weekend warrior, pt 583

"garden of eden"
vs
"cosmopolitan soul"
vs
"secret garden"








Since last week's Mattia Bonetti reception here in Los Angeles at Duke and Duke, I've been submerged in images of Parisian Decor + furniture. For those that enjoy French design, stop by the gallery.... A new favorite book on current French Interiors is "Living in Style Paris" with photographs by Reto Guntli, & text by Debra Derieux Matos.

Rooms that are perverted with decadent style, colors and forms exploding up to the ceiling. Geometerical dances in the moonlight! Turquoise, pinks, blues, blacks, yellows, and mirrored surfaces. Oh me oh my! I'm not entirely sure how French designers are able to pull of such rooms of force with such subtle ease, but they do, and do again, and again, and again.

Welcome to the weekend, warriors. - David John

Living in Style Paris, edited by Caroline Sarkozy... "In Parisian interiors, designers have mixed the traditional with the unexpected and influences from other faraway places, creating a very unique Parisian style....

Edited by renown interior designer Caroline Sarkozy and lavishly illustrated by master photographer Reto Guntli, this book opens the doors to the houses of Diane von Furstenberg, Lenny Kravitz, Jacques Grange, and many more."

-----------------------

Mattia Bonetti

...
"Garden Loveseat & Other Works"
at Duke & Duke Gallery, Los Angeles


"his effortlessness at blurring the lines between
contemporary art and contemporary design."

Rock Crystal lamp, 2010
Transparent acrylic, rock crystal, white nickeled steel

Paul Kasmin Gallery is pleased to announce Duke & Duke's inaugural exhibition of new works by Paris-based artist Mattia Bonetti. The exhibition will be held at designer Michael S. Smith’s newly opened furniture gallery located at 8527 Melrose Avenue, West Hollywood, CA from June 21 - September 7, 2011.

The exhibit will be Bonetti’s first on the West Coast and features the Garden Loveseat, among other important works. Smith was excited for Bonetti to be the inaugural Duke & Duke exhibition, mainly because of his effortlessness at blurring the lines between contemporary art and contemporary design. Throughout his distinguished career, Bonetti has employed traditional bronze, gold leaf, wrought iron and blown glass techniques and juxtaposed them with resin, acrylic and mirrored stainless steel technologies to create whimsical, glamorous and sophisticated pieces of art.

Mattia Bonetti was born in Lugano, Switzerland in 1952. His work is included in numerous public collections, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

Duke & Duke was founded in 2011 by interior designer Michael S. Smith and his longtime art collaborator, Maya McLaughlin.













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Mattia Bonnetti

To me, working as a designer has always been a constant struggle. It was a struggle for me as a young designer out of school and it is as difficult today with all the success I have achieved in the field. It is a daily struggle, working around the clock whether in creating, thinking or just being critical about my own work, always trying to improve, to do better.

Mattia Bonnetti (here)












If I tell you that to me, you are a kind of Jacque Ruhlman of our time. Am I completely off?

In some ways it is a great complement, but in others its not. The use of traditional approach in making objects, the high quality of the decorative arts, Ruhlman had that obsession with quality, with refined finishes, with the most expensive and unique materials. Today, we cannot even dream to achieve that level of quality that he had mastered in the 20s.

Although there are craftsmen out there who have the skills, the culture of making objects this way has been lost. I work in the studio, with many techniques of hand craftsmanship, but I am trying to tailor those skills to the world of today. In this respect, I believe, you may compare me to Ruhlman.

Yet, I am not looking into going sixty years backwards.






Take time to read the whole interview via Arude Magazine....
Interview by Daniella Ohad Smith ,
Mattia Bonnetti, Bridging the Cleavage between Art and Design

(a dream to sit and have a long conversation about life, art, and everything else.....)









image via Paul Kasmin Gallery, NY



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We act for ourselves without any will to prophesize.

...
"Good taste really bothers us a lot.
What we care about is implanting doubt."












We are not at war against any aesthetic movement. We act for ourselves without any will to prophesize. Our hope is to give people the feeling of freedom in the choice of forms.

Good taste really bothers us a lot. What we care about is implanting doubt. We don't have any rules. What interests us is a personal and artisanal putting together of things.

- Mattia Bonetti








Mattia Bonetti
"Alu"chair, 2009
lacquered aluminum, upholstery with applique






(repost from YHBHS archives, August 2, 2010...)







---------------------------

‘troublemaker turned traditionalist’

“I just had to have it for the drawing room of our castle in Regensburg.”
-Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis about Mattia Bonetti's work.

Mattia Bonetti. Lamp in denim.
(needing to buy this book soon! want/need this.)

"What links the objects is Mr. Bonetti’s use of scale — pieces are monumental and demand your attention. They are also made of high-end materials: bronze, cast aluminum, gold and silver plate, and so forth. He is collected by people like Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis, who contributed an essay to a new book about Mr. Bonetti, out this month from Rizzoli. Seeing his work in the showroom of Christian Lacroix in Paris, the princess writes, “I just had to have it for the drawing room of our castle in Regensburg.”



taken from here...











Steven Gontarski, above...

It wasn't quite this sculpture, but I remember being in my early 20's, and stumbling into Saatchi's Neurotic Realism Pt 1 in London in 1999. Steven Gontarski's sculptures standing erect, mutating with socks and stitched fabrics. Monumental in every way....


Steven Gontarski: I'm not particularly interested in the monumental or in grandeur for it's own sake but I'm drawn to the monument as a sculptural form because it's meant to help us remember things/people and prompt reflection. Its association with death gives it dual reverbations; one of grim reality and one of spiritual timelessness or perhaps even a transition into a different space.












------------------------

Good taste really bothers us a lot.












We are not at war against any aesthetic movement. We act for ourselves without any will to prophesize. Our hope is to give people the feeling of freedom in the choice of forms.

Good taste really bothers us a lot. What we care about is implanting doubt. We don't have any rules. What interests us is a personal and artisanal putting together of things.

- Mattia Bonetti








Mattia Bonetti
"Alu"chair, 2009
lacquered aluminum, upholstery with applique