Always an eclectic experimenter and conceptual designer, Antonio Marras every year he explores new dimensions and creative realities through an unprecedented aesthetic language and a deeply personal poetics. In occasione dellaDesign Week e delFuorisalone 2022, the sensitivity and artistic versatility of the Sardinian designer returns to amaze with a new story and an irreverent and unconventional setting. Protagonist of this installation, the concept of regeneration – Re-Generation – in its purest essence.
Regeneration is a natural process of replacing or restoring damaged or missing body parts to the full functionality of plants and animals, and for Antonio Marras it represents the manifesto of his own poetics. Regeneration is a circular art, is to give new life. It is to enhance and make the best experiences repeatable, is to create bonds. It is believing in awakening, create a perfect gesture. It is the Phoenix that is reborn from its ashes. These are the historical courses and appeals of Giambattista Vico, things that happen by a predestined will, already written. He said Vico: “The most sublime work of poetry is to make sense of senseless things, and it is the property of children to take inanimate things in their hands and, trastullandosi, talk to each other as if they were, those, people alive…”Antonio Marras adopts the RE-GENERATION as modus Operandi. Regenerates, gives new life, creates opportunities for meeting and blends and confuses poetic materials and instances and through beauty reproduces and produces new dimensions of materials that often unexpectedly give life to new visions. The stratifications, the gathering, the assemblies, the combinations, the interventions, encrustations, the decorations, the overlaps, the entries, the inlays, leftover pieces of fabric, embroidery, the earth, colors, i metalli, the drawings, coffee and tea as colors, patches on pre-existing elements in order to create an identity, another is the doing of Antonio Marras. An innumerable accumulation of thoughts, of materials and people that generate a different vision. A vision that holds all elements and tensions together and produces a new being, a new way of understanding life. Antonio Marras is moved by a feeling animated by the fundamental presence of memory. Collective memory, what in Sardinian is called "su connottu", the known, the assimilated, the DNA that is part of us. Antonio Marras is an intimist, an animist. He loves the lived experience and likes to think about objects, le cose, gli abiti, fabrics have a soul and deserve respect.
Thus was born the story of "CIRCLE, the anti Tom Thumb ".
"Once upon a time there was a neighboring family of Tom Thumb's family who had a son obsessed with recycling. It seems strange ... but he really had a fixed nail. A forerunner of our days, in pratica. This singular boy named Francesco but called Cecchino was known as Cerchino, because always in search, he was obsessed with abandoned things, thrown away or forgotten on the street that he found in his various and frequent wanderings. So much so that Cerchino and Pollicino weren't even very friends precisely because they had a basic philosophy at the antipodes. While Tom Thumb left pebbles, crumbs or other clues to the woods and the streets, Cerchino collected everything he could find without the slightest apparent selection and, everything, absolutely everything, it caught his interest.
He wandered over seas and mountains in endless walks and as soon as he intercepted any object now abandoned, discarded, snubbed, refused, now useless, he intercepted him and like a truffle dog he stared at him, as a diviner felt it, like a lover he smelled it and made it his own. His was a revenge on oblivion. Cerchino was attracted, caught, as if it were remote controlled by an unearthly force and as if in a trance it went straight to locate that object, yes just that and not another that seemed similar, no that! One among a thousand was chosen and then archived, cataloged, well preserved and placed in one of the many drawers in his mind and then at the right moment he would return. It came back preponderant and alive, full of energy and talking that suggests what he wants to become. So Cerchino found it and regenerated it. He worked on it to arrive at a result that was not always expected. Cerchino was an animist. Yes, his job was to give any boss a second chance at life, oggetto, What, tool, contraption, tool, ornament of any manufacture and nature. He loved the copper pieces, of rusty iron, metallic. He was crazy about pottery, terracotta and porcelain. He liked "a makkini" used sheets, old, dirty and stained, Books, pages written or drawn and paintings by unknown painters on which to intervene, fit in, add and vary, do other than the primitive mission. Cerchino hated waste, indifference, the abuse. He loved dealing with hopeless cases, he himself was.
Walk, walks recovered and accumulated and put aside and then regenerated and assembled and the result became something else. Another than being that was born, it animated and lived autonomously. It was generated, for example a tower of suitcases called "Upset stairs" the result of a methodical and obsessive search for the act of going back and forth and never arriving because life is a long journey aimlessly. A series of blackboards became strange characters who live in a land dominated by the fear of being erased, "The indelible ones". Metallic threads, wheels, ferri, bolts, and industrial waste to obtain a post-industrial figure arrived from the wasteland but enlightened and therefore of hope and resolutions, “F.lli Lumiere”. Then books about books that make their tongues "Bad Tongues". Still accumulations of rusty iron and post-industrial waste “Bigatti”. A frame and five balls that become a movement of serial making and inventive making “Teresa, John the porter ". Ceramics and objets trouvés to create columns dedicated to imaginary goddesses, paintings that collect visions, immagini, drawings and signs to represent disorientation. And then plants, flowers, vases and again a series of abnormal heads "Patches and decorations" in the shape of a stone but dressed, embroidered, rattoppate, wrapped, inlaid with precious fabrics and encrustations and do not hang from above to crowd the village of serial embroiderers where what counts is each one to embroider on his own on any material because what matters is to be different "Happy who is different / he being different. / But woe to those who are different / he being common ". For Cerchino, the world is a huge container from which to draw the materials necessary for the imagery of reconstruction, and there is never time, you have to hurry, the environment, and what it contains, everything must have changed, the distrust of reality is justified by the tragic position of a language that is inadequate to things, especially to the things of art: and gives new life to the things of the world, speaks through things, makes things talk, no fear, no discomfort due to the immense amount of work that lies ahead, and as with all works that tend to change the world, Cerchino's work never ends. "
To enrich the installations and forms created by Marras, the live musical performance entitled PILGRIMAGE, daily from 18 to 19. For Antonio Marras you have to go, to go. Cross seas and cross bridges and cities. Take streets, roads and paths. To err, vagare, sometimes without a precise goal, only for the urgency to move, to move, to change, to escape. We must wander, reach out to those who can help us, who can save us and when we finally get to our destination an accordion will save us and everyone will dance a party dance.
