Martino with Carlo Mollino
Oct 2008
Salon 94 at Frieze Art Fair, London, Uk
Made from reclaimed Carlo Mollino chairs from the Lutrario Ballroom in Turin, Italy.
www.salon94.com
Photography ©Angus Mill
Undiszipliniert/ Undisciplined
Sep 11 – Oct 11, 2008
Kunsthalle Exnergasse, Vienna, Au
Artists: Werner Feiersinger, Andreas Fogarasi, Martino Gamper, Krüger + Pardeller, Gregor Neuerer, PAUHOF + Walter Niedermayr , Nicole Six & Paul Petritsch
Concept: Doris Krüger and Walter Pardeller
In connection with the Vienna Design Week, organisation of a common symposium with Neigungsgruppe Design, University of Applied Arts Vienna and Kiesler Stiftung Wien
The project focuses on intersection points and addresses the themes of space and spatial design in the light of an expanded and dynamic understanding of space. Above all, the borderline between these disciplines is of interest. In all three of these fields, there are questions about the treatment of space, the relationship between functionality and aesthetics, the usability and the usage, the marketing strategies. However, despite the apparent similarities between these disciplines, they are clearly different in their specific manifestations and answers to such questions.
In the context of an interdisiciplinary project, the common ground will be first be defined to enable concrete reactions from each discipline on the others’ work fields in a subsequent step. The exhibition will ultimately present works developed in the preparation phase as well as the outcome of the experiment. The result will be models, sketches, films, photography, sculptural objects or prototypes and they will all, even simply due to their authorship and development process, oscillate between the disciplines.
Taken from the press release.
www.wuk.at
Manifesta 7
Jul 19 – Nov 02 2008
Fortezza/ Franzensfeste, It
Situated on one of Europe’s most important travel routes, between Bolzano/Bozen and the Brenner pass, the fortress Fortezza/Franzensfeste will serve as one of Manifesta 7’s venues. It was built in the 1830s by the Habsburgian Empire in order to defend the north/south passage through the Dolomite mountain region from two sides. Shaped and ruled by changing military scenarios, which mostly remained imaginary, since the fortress has never witnessed battle, the site itself constitutes the basis for formulating the artistic context of the exhibition by Manifesta 7.
The project entitled Scenarios aims to transform the spectacular backdrop of Fortezza/Franzensfeste into a scripted space with voice recordings, text, light and landscape in order to alter our idea of how imaginary scenarios shape our understanding of past and future, circumstance and possibility. Scenarios will be an ‘immaterial’ exhibition, that attempts to shift the site of the exhibition to the imagination of the listening visitor. Writers from all over the world contribute texts to Scenarios, especially developed for this context. These texts reflect the processes of scenario production and imaginative possibility itself. As voice recordings, the texts are individually installed as sound works in the repetitive interior spaces of the fortress, in an architectural setting characterised by the absence of its historical users and the scenarios they were once part of.
Scenarios
Dramaturgy by Ant Hampton, Audio Design by Hannes Hoelzl, Furniture Design by Martino Gamper
Contributors
Shahid Amin, Hélène Binet, Brave New Alps, Adriana Cavarero, Mladen Dolar, Harun Farocki, Karø Goldt, Larry Gottheim, Renée Green, Timo Kahlen, Karl Kels, Thomas Meinecke, Glen Neath, Margareth Obexer, Philippe Rahm, Arundhati Roy, Saskia Sassen, Michael Snow, Saadi Yousef
www.manifesta7.it
Photography ©Wolfgang Träger/ Nilufar Gallery
Conran Inspirations
Sep 2008
The Conran Shop, London, Uk
In September 2008 the Conran Shop will premiere its specially commissioned Inspirations Collection. As an homage to Terence Conran the shop commissioned a number of designers from the UK, France, Germany, Mexico, South Africa and Italy to create a line of products inspired by Conran himself.
