut along one edge to resemble sharp teeth, the Chomp chair playfully imitates a fictional monster that is "ready to bite whoever sits down".
The Lounge Hog table, on the other hand, is modelled after a hedgehog, with a tabletop shaped like the round, spiky body of the animal.
Dutch designer Hutten was responsible for redesigning the S.E.C. chair, introducing new patterns and colours to the archival item.
The chair is made out of a single cubic form that has had another square cut out of its top to create a seat. This is covered with a striped laminate featuring gradiated colours of brown, orange, yellow and blue.
This design has been created in five different "kaleidoscopic" colourways.
Italian designer Navone created two "ironic" sideboards, titled Watermelon and Meraviglia, the latter of which is a brand new design, while the other is a reinterpretation of an archival piece.
One of the objects looks just as its name indicates, with bright rouge-tinted cupboards dotted with black seed-like shapes, and green-hued sides and top surface striped with a darker shade of the same colour.
The other furniture piece boasts more pared-back colours of silver and pale blue, and has doors that are punctuated with rows of uniform holes.
Italian artist Nespolo created a brand new design for De Rosso – the Febo table, which has a simple structure but is printed with loud "pop graphics" featuring geometric shapes and miscellaneous objects like trumpets, locks, pens and cacti.
Each piece is a collectors item designed for the domestic environment, and can be placed on its own or in a group to create "an exhilarating presence" in the home.
All images courtesy of De Rosso