Gaetano Pesce, between art and design.
The artist-designer who above all mixed art and design, unique works and mass-produced pieces, the author of icons that have marked the history of furniture such as the Up series for B&B Italia and the Feltri armchair for Cassina. He has the merit of having interpreted the hottest topics and times, often from a provocative viewpoint, and of having translated his creative urgency and denunciation in audacious and experimental furniture - always with a hint of irony - that have touched the hearts and opened the minds of many for generations. His projects are halfway between the functionality and comfort of furniture and the purest installation for art’s own sake, furnishings-sculptures that have shaped unique interior spaces, the timeless legacy of a creative mind who cannot be tied by labels or stopped by criticism. Whether you love him or not, he is Gaetano Pesce.
During his four-decade-long career made of experimentation with materials, languages and technology, he has conceived unique pieces that have marked the history of design, such as those for B&B Italia: Up (1969), a collection of voluptuous seats, such as Up7 or the famed Up5_6 armchair.
The first industrial design piece that channelized a political message about women's condition, portraying the female body as a prisoner chained to a ball.
The author explains: "For me, this armchair was a way of expressing other contents besides those concerning the advanced technique, the new material and the comfort of the product. The reality of that time hardly mentioned the problem of violence against women. I thought that this serious sign of incivility, which existed in all countries worldwide, would decrease in time, but unfortunately, it did not."
Pesce’s work is featured in over 30 permanent collections of the world’s most important museums, such as MoMa of New York and San Francisco, Metropolitan Museum in New York, Vitra Museum in Germany, Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Centre Pompidou and Musee des Arts Décoratifs of Louvre in Paris.
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