Rossana Orlandi: Milan Design Week
Rossana Orlandi puts on a show for visitors of this year's Salone del Mobile with a beautiful curation of brands and designs at her exhibition space in San Vittore.
Described as one of the must-visit exhibitions for this year's Salone del Mobile, Rossana Orlandi welcomed guests to her exhibition space, a converted tie factory located in San Vittore, Milan. Showcasing a beautiful curation of brands and creations, visitors were treated to a visual feast of art, furniture and lighting designs. Explore the fascinating spaces below and a select few favourite pieces from my exploration of the grounds and galleries.
Not one to shy away from the bold, the beautiful and the quirky, it came as no surprise to visitors that the grounds would be full to the brim of character. Guests were greeted by striking oversized faces, created in collage by Mattia Biagi, an Italian artist based in Los Angeles describing his work as an exploration of marble as a creative material. The sculpture chair titled 'Sit On My Face' "reveals a personal investigation into the mind of the artist, straddling life and death, nature and civilization, preservation and transformation." Using a selection of photography from historical, pornography and personal collections, each has been printed and fixed onto a marble slab.
A personal favourite was from designer Moritz Waldemeyer, an incredible artist based in London known for his striking designs, particularly with lighting. Creating a chandelier constructed from multiple transparent tubes suspended at varying heights, each tube contained a miniature LED screen that imitated the movement and flickers of a naked flame. These beautiful flames from afar appear almost real, it is upon approach that they become pixelated to create a mesmerising and contemporary lighting design.
British lighting and furniture designers OCHRE were also present to showcase and launch new variations of their 'Moonlight Murmuration' and 'Gaia' pendant lights, the first echoing the beautiful shapes and movements created in nature by fish and bees. The design also introduces colour to the streamlined glass droplets as seen above as they are illuminated by LEDs concealed beneath the blackened steel caps.'Gaia' lures the eye in with its clever balancing act, creating an unsymmetrical sculptural design that extends a large illuminated glass droplet into an interior space, effortlessly balanced by a metal weight.
It was Marcantonio Raimondi Malerba's sculptural lighting designs that won the show, attracting a huge audience and a vast amount of social media coverage. Pure white figures, hand-sculpted by Malerba in clay which in turn has been moulded and retouched for reproduction are presented with an incredible amount of detail. Each piece contains a brass lighting fixture held by the figures, held in the hands of a curious child or in the mouths of several animals including a giraffe, gorilla and dog. The theme of merging sculpture and lighting has become incredibly popular in recent years with designers and artists alike challenging perceptions in the world of art and interiors.
The popularity of Orlandi's exhibition for Milan Design Week has reached new highs with queues stretching down the surrounding roads every day as visitors to the Italian city want to peer into a fascinating world of contemporary design. If recent years are to go by, we should all be making plans already for the 2019 edition and start camping outside now for the launch. Definitely an exhibition to remember and a privilege to attend.
