Martino Gamper: I am many moods

Recently Martino Gamper has been in a very good mood, making over 700 hooks and vases which form a loose family of functional objects.

This exhibition at Anton Kern is Design in an art gallery. Form follows function is a principle of design which suggests that the shape of an object should primarily relate to its intended purpose. This is not as limiting as it sounds. Gamper has screwed, drilled, cast, carved, sawed, sanded, printed, extruded, chainsawed, blown, welded, flame/laser/water cut, forged, torched, and torn many materials including wood, metal, glass, steel, plastic, crystals, ceramics, bronze, aluminum, brass, stainless glass, cork, marble, stones, and branches. Once formed, these objects were polished, painted, anodised, plated, powder coated, enameled, sanded, sprayed, sandblasted, heated, and vibrated.

This might sound like a fight between materials, technique, and form; but in fact the mood is positive, the feeling exuberant. The sheer number and variety of hooks and vases creates a poetic frenzy of excited chaos. Between a whittled stick and large cast bronze, the materials and techniques run the gamut between low and high. Here, there is an object for everyone. 

Martino Gamper (b. 1971 in the Italian alps) lives and works between London, Italy, and New Zealand. Starting as an apprentice with a furniture maker in Merano, Gamper went on to study sculpture under Michelangelo Pistoletto at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, and product design in Vienna under Matteo Thun. He completed a Masters in 2000 from RCA, London, where he studied under Ron Arad.

Haus Der Kunst, Munich, will host Martino Gamper’s forthcoming solo exhibition, Martino Gamper: Sitzung, opening in July 2023. The exhibition will include a new series of chairs, designed by Gamper and produced in Munich. Each chair will be used by the museum and its visitors during the run of the exhibition, resulting in new configurations each week.

Recent notable projects and solo exhibitions include: the reinterpretation of the Dior Medallion Chair (a symbol of Louis XVI style used by the fashion house to seat guests) (2021); A pop up designed for Prada at Harrods, London, September 4 - 27, 2020; A site-specific Commission for Coal Drops Yard, King’s Cross, London (2019); Broken nature: design takes on human survival, XXII Triennale di Milano, Milan, Italy (2019); Gamper’s curated exhibition, Martino Gamper: design is a state of mind, which toured to Serpentine, London and Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli, Turin, both 2014 and Museion, Bolzano in the summer of 2015; 100 chairs in 100 days at The MIMOCA Foundation, Maru-game, Japan in the summer of 2015; which travelled to: RMIT Design Hub, Melbourne, Australia (2016);  and City Gallery Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand (2017).