Rooted in the themes of Stafford Cliff’s new book ‘Inspirations’, which looks at the ideas and pieces which have inspired Terence Conran throughout his illustrious career, the collection will comprise a diverse range of objects from designers including Martino Gamper, Michael Marriott and Bill Amberg.
Gamper was invited by Polly Dickens, creative director of the Conran Shop, to reinterpret the classic Thonet bentwood chair for the retailers Inspirations show, launched during the London Design Festival. He visited the Mundus factory in Croatia (which has been supplying Conran with Thonet chairs for decades) and came back to his London studio with about 100 elements including seats, legs, arms and back rests, which he then arranged into new chairs.
Taken from the press release.
www.conranshop.co.uk
Photography at Mundus, Croatia ©Anne Heslop
A Recent History of Writing and Drawing
July 9th – August 31st 2008
Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, Uk
An exhibition by Jürg Lehni and Alex Rich
Furniture by Martino Gamper
'A Recent History of Writing and Drawing' is an interactive exhibition which explores the creative potential of graphic technologies. Conceived by designers Jürg Lehni and Alex Rich, the exhibition sees the ICA’s lower gallery transformed into a workspace where a number of machines, developed to enable writing and drawing, exist. Together these machines present a range of techniques from chalk on board, to holes punched in paper and images projected on screen.
The show on a whole consists of four individual exhibits including, ‘Dots on Demand’, a workstation with a very simple graphic interface which invites visitors to type in their own sentences and then feed a sheet of paper of their choice into the cutter and see their sentences cut out. Visitors will be able to take their own poster home as a souvenir, while copies will also be displayed within the gallery.
Taken from the press release.
www.ica.org
Photography ©Marcus Leith
The Flight of the Dodo
July – August 2008
Project, Dublin, Ie
Tim Braden (UK), Ryan Gander (UK), Martino Gamper (IT), Sven Johne (DE), Irene Kopelman (AR), Eoin McHugh (IE), Francis Upritchard (NZ), Douglas White (UK)
What we share is curiosity, of the world that exists and that which is to come.
The Flight of the Dodo is an eclectic exhibition made up of various artworks and elements that celebrate adventure, delve into factual myths, plunging in and out of notions of the hybrid, evolution, imaginative escapism, the will to survive and ultimate extinction.
The exhibition includes artists who have an eye on the flipside of life, the next steps in evolution and an interest in the endgame. While we read endlessly of global warming and the future migration which will be necessary to survive, there is much debate and angst about the timeframe for this outcome. Some artists focus on the landscape after the fall while others envisage salvation through science and technology. Some artworks let you escape from rational understanding, while others ground you in disaster archaeology of the 20th Century.
Taken from the press release.
www.projectartscentre.ie
Every Shoe Needs A Box
2008
Diego Dolcini Boutique, Milano, It
Not a classic shoe boutique, but rather a site-specific installation, the first Diego Dolcini space in Milan was created by young designer Martino Gamper. In this concept of an interior Gamper removes the boundaries between art, fashion and design, transforming the usual, traditional shoebox, into a recurring symbolic and structural element, at the origin of spectacular accumulations and divisions of the space. Retaken and reproduced in different woods, reinvented and embellished by natural tones and textures, it evokes memories of contexts and contests, of rules and rituals of shoemaking. The shoe is the omnipresent yet invisible leading figure.
Taken from the press release.
www.diegodolcini.it
Receiving
14 – 17 May 2008
Wright, Chicago Usa
From the 14th through the 17th of May 2008, Wright welcomed designer, innovator and mastermind Martino Gamper to Chicago. Gamper created a series of unique and functional pieces of furniture for Wright’s auction room utilizing cast-off shipping materials, crates, and discarded furniture and objects found in Wright’s warehouse. Part performance, part workshop, Gamper’s process welcomed experimentation, spontaneity and interaction: Gamper’s on-site studio was open to the public so that visitors could watch while he worked.
