Flexform photography show celebrates the sofa specialist’s heritage in pictures
Defining Flexform photography from its ad campaigns past transforms the brand’s Milan flagship store into a must-visit for Milan Design Week 2023

Until 30 April 2023, the Flexform Milano showroom in Via della Moscova is hosting a mainly black-and-white photography exhibition celebrating the company's history. The show – ‘Portraying Design, Celebrating Tradition & Innovation’, coinciding with Milan Design Week 2023 – makes a deliberate choice of black and white photography to highlight the Flexform designs’ production detail, craftsmanship, and shapes. The images are an opportunity to engage with the company’s heritage – just as you would with a family through their photo albums.
The large-scale reproductions on backlit panels are primarily distributed chronologically throughout the space, which is lit by large windows. The visitor is thus guided through a selection of advertising campaigns, as well as photos and products by the designers who have contributed to the evolution of the company's brand identity from the 1980s to 2023.
Flexform photography show revisits defining design moments and celebrates the new
‘Max’ sofas photographed by Gabriele Basilico at the Triennale di Milano museum, 1983
The exhibition starts with a stunning photograph taken by the legendary late Milanese photographer Gabriele Basilico, featuring the ‘Max’ sofa by Antonio Citterio, with its distinctive organic forms, kidney-bean-shaped seat cushion, and spiral backrest.
‘Max’ sofas photographed by Gabriele Basilico, 2001
The ‘Max’ celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, and Flexform presents the new ‘Supermax’ – a revisit of the design by Citterio, with more generous and contemporary proportions. Here, the company puts the new sofa in dialogue with the original, as well as Basilico’s campaign from 1983: the photographer managed to insert the sofa within the characteristic architecture of the Triennale di Milano museum, a large staircase in the background, emphasising shapes and spirals.
Antonio Citterio at the exhibition on the ‘Supermax’ sofa
It's not just Basilico. From the 1980s to the 2000s, the brand's narrative was displayed through deeply evocative, strictly black-and-white ad campaigns shot by master photographers such as Gianni Berengo Gardin, Giovanni Gastel, Gian Paolo Barbieri, Maria Vittoria Backhaus, Fabrizio Ferri, and Mario Ciampi. The large windows also allow passers-by to take a look, and be drawn in by a glimpse of Gianni Berengo Gardin's evocative take on ‘Soft Dream’ sofa from 2011, for example (pictured top).
‘Groundpiece’ sofa photographed by Maria Vittoria Backhaus, 2008
‘Magister’ sofa photographed by Gabriele Basilico, 1983
Backhaus’ photographs are powerful and vaguely mysterious. Her 1999 shot dedicated to the ‘A.B.C’ armchair (1996) is a surprise: two women looking at each other through intensely made-up eyes, in an artificial pose that emphasises the armchair’s square structure – it’s one of the few campaigns devoted entirely to an armchair for a brand whose core business remains sofas.
‘Groundpiece’ sofa, photographed by Gianni Berengo Gardin
‘Groundpiece’ sofa photographed by Maria Vittoria Backhaus, 2006
A 9m corridor follows, with six images of ‘Groundpiece’ (from 2001 to 2022) and numerous sets open to interpretation. The idea is to narrate the story of a piece that reshaped the game at the time when sofas still had precise limited functions and rigid stylistic features. ‘Groundpiece’ pioneered the transition to a piece that can now satisfy not only conversations, but also sleeping, working, eating, and playing needs.
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‘Groundpiece’ sofa photographed by Gabriele Basilico, 2001
We begin with Basilico, who created a dialogue with the piece’s details and the prominent features of Palazzo Pirelli, all steel and windows. We end with the dreamlike, and colourful style of Pierpaolo Ferrari: a woman dressed in blue floats gracefully at what seems the end of a tea dinner, a small party – or a dream.
‘Groundpiece’ sofa photographed by Pierpaolo Ferrari
‘Gregory’ sofa photographed by Pierpaolo Ferrari
This colourful note brings us up to date. Current Flexform art director Christoph Radl invited Pierpaolo Ferrari to bring his wry, irreverent eye, and colourful, vivid interpretations to the company’s campaigns: the family album keeps expanding.
‘Portraying Design, Celebrating Tradition & Innovation’
Until 30 April 2023 (10 am – 9 pm)
Flexform Flagship Store
Via della Moscova 33
Milan
flexform.it
Exhibition view ‘Portraying Design, Celebrating Tradition & Innovation’, at the Flexform Milan showroom, including Maria Vittoria Backhaus’ photograph of ‘A.B.C’ armchairs
Exhibition view ‘Portraying Design, Celebrating Tradition & Innovation’, at the Flexform Milan showroom
Cristina Kiran Piotti is an Italian-Indian freelance journalist. After completing her studies in journalism in Milan, she pursued a master's degree in the economic relations between Italy and India at the Ca' Foscari Challenge School in Venice. She splits her time between Milan and Mumbai and, since 2008, she has concentrated her work mostly on design, current affairs, and culture stories, often drawing on her enduring passion for geopolitics. She writes for several publications in both English and Italian, and she is a consultant for communication firms and publishing houses.
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