"Stanze e Camere" + "100 chairs in 100 days" di Martino Gamper 6th October – 8th November 2009 Triennale di Milano Curated by Silvana Annicchiarico In collaboration with Nilufar Gallery. Triennale Design Museum presents an exhibition by Martino Gamper including the projects entitled 100 Chairs in 100 Days, Total Trattoria and a new project implemented ad-hoc for Triennale Design Museum. Martino Gamper, born in Meran, is an internationally famous designer, albeit an outsider as compared to the system, who – in his works – combines arts, design and handicrafts. His story and training are unusual and have influenced his design procedures: after an apprenticeship in Meran as a teenager, for a couple of years he travelled all over the world, often paying for his journeys working as a carpenter. He attended a sculpture course at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, held by Michelangelo Pistoletto, and then a course in product design taught by Matteo Thun, with whom he started working in1994 to manufacture furniture and home design products. He moved to London in 1997 and studied at the Royal College of Art. Gamper presented his 100 Chairs in 100 Days project for the first time in October 2007 in a Victorian mansion in South Kensington, London. In 100 days he reconfigured the design of 100 abandoned chairs he had recovered during two years. The chairs derive from a sort of “collage” of historic design items and anonymous works. His aim is transforming their character and function to investigate the design potential deriving from the blend of different stylistic and structural traits between handicrafts and research. A story hides behind every chair ad this project is aimed at stressing the role of the sociological, personal, geographic and historical context of design. Gamper’s design approach may seem spontaneous; on the contrary it is characterised by a profound knowledge of the history of design, as shown by the following performance during which he disassembled and reassembled original furniture designed by Gio Ponti in 1960 to create new objects. The installation entitled Total Trattoria entails a revision of social spaces. In addition to designing objects and furnishing accessories, Gamper loves to prepare dinners for colleagues and friends and proposes the combination of unusual ingredients cooked in kitchens hosted inside shops and ateliers, galleries and museums. A series of single tables designed by him form a long single table stretching along the exhibition spaces like a snake. Together with his friends and graphic designers Maki Suzuki, Kajsa Stahl and Alex Rich, he cooks for his guests, thus achieving real performances. In the new projects implemented for Triennale, for the first time Gamper deals with the home through a cosy and seducing environment in which the viewer’s attention is not focussed on individual elements but on the whole environment. Martino Gamper, an outsider as compared to his generation and consolidated codes, through his projects provides new approaches to renew the practice of design and the relevant theoretical research. This exhibition is part of an analysis of modern Italian design conducted by the Triennale Design Museum. Biography Born in Meran in 1971, Martino Gamper, after an apprenticeship as carpenter, studied sculpture and product design at the University of Applied Arts of the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts; in 1996 he moved to Milan to work freelance for important international design forms. In 1998 he moved to London to attend a master’s degree at the Royal College of Arts, which he concluded in 2000 to begin his creative production by developing and implementing a wide range of objects, from limited editions to almost industrial productions and site specific installations. His woks have been exhibited in different exhibition spaces and museums, such as V&A, Design Museum, Sotheby's, Nilufar Gallery, Oxo Tower, Kulturhuset/Stockholm, MAK/Vienna, National Gallery /Oslo and many others. Only in 2009 Gamper held exhibitions within Feierabend at the Kate MacGarry Gallery of London, Gio Ponti Translated at the Nilufar Gallery in Milan and finally SuperStories, a triennial modern art, fashion and design exhibition held in Hasselt, Belgium. Gamper has always been very interested in the psychological and social aspects of design. By transforming discarded furniture which he found in the streets, Gamper has created a very peculiar and clashing family of objects . Each one of Gamper’s creations hides a story made of materials, techniques, people and places. The end product is the synthesis of all those elements.