“Creating unique pieces that can have all.” Wait, wait .. what? The debate unique/artistic product continues to be pervasive in the living arts for a century, that’s from Arts & Crafts period when artisans began to create high-manufacture products in multiple copies. From that moment, the question about what was art and what was the product not met a goal. It was born the concept, large very large, of design and with him new terminology: reproducibility, originality, aesthetic enjoyment, accessibility. Critics and journalists have material on the subject to get by in life and, to date, Salone del Mobile 2014, the question continues to be pervasive more than ever.
On the one hand we find the prestigious Palazzo Reale in Milan, on the occasion of the 53rd edition of the Salone Internazionale del Mobile, home – until April 27, 2014 – the latest initiative of Be Original, a defense project of the author’s design started by Elle Decor and Livia Peraldo Matton at the end of 2012 who wants to take charge of this debate between protection of creativity and originality and the fight against counterfeiting of Italian design. Inside a bit ‘all the pieces that have made our italian history, but that we have used like parsley: the Arco Lamp of Castiglioni, the coffeepot of Sapper for Alessi, the sofa Charles of Citterio for B&B Italia, the Dezza of Ponti. Iconic pieces that get royalties but continue to be produced and marketed.
On the other, Maurizio Cattelan, his middle finger to 4.6 meters in Piazza Affari in Milan and around, his factory, Toiletpaper, who proposed, in a sort of happening, stalls tant selling reproductions of L.O.V.E. (th finger) and his other works. A complaint , ironic and edgy-style of Cattelan, which attacks the concept of seriality that combines the unique work. The same Cattelan says the nature of the project started in 2010: “we wanted Toiletpaper became a label for very different things: when we started we said that one day everyone would have a dress Toiletpaper, Toiletpaper a house, even a girl Toiletpaper.” Approval in defense of originality, then.
Can I choose a side? In a speech in defense of Italian design’s originality Cattelan strikes Palazzo Reale 1-0, hands down.
