PROGETTO PALAZZO
ETAGE PROJECTS x PALAZZO MONTI SUMMER RESIDENCY PROGRAM
12 OCTOBER – 17 NOVEMBER 2018
Fredrik Paulsen
Ulrik Weck
Sabine Marcelis + Paul Cournet
Guillermo Santomá
Soft Baroque
Kueng Caputo
Superpoly
Etage Projects is delighted to present ‘Progetto Palazzo’, a group exhibition featuring new works from the gallery’s core roster of designers, produced while in residency at the Palazzo Monti in Brescia, Italy.
The Palazzo Monti is an incubator for creativity and productivity, offering artists a chance to find inspiration, forge new relationships and create collaborations while living in bucolic surroundings by the foot of the Italian Alps. Built in the XIII century, the Palazzo is conveniently located at a short distance from Milan, Venice and Florence, offering resident artists the chance to visit culturally rich cities for research and inspiration. Decorated with Neoclassicist frescos from the late 1750s, the Palazzo provides an inspiring setting to create contemporary art and design.
In the summer of 2018, Etage Projects invited seven contemporary design practices to participate in a residency program at Palazzo Monti, fostering exchange and community among these diverse practitioners connected through the gallery. A central inspiration was the large Italian dinners artists enjoyed together. Among the projects are Sabine Marcelis and Paul Cournet’s ‘Lazy Susan’s, conceived in marble and resin, and Superpoly’s mirror, both as an afterthought of these participative dinners.
While in residence, each designer developed a new project and was matched with local artisans to realise it as an object, drawing on the natural resources as well as the rich tradition of craftsmanship of the region. Both Guillermo Santomá and Fredrik Paulsen have made use of local marble in their objects: Santomá with a marble basketball backboard, accompanied by a basketball signed by the retired NBA superstar Dennis “The Worm” Rodman, and Paulsen through a chair with a marble seat, paired with a mirror top table. Soft Baroque will show two transgressive concrete columns, and Kueng Caputo joins with their flower pot plinth, striking with reflective floor paint. Ulrik Weck created a bronze cast vase, which is a reevaluation of his basketball vases.
Across the full range of projects, one recognises a critical curiosity for the history of local materials and analogue processes matched with an expansive and forward-thinking approach to utility, technology and aesthetics, a characteristic of expanded contemporary design.
Go to artist page: Sabine Marcelis, Superpoly, Soft Baroque, Fredrik Paulsen, Guillermo Santoma
