After a spring snowfall, a huge red chair installation standing in front of the Today Art Museum in Beijing is covered with snow, which is particularly eye-catching. The work, called the "Up Chair", is a 1969 classic design by Italian national treasure designer Gaetano Pecher.
"When you see this chair, you think of a woman's body." Gaetano Peche, 82, said it was a very important work in his creative career "because it is not only functional, practical, but also a manifesto about the situation of (vulnerable) groups." ”
On March 20, "Gaetano Peche: No One Is Perfect" opened at today Art Museum, a huge art installation and nearly 100 works spanning more than half a century, across the ocean to China, constituting the artist's first solo exhibition in Asia.
Born in 1939 in La Spezia, Italy, Pesche was one of the most versatile designers of the 20th century. Despite being over eighty years old, he still insisted on creating. When the audience walks into the exhibition site and sees his whimsical designs, whether it is anthropomorphic furniture, product design, architectural models, resin paintings, installations or various literature, it shows the lasting innovation of this design boy.
Li Weijia, a representative and assistant of Pei Xie Studio, told First Finance and Economics that for this exhibition, Pei Xie completed many new works, "These exhibits are packed and packed from the studio in New York, and after more than a month of traveling across the ocean to Shenzhen and then to Beijing, it is not easy." ”
Unable to come to China in New York, Pecher Li completed the exhibition in Beijing. In Pecher's exhibition design, the moving line diagrams that are usually common in art exhibitions are abolished, and works from different periods are organically presented in the same space.
Li Weijia explained that in Pecher's concept, visiting the exhibition is like sightseeing in a new city, people in the face of an unheard of city, more to explore, stop in the place of interest, "he integrated humanity into the design, I hope everyone can feel his freedom, enthusiasm and creativity from the works." ”
Imperfection is human nature
Walking into the exhibition hall, the most eye-catching thing is a "Up5_6 Armchair" that debuted at the Furniture Fair in Milan, Italy in 1969.
It has been hailed as "one of the most famous chairs of the 20th century", and is a fan of artist Dalí and fashion designer Pierre Cardin. The chair is very rounded and feels safe like a mother's embrace. Pecher said, "Women have an inclusive quality, are very resilient, and do not hesitate to give. I learned a lot from them. "He grew up under the care and companionship of his mother, cousin and grandmother, and was particularly sympathetic to their feelings and hoped to give women a voice through his works."
Pecher reminds the viewer, "There is also a chain in this work that hints at fear and also symbolizes incarceration. I think women are a bit like prisoners of men, prisoners of prejudice, prisoners of bad ideas, which is very unfortunate. He admits that even in the most developed countries, women are limited by prejudice. This work was born in 1969, and it was the first time that an artist had used a chair to express the content of women's issues.
This ability to empathize is not only aimed at women, in the 2018 furniture work "The Cabinet of the Weary Man", Pecher used a figure with bent limbs to express the general fatigue of people in society.
The theme of the exhibition, "No One Is Perfect", fits with Pecher's series of "No One Is Perfect" since 2002. Many of his works have an element of imagery: a face, a mountain, or a parrot.
His chair works depict different portraits in abstract form. These figures have different identities, faces and emotions, showing the diversity of beings in a colorful world. In his latest 4.5-meter-tall Portrait Chair, 20 faces of different skin tones appear on the chair, which is the artist's yearning for the era of globalization – people of different skin colors can sit in the same chair and communicate.
Pecher believes that imperfection is human, "Sometimes some designers and artists always try to be perfect – it's wrong!" Because perfection is very abstract, neutral, cold. Mistakes and faults are human. ”
Challenging the impossibility of materials
Through his relentless research into new materials and unrestricted use of color, Pecher blurs the boundaries between design and art. In his hands, resin can be made into solid furniture, but also into soft and clear paintings. Because of the particularity of the resin material, its color can be strong and clear, and the shape can also be imaginative and free. As he once said, "My job is freedom of expression, not about rules." ”
In the 1960s, Pecher became interested in industrial materials such as polyurethane foams, resins and plastics. "I love my materials very much because they come from my time. I don't like iron, I don't like wood, I don't like metal, I don't like stone, I don't like these traditional materials. ”
Pecher uses "flow" to describe the era in which he lived, arguing that people's values are flowing and changing, and that the materials used by designers must also be related to the times, "My materials are also fluid, I mix them together like cream, and then they begin to react, harden, and finally solidify into my work." ”
In 2019, at Pesche's New York studio, 30 assistants assisted him in completing the more than 285 kilograms of work "Artist Self-Portrait Bookshelf". "He's like a director." Li Weijia recalled that when creating this work, 30 assistants took Pecher's individually colored resin solution, lined up one by one, followed his instructions, and poured the resin into the mold. A week later, the bookshelf solidified into the artist's side face.
China's architectural dreams of diversity
In the art world, Pecher is a greedy player. From jewelry and home furnishing to urban planning and design, from painting to sculpture, and even making films and making vinyl records, Pecher's creative boundaries are incomparably broad. He had a "multidisciplinary approach" to art, and like the artists of the Italian Renaissance, leonardo da Vinci was able to move freely through architecture, sculpture, painting, music and poetry, "from which I also come".
Architect is one of The important identities of Pecher. His architectural designs are as dynamic and personal as his home design, full of social concerns. From Pecher's architectural drawings, you seem to see an old man with an innocent mindset, laughing and completing innovations.
In his 1991 design drawings for an abandoned cruise ship in Yokohama, Japan, he turned the entire cruise ship into a moving vertical garden; in the 1977 "Lonely Church Project," he designed a self-shelter under the city; and he even contributed ideas to the reconstruction of the World Trade Center, embracing a red heart between the two world trade centers that were rebuilt —of course, these projects were all imaginary and not built.
His most famous architectural work is an organic building designed for Osaka, Japan in 1989 and the world's first vertical garden. The entire building uses 132 kinds of native flowers and trees, and the red building is covered with greenery, making it a unique presence in Osaka's urban space.
In the architectural project "Bahia Hut" designed for Brazil, he mixed the local eucalyptus essential oil in resin, and people can smell the faint aroma of essential oils when they approach the building. "It reminds you that buildings can smell and can have scents. Architecture doesn't have to be just visual. When you touch it, the walls are as elastic as skin. Pecher says he won't let architecture become anemic, boring, repetitive, indifferent and loveless, but rather shape its diversity.
Diversity is Pecher's dream as an architect. In 1987, he proposed a "pluralistic architecture" proposal, inviting different architects to design a floor. This unfinished architectural drawing looks as imaginative as the British children's book "The 100-Story Bus".
"Usually every floor of a building around the world is repetitive, but I don't like repetition. It's a different building on every floor, and I don't know if any Chinese construction company is interested in joining this wonderful and innovative project. Pecher is looking forward to whether this construction project, which has not been possible for many years, can become a reality in China.