HIGHLIGHTS FROM MILAN DESIGN WEEK 2023

Highlights from Milan Design Week 2023

Held in the city of Milan in northern Italy, Milan Design Week celebrates the biggest brands, designers, and collectives in the design industry. It brings together some of the biggest trade fairs like Salone Del Mobile Milano and Furiosalone, Euroluce, and in the Brera Design District together. Held from 17th of April to 23rd of April, the design week saw artists, designers, furniture brands, and architectural firms from all over the world come together to collaborate and synthesise monumental installations that reflects not only the recent developments, but also the visionary manifestations existing at the precipice of interdisciplinary genius.

Nilufar Gallery

Nilufar presented “The Bright Side of Design”, an exhibition that unfolds in the spaces of the Nilufar Depot and in the Via della Spiga gallery. Nina Yashar, founder of Nilufar Gallery, presented her reflection and observations, bringing forth the contemporary ideologies that dominate the field of collectible designs.

The exhibition showcased a seamless dialogue between a thorough research on old masters and the discovery of contemporary creators, giving the centre stage to a plethora of inanimate life companions.

Janet Echelman x Kohler

As part of Kohler’s 150th anniversary celebration, the global design leader partnered with four artists, Ananda Nahú (Brazil), Ziling Wang (China), Pushpa Kumari (India), Elle (United States), each recognized for path breaking artistic practices. The talented creators brought their personal visual expressions to Kohler’s products – the Numi 2.0 smart toilet, Brazn sink, and Brazn bathtub.

Janet Echelman is known for her experiential sculpture that is manifested as a result of artist’s ideas of urban landscapes and their inception. With an oeuvre that is interdisciplinary in its nature, exploring the ideas of fine art, sculpture, urban design, architecture, structural, and aeronautical engineering. Her work became an ode to the concepts of innovation and design.The multi-coloured aerial sculpture added a sublime aura to the installation area, where the complexity of the net interacts with the open spaces of the pavilion.

3. Carwan Gallery

For the OMG-GMO project, Robert Stadler borrows the forms of these engineered fruit and vegetables to create ten ceramic, hand-painted objects that ironically transform the organic into something structural and functional. Conceived as a series of small-scale monuments, these objects both criticise and mock human manipulation of nature: a slice of a Japanese rectangular seedless watermelon becomes a stool, zucchini bend in a perfect L shape to create a set of shelves, and wheel-like aubergines support a glass coffee table, as a reference to Gae Aulenti’s Tavolo con Ruote.

4. Gallery philia

Galerie Philia is an international contemporary sculptural design and art gallery representing emerging and established designers and artists. Founded by two brothers who share a lifetime passion for art, literature, and philosophy, hence its name Philia, the “highest form of love” in Ancient Greek. The concept of Philia was mainly inspired by Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.

Design gallery Galerie Philia‘s has curated the Desacralized exhibition inside an 11th-century church featuring works by American designer Rick Owens and Ukrainian studio Faina for Milan design week. For this year’s design week, the international gallery installed sculptures, furniture and lighting