The research and creative power of Antonio Marras continues this year on the occasion of theFuorisalone 2022 attraversovarious collaborations and partnerships in line with the philosophy and DNA of the brand.
The iconic drawing created by Antonio Marras del giglioLillu Arrùbiu, inspired by Robert and Sonya Delaunay, a magical couple in life and art, becomes the common thread of a series of exclusive products. The lily is a lucky flower and means harmony between the couple. Also, arises spontaneously around the 24 June, for San Giovanni, the day that marks the beginning of summer and the most incredible night of the year, full of magic and omens, celebrated for hundreds of years with mythological rites and customs. In particular, in Alghero it is a deeply felt tradition. At the beach, in San Giovanni, high and redundant fires are lit among thousands of people who, enchanted, they play and celebrate. A red flower like the ligazzo rubio, the simple carmine red ribbon, which leads back to the laces that tied suitcases, packages, in which those who left took their memories with them. A real symbol-object, a thread that unites tightly, knots affections, sentimenti, emozioni, resists time and wear, it keeps what part of what remains anchored. The red color recalls blood, understood as life, flow of experiences, movimento, cuore, affections, sentimenti, calore, protezione, passion.Lillu Arrùbiu thus it becomes an image full of meanings and suggestions.
Lillu Arrù Wallpaper byWall&decò, reality of reference in the panorama of the production and marketing of modern custom-made wallpaper, take up this design, giving elegance and refinement to the vertical surfaces of an environment. The flower is also the protagonist of a refined signed ceramic series MARRAS HOUSE, designed to enrich and make the table even more special. LILLU ARRÙBIU is also the name of the Temporary Bistrot & Restaurant Family Rana in collaboration with the Rana family inside the Despitemarras showroom. After four greedy sold out seasons, the Rana and Marras families continue to weave magical canvases and create surprising frames to set the always highly anticipated Temporary Bistrot & Restaurant Family Rana, thatback from 6 to the 12 June. A perfect combination in which the taste that intoxicates the palate and the beauty that captivates the eyes come together in the most perfect of combinations. The gastronomic proposal created for this edition, starting from breakfast until dinner, tells a journey across continents, traditions, kitchens, different flavors and cultures, inside which greedy Sardinian accents are scattered, tribute to the land of origin of Marras. A menu with multiple taste experiences, inspired by travels around the world and under the banner of Rana excellence and creativity, that will leave an indelible memory in the hearts and palates of all guests.
The creative flair of Antonio Marras goes beyond the limits in the limited edition of lampsSIGNShand illustrated forSERVOMUTO, Milanese design lighting brand that revisits a classic object like the lampshade with a contemporary and decidedly sophisticated touch. It is a collaboration that has strong roots, that sink in mutual esteem and affection, in a long-time acquaintance. This capsule collection manages to combine the passion for detail and the craftsmanship of ancient processes - which has always been at the center of Servomuto's research - with poetry, romanticism and the distinctive trait of the inks of the well-known Sardinian designer. Seven floor lamps in two different sizes - both in height, both in circumference -, two oversized suspensions and two wall lights. The recognizable shapes of the lampshades, in pleated cotton, complement the minimal and essential design of the bases of the floor lamps made of painted iron (press-bent cylinders with manual machines operated by artisan blacksmiths, who still use this technique to obtain very small radii of curvature). The suspensions are chandeliers, real light installations, that can furnish large rooms as well as small spaces, with a strong and unmistakable sign; the bandage in two contrasting colors emphasizes the verticality and manages to develop a remarkable sense of three-dimensionality. The appliques are the development, in the wall version, of the well-known 'Flag' lamp by Servomuto, made here in two different sizes and with geometric folds: picture perfect con i disegni di Antonio Marras, bright portraits that wink from the walls of the house.
A VASE IS FOREVERis the new collection of vases – unique pieces by Antonio Marras made for Rossella Colombari Gallery in collaboration with Marsiglilab. The vases that make up the collection were made at the end 2021 in Cutrofiano in Puglia, with the historic company F.lli Colì. Starting from the standard base of clay vases and later glazed and hand decorated by Antonio Marras, the collection proposes a rethinking of outdoor vases that projects the idea of author's garden. As in the 1950s and 1970s, the outdoor spaces have been rethought by architects, equipping them with furnishings and decorating them with floral species that could recreate a light Arcadian atmosphere in plein air, the series A vase is forever distorts the traditional idea of outdoor furniture. A proposal that brings collectible vases into a new context: a fresh avant-garde solution that blends the tradition of Made in Italy manufacturing with artistic practice to create more personalized spaces, expanding the house beyond the domestic walls and living in contact with nature, incorporating the collectible value. The Despite Marras showroom will also host in its spaces the splendid floral compositions ofTONINO FLOWER and a selection of books byFashion Books Milano.
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