Above the tree tops: Gaetano Pesce branches out at Design Miami
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
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Ann Binlot is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer who covers art, fashion, design, architecture, food, and travel for publications like Wallpaper*, the Wall Street Journal, and Monocle. She is also editor-at-large at Document Journal and Family Style magazines.
-
How Billecart-Salmon became the hospitality industry’s champagne of choiceNeil Ridley ventures into a subterranean temple to patience and precision beneath the village of Aÿ-Champagne, France, and discovers a winery not of spectacle, but of soul
-
In Baku Sakashita’s new lighting collection, hand-dyed silk threads are delicately illuminatedIn ‘Haku’, ultra-fine LEDs are woven within plant-dyed threads, showcasing intricacy, artistry and traditional Japanese craftsmanship
-
Discover the chic simplicity of CC-Steding jewelleryNic Farnan and Ben Chaplin create delicate silver jewellery in their east London studio
-
Jamel Shabazz’s photographs are a love letter to Prospect ParkIn a new book, ‘Prospect Park: Photographs of a Brooklyn Oasis, 1980 to 2025’, Jamel Shabazz discovers a warmer side of human nature
-
The Hammer Museum in Los Angeles launches the seventh iteration of its highly anticipated artist biennialOne of the gallery's flagship exhibitions, Made in LA showcases the breadth and depth of the city's contemporary art scene
-
Thomas Prior’s photography captures the uncanny fragility of American lifeA new book unites two decades of the photographer’s piercing, uneasy work
-
Central Park’s revitalised Delacorte Theater gears up for a new futureEnnead Architects helmed an ambitious renovation process that has given the New York City cultural landmark a vibrant and more accessible future
-
Stephen Prina borrows from pop, classical and modern music: now MoMA pays tribute to his performance work‘Stephen Prina: A Lick and a Promise’ recalls the artist, musician, and composer’s performances, and is presented throughout MoMA. Prina tells us more
-
Curtains up, Kid Harpoon rethinks the sound of Broadway production ‘Art’He’s crafted hits with Harry Styles and Miley Cyrus; now songwriter and producer Kid Harpoon (aka Tom Hull) tells us about composing the music for the new, all-star Broadway revival of Yasmina Reza’s play ‘Art’
-
Richard Prince recontextualises archival advertisements in TexasThe artist unites his ‘Posters’ – based on ads for everything from cat pictures to nudes – at Hetzler, Marfa
-
The best Ruth Asawa exhibition is actually on the streets of San FranciscoThe artist, now the subject of a major retrospective at SFMOMA, designed many public sculptures scattered across the Bay Area – you just have to know where to look