It Wasn’t Me
Milano Design Week 2018
Fornasetti takes decorative art and creativity outside their usual environments. On the occasion of the 2018 Fuorisalone, one of Milan's historic monuments adopts a new look, sporting a typically Fornasettian dash of irony.
The Bottonuto obelisk is located “in the very part of Milan where I would have grown up,” says Barnaba Fornisetti , “if my father had managed to fulfil his dream of living in the porter's lodge of the Villa Reale”. This exquisite votive column made of pink granite was erected near Piazza Duomo in 1606 and blessed by Cardinal Federico Borromeo.
Around 1785, once the construction of the public gardens of Corso Venezia was completed, the architect Giuseppe Piermarini had it transported to Via Marina and on the top placed a radiant bronze sun, recalling the Egyptian symbol of the god Ra, the Sun, source of heat, light and life.
“In its role, function and form, the obelisk is the ultimate expression of decorative art and of all its communicative power,” declares Fornasetti. “I came up with a row of mouths to fill a cherished district of Milan with kisses during the Milanese carnival of the Salone del Mobile, that moment when the city stages its finest show, a show in which art and craftsmanship meet industry. Precisely that union so desired by the utopian vision of Ponti and Fornasetti…”.
Like a lighthouse illuminating the way ahead for those travelling by sea, this slender monolith signals to passers-by the power of Fornasetti's imagination and visual language.
