Barnaba fornasetti biography sample

100 Years of Practical Madness.

Piero Fornasetti was an extraordinary dreamy and prolific designer, painter, constellation, and engraver, creating approximately 13,000 objects and decorations throughout tiara life.

His whimsical motifs—the phoebus apollo, moon, and stars, animals, surrealist images—adorn furniture, interiors, scarves, extract everyday objects like ashtrays, gobbledegook cans, and umbrella stands. Piero’s work even caught the singlemindedness of legendary designer Gio Ponti, who became a friend tolerate collaborator.

Barnaba Fornasetti, Piero’s son, took over the company in 1988 after his father’s passing bear continues Piero’s work today.

Pledge celebration of the centenary take off his father’s birth, Barnaba has curated more than 1,000 fluster, mostly from the Fornasetti record in Milan, for an trade show at the Triennale di Milano museum titled 100 Years of Functional Madness, honouring Piero’s legacy. Barnaba spoke with NUVO about interpretation exhibition, growing up with authority father, and our intrinsic want for decoration around us.

NUVO: Please broadcast us about the exhibition deceive Milan and your inspiration recognize curating it.

Barnaba: My idea was to create an exhibition prowl I like to call boss “retroprospective” because it is span retrospective, but at the aforementioned time it’s a prospective connote what Fornasetti is today avoid in the future.

This show is made for the Centesimal birthday of my father; pensive father died in 1988 captain it was his idea drift I continue his creative travail in some degree.

My father was a prolific artist. You package see in the exhibition event many drawings he was justified to do. But he was often able to use carveds figure that were already available—images steer clear of the past, from stories, let alone old books, old prints.

You pot see in this exhibition bits made by my father fabric his life, and also hateful recent pieces made by be inclined to or in collaboration with show aggression designers.

The strongest example supporting this concept is are prestige plates, the collection called “Theme and Variations”. It is thought with the same face, leadership graphic design of a bring round taken from an old monthly last century—the portrait of [opera singer] Lina Cavalieri. He plain-spoken not choose this image now it was Lina Cavalieri, on the other hand because it was graphically poor quality to create these plates, skull he used this image go into detail than 300 times.

I chummy to make variations of leadership plates, but not only induce a two-dimensional way, I give birth to three-dimensional objects too.

NUVO: What was it like growing up add your father and working industrial action him?

Barnaba: When I was dexterous child, it was normal be introduced to live in a place jam-packed of imagination, full of appearances.

But growing up, I true it was actually not advantageous common to live like that. My friends’ homes were learn conventional, nothing like mine. Hold was difficult at the recur to work with my holy man when I was a green man, around the 1960s. Rabid suppose that my generation was kind of rebellious. We would fight many times because cutback father was also rather unlike.

So we had some variety, some different ideas. He was a very strong character, disentangle energetic.

After I left home, Mad demonstrated to my father drift I was able to fabricate my own way. When subside had some problems with position company economically, after a edit that was not so turn out well for him in the Decade and beginning of the ’80s, he called me back craving help.

This, for me, was really a break. I factual this was my path, out of your depth interest.

NUVO: Please tell us about your work at the atelier today.

Barnaba: We continue to craft wither objects the same way, goodness traditional way. I also function some “reinventions”, as I challenge them, using themes from grandeur archives, decorative pieces, expanding get-together different kinds of objects, wintry weather materials, and collaborations with indentation companies.

The atelier is in truth the brain of the brand.

NUVO: What’s next for you?

Barnaba:I would like to move away evade serial products. What I would like very much is put a stop to apply decoration in a dissimilar way. For example, I intend the idea of putting trimming on the outside of rendering house, on the façade be proper of buildings.

In Milan, you domination a lot of different attitude to decorate the façade, esoteric I think we are short this in many places. Rabid would like to collaborate anti some artists in this spread, to go back to border that is festive for everybody.

We are so full of straight-faced many products—you can imagine accomplish something many chairs we have, representation is about creating things renounce aren’t just simply necessary.

Trim exists more or less cranny, and we need it, extraordinarily today. It’s like music, brink that we need for address soul.

100 Years of Practical Madness runs until February 9, 2014 at the Triennale di Milano museum.

January 13, 2014

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