Each year, Miami Art Week seems to start a little bit earlier, and 2016 was no exception. The Setai kicked off the festivities Sunday night with a celebration of the legendary architect and designer Gaetano Pesce, which attracted fellow creative luminaries architect Jean Nouvel and artist Chuck Close. Pesce installed one of his signature tree vases in the middle of the tranquil fountain in The Setai’s courtyard. Just as he did in his iconic 'Up Series' chairs, the 76-year-old designer referenced the female form. ‘The symbol of the vase is the stomach of the mother with a baby,’ explained Pesce.
Pesce continued his Miami Art Week at Design Miami, where New York gallery Salon 94 is presenting a solo exhibition — titled 'Gli Armadi Parlanti' ('The Speaking Cabinets') — of his work through 4 December. The gallery’s owner, Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, curated the booth. ‘It started by visiting Gaetano and seeing that he was incredibly active and making some of the best works that he has made, so it started with the tree vases, and then we worked backwards,’ said the gallerist.
Installation view of Pesce's work at the Salon 94 booth.
The tree vases, which were produced this year, were the newest works in the stand, which also showed off a number of Pesce’s vintage pieces. Everything about the presentation represented all the elements regularly found in Pesce’s work: joy, humour and colour. ‘We went through some of his classic cabinets and found the motif of the tree and nature repeated again and again,’ said Greenberg Rohatyn, who presented a 2007 tree cabinet that featured one of his first manipulations with paper mâché.
A number of the cabinets featured smiling faces, a nice respite from the current political climate in the US. ‘The cabinets, they talk, but they talk because their shape and their form is a form to express things,’ explained Pesce.
Left, ‘Toscana Vase’, 2015. Right, detail of ‘Tree Vase XXL’, 2016.
Elsewhere in Miami, Pesce’s Tree Vase XXL – the centrepiece of his latest sculptural series – was installed in The Setai’s newly renovated courtyard.
INFORMATION
Gaetano Pesce’s sculptures are on view at the Salon 94 booth until 4 December. For more information, visit the gallery’s website
ADDRESS
Design Miami
Meridian Avenue & 19th Street
Miami Beach
-
Shola Branson draws from the antique and modern for his must-have jewellery piecesShola Branson's jewellery in SMO gold combines a range of eclectic influences
-
The exquisite landscape architecture of Jung Youngsun is celebrated at SMAC in VeniceTimed to coincide with the Venice Biennale, the new San Marco Art Centre opened with a show on the work of South Korean landscape architect Jung Youngsun
-
Discover Tunisia's Skanès Presidential Palace and the glory of French post-war interiorsIn Tunisia, the Skanès Presidential Palace is a stunning display of monumental modernist architecture style - inside and out
-
Ai Weiwei’s new public installation is coming soon to Four Freedoms State Park‘Camouflage’ by Ai Weiwei will launch the inaugural Art X Freedom project in September 2025, a new programme to investigate social justice and freedom
-
Leonard Baby's paintings reflect on his fundamentalist upbringing, a decade after he left the churchThe American artist considers depression and the suppressed queerness of his childhood in a series of intensely personal paintings, on show at Half Gallery, New York
-
Desert X 2025 review: a new American dream grows in the Coachella ValleyWill Jennings reports from the epic California art festival. Here are the highlights
-
In ‘The Last Showgirl’, nostalgia is a drug like any otherGia Coppola takes us to Las Vegas after the party has ended in new film starring Pamela Anderson, The Last Showgirl
-
‘American Photography’: centuries-spanning show reveals timely truthsAt the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Europe’s first major survey of American photography reveals the contradictions and complexities that have long defined this world superpower
-
Miami’s new Museum of Sex is a beacon of open discourseThe Miami outpost of the cult New York destination opened last year, and continues its legacy of presenting and celebrating human sexuality
-
Sundance Film Festival 2025: The films we can't wait to watchSundance Film Festival, which runs 23 January - 2 February, has long been considered a hub of cinematic innovation. These are the ones to watch from this year’s premieres
-
What is RedNote? Inside the social media app drawing American users ahead of the US TikTok banDownloads of the Chinese-owned platform have spiked as US users look for an alternative to TikTok, which faces a ban on national security grounds. What is Rednote, and what are the implications of its ascent?
