Milano Design Week. Gufram on the Rocks
From 10 april to 1 maggio 2016 at Galleria Carla Sozzani, Corso Como 10, Milano.
On the occasion of miart and Salone del Mobile 2016, Galleria Carla Sozzani presents GUFRAM ON THE ROCKS. 50 Years of Design against the Tide.
The exhibition explores the first 50 years of Gufram through its most symbolic projects, the ones that in recent years have revived the legend of the brand and its mad and disruptive visions.
With a special set up, some of the most representative icons of the history of Gufram invade the gallery's space: from the couch Bocca by Studio65 to Cactus designed by Guido Drocco and Franco Mello, from Pratone by Giorgio Ceretti, Pietro Derossi and Riccardo Rosso, to Sasso and Sedilsasso by Piero Gilardi, from Globe by Studio Job to Magnolia by Marcel Wanders, and many others.
Charley Vezza, Global Creative Orchestrator of the brand, says: "Gufram was born in Turin in 1966, revolutionizing the domestic landscape and creating, together with other realities of that time, what is known today as Italian Radical Design. Without giving importance to the increasingly intense series of ephemeral fashions and customs, today Gufram continues on this path and remains true to itself: its icons have become fixed points in the common imagination, as rocks around which the current flows. On the occasion of the 50 years of the brand, and now that Radical Design has been historicized and is living a new moment of glory, we decided to display this history of resistance with an exhibition at Galleria Carla Sozzani which has always been a place where counter-current ideas can be expressed freely. Do not expect an explanatory exhibit, what you'll see will be the perspective representation of an undisciplined and unconventional way of thinking".
Two new projects will be presented for the first time at the exhibition in the gallery spaces. Poltrona by Alessandro Mendini is a totemic and symbolic sitting, a domestic throne that lives of the contrast between the lightness of polyurethane and faux marble finish. A single copy produced in the early '80s and used for a historical cover of the magazine Casabella, is now produced in a limited edition in "real-faux" Carrara marble.
The artist Kris Ruhs, on the other hand, will present a brand new soft sculpture in “real-faux” rusty iron taken from his modular sculptures which have become a single block, according to the ironic game of the true-false that distinguishes Gufram creations.
From the late 60s, in a time when Italian society was going through a profound change, Gufram is at the center of a movement carried on by artists and architects that will later become the radical design as we know it today. Gufram is the first to use polyurethane in pieces of furniture taking advantage of its strength and ductility to realize the most unusual and different shapes while maintaining softness, thus creating a tactile and visual short-circuit.
The first creative that has invented a new way of treating polyurethane by painting it with water repellent synthetic paint is, the artist, Piero Gilardi that today reminds us that: "In the 70s working on "complete upholstery" meant that designers were limited by the problem of producing liners in very complex fabric which was often impossible to do. In Gufram we managed to free the designer's imagination through Guflac ".
Gilardi's innovative insight, called Guflac, at the base of the development of Gufram products, transformed polyurethane which has become not only the structure but also an aesthetic component.
Over the years, Guflac has been changed, improved, updated but it always remains that special natural varnish which, polyurethane render leather-like through skillful craftsmanship, and creates those wonderful dreams that are Gufram projects.
