Radical Thinker: Architect, Artist and Designer Gaetano Pesce
Gaetano Pesce’s six decades of work span ambitious architecture projects, iconic furniture designs, and, most recently, the set for Bottega Veneta’s Spring/Summer 2023 show
Gaetano Pesce was born in La Spezia in 1939, and began to exhibit his art at the age of 18. After studying architecture at the University of Venice, Pesce taught at the Institut d’Architecture et d’Etudes Urbaines in Strasbourg; Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh; the Domus Academy in Milan; the Polytechnic of Hong Kong; the Architectural School of São Paulo; and the Cooper Union in New York. His works are part of the permanent collections of some of the most famous museums in the world. Pesce began experimenting with polyurethane, foam, and resin early in his career, and it is these materials, with their bold colours, tactility, ability to respond to light, and artisanal finishes that have catalysed attention to Pesce’s work and fixed it within the collective imagination.
You moved to New York in 1980, after having lived in Venice, London, Helsinki, and Paris. What drew you to New York?
New York, and in particular Brooklyn, is undoubtedly where the creativity of the inhabitants suggests new ways of speaking, dressing, and behaving. After a few years, these ways of presenting, discovered in New York, are assimilated around the world and used as fashions, unfortunately also with a certain superficiality. New York is the place that best captures the values of a time. My job is to observe those that arrive and those that remain, possibly making them subjects of my work. For example: The puppet supported by strings, the subject of my industrial skin (a wall-mounted design made with a liquid material that quickly solidifies), says, it is only this ridiculous figure who still believes in equality. I am convinced that this belief does not belong to those who know New York well. My home is located on the East River, because I have always loved the mobility of water, its different shine, its richness of colour. When you look at it, it reflects the sky.
Do you visit galleries and museums? What are you most impressed by?
I don’t visit museums or art galleries; I’m more interested in reality. The artists and creators of the past interest me very much for what their points of view can still suggest with respect to our time. I think especially of artists who used many different mediums, such as poetry, music, science, sculpture, painting, and architecture. They have always told me that expression has no barriers, no boundaries, no limits. Today, I wonder: If Jorge Luis Borges had written what he did in Stockholm instead of in Buenos Aires, would it have been different? In other words, does creativity have to do with where it takes shape? Must an architect today take into account the language used where he builds, knowing that every place deserves a different story? I think that Frank Gehry is worth remembering, being a trained sculptor who embraced architecture and made great advances. I think that extraordinary art must free itself from the obsolete International Style, to embrace representations that allow anyone to understand through the figure. Architecture needs to be loved because it can smile, it can express moods, and it can make people happy — and it needs to open its secrets to a world that understands figuration.
Do you like retrospectives?
I like retrospectives because they satisfy my desire to make known what I do. As for my past work, though, I try to avoid it. At my studio we have a room dedicated to finished works in chronological order for visitors — I never set foot in that room, to prevent the past from interfering with my future.
You designed the seating for Bottega Veneta’s Spring/Summer 2023 show. What interests you about the fashion world?
It’s my belief that museums no longer have the economic freedom to host new ideas. Private art galleries also have more or less the same problem. Fashion houses can do what other cultural institutions can’t. That’s what happened with Bottega Veneta and the beloved creator Matthieu Blazy. With him I found respect for my ideas, which was mutual. I was able to express what, in my opinion, is a political concept of extreme urgency in the field of fashion. The theme I suggested, diversity, I think has been understood by the whole world. In the future, I think that what I have experimented with for Bottega Veneta will be extended to other collaborations with other creators I hope they are interesting and avoid simply being decorative, and that they will face a reality in which I believe: that art is an expression of its time and a commentary on current reality.
How would you define your style?
My personal style is defined by inconsistency. If we want to understand new content and abandon past content, we have to assume inconsistency and be free from our prejudices. In past centuries, the slowness of time allowed creators to use a single, recognisable language throughout their lives. In our age, where values have speed as their defining characteristic, this century-long maintenance is shattered almost in weeks. In other words, inconsistency allows us to be rich in expression, profound connoisseurs of our time, and free from ourselves.
How did your collaboration with Cassina and B&B Italia influence your work?
Cesare, owner of Cassina and co-owner of what is now called B&B Italia, was an entrepreneur with great foresight. Then, and still today, I argue that companies must make banal products that sell, in order to get the economic advantage that allows them to exist. Part of the profits must be used for experimentation. I had the opportunity in the ’70s to create the experimental company Bracciodiferro, and to create the first series of non-homogeneous products within series — not identical but similar to each other — and with B&B I was able to do the Up 5 chair (also called La Mamma or Donna), the Up-7 “Piede”, and, with Cassina, the “Sit Down” series. The same companies today are concerned with investing in innovative products. I remember the Tramonto sofa in New York, which tells the story of a possible decadence of a place, and screens that help you fall asleep. My colleagues, unfortunately, do not push innovation, and Italian design suffers. I have repeatedly denounced the decline of Italian creativity in this field, and I suggested that the Minister of Culture find urgent solutions, such as establishing that a percentage of the turnover of companies is dedicated to the financing of experimentation.
Your Organic Building in Osaka was seen as one of the founding works of green architecture, a pioneer of vertical gardens. How would you reinvent that project today?
There is a project of mine from 1987, the Torre Pluralista, which was a column of houses where each floor was designed by a different architect, with a diversity of ideas that would represent the differences of those who inhabit their spaces. The project consisted of having a column of diversified houses, a column of elevators and security staircases in the center, and, next to these, a column of private gardens on each floor. I have not yet realised this project. Recently a city in Brazil expressed interest in the Torre Pluralista. Maybe this work of mine will find fulfillment in a city governed by respect for ecology and sustainability… Or maybe not. But, if not in my case, it will be in the future, because we must remember that the architecture of today, the “international style” that we see present in every city without distinction or characterisation of the place where it is located, is a symbol of totalitarianism. The Torre Pluralista is an example of democracy.
Your 2014 retrospective at the MAXXI museum in Rome was titled The Time of Diversity. Do you think this concept is the most current interpretation of our time?
I am convinced, not only of this historical moment, but also of those that will follow. The future is made of originality. Diversity helps us to communicate with those who have a different opinion from ours. The worst thing that can happen to a society is the loss of the right to speak, of the right to the expression of one’s convictions. If this decays, the world loses value, and also life.