Taken from the press release.
www.wright20.com
Photography ©Wright and Brian Franczyk
Total Trattoria
7 Mar – 26 Apr 2008
The Aram Gallery, London, Uk
The Aram Gallery has commissioned London-based designer Martino Gamper to create Total Trattoria – the ultimate expression of his Trattoria al Cappello concept.
Developing further his idea, Total Trattoria, which opened on 7 March 2008, completes the concept and puts it on show to the public for the first time.
Gamper has designed every single element of the dining event ranging from the kitchen and its storage areas to the cutlery and the tables and chairs to the glassware. A series of thirteen individual tables that connect to form one large dining table snakes around the gallery to seat 25 guests. The 25 chairs around the table are all different but are constructed from the same set of component parts, designed by Gamper.
The pieces include the results of many collaborations between Gamper and a wide variety of makers including engraved glasses placed on clusters of leather coasters, blown-glass water jugs and limited edition placemats designed by Gamper’s collaborators in the Trattoria events, Maki Suzuki, Alex Rich and Kajsa Stahl.
The exhibition graphics and communication, also designed by Suzuki, Rich and Stahl, includes a specially designed catalogue.
Taken from the press release.
www.thearamgallery.org
Off-Cut Table
2008
Teak from English school laboratory tops, oak from Scottish church benches, poplar from the London Patent Office.
13 pieces, various sizes
The Off-Cut table is made of 13 individual units, butted against each other to create one large horse-shoe configuration. Although the leg system stays the same each table top is a different shape, size and material; a unique variation that is result of the multi-faceted division of the surface. Three types of timber are merged together to create the surface. Off-Cut reflects the fact that a dining event is only ever complete when the different people around the table share the same experience.
Gio Ponti Translated by Martino Gamper
2007
Nilufar Gallery, Milan, It
For this occasion, the furnishings designed by Gio Ponti for the Hotel Parco dei Principi of Sorrento will be exhibited together with the unique pieces elaborated by Gamper. The new orientation of the gallery is to commit international and Italian designers to develop limited edition projects conceived exclusively for Nilufar.
In the gallery, Martino Gamper, armed with the tools of his trade, will break, cut, and modify furniture created by Gio Ponti (courtesy of Nilufar). Not an act of destruction in itself, but rather 'an action' to: re-invent, re-think, re-possess the object, and re-create a 'new destiny' for it. Nothing could be further from being relegated to a museum exhibition. The object will be offered an alternative way out, and thereby re-delivered to true life.
'Deconstruction', much more than mere standard practice, is a path to knowledge for Martino. Making contact with the structure of the object is both an intimate and physical gesture for him – the emotional dynamics of relating himself to the essence of the object. The object arouses an emotion that causes a personal re-action in him, which is then elaborated during the performance, as an immediate action on the object, a 'creative process in action' that we can define as 'Action Design'.
Taken from the press release.
Gio Ponti furniture courtesy of Nilufar Gallery, Milano.
www.nilufar.com
Together Bookcase
2007
Veneered plywood edged with polished walnut, cherry, cedar and elm.
Lacquered black and white MDF.
Limited series of 12 examples.
Nilufar Edition
Arnold Circus Chair
2007
Wooden frame, leather cover.
Limited series of 15 examples.
Nilufar Edition
Hexagone Table
2007
Layered polar frame, laminated in 3 colours, waxed ebony edge.
Limited series of 9 examples.
Nilufar Edition
Combo Chairs
2008
25 chairs, assorted solid wood pieces, various dimensions
The Combo chairs are an experiment in making furniture in a way similar to making food. The ingredients were prepared in advance and the variety is a result of different ways of putting the ingredients together. There are twelve different components in three different types of timber. The design and making process were intertwined and the results were not pre-drawn but methodically improvised during the making. The evolution of the ideas can be seen in the different versions. One of them is more likely to be better than the rest or may suit a specific person more than the others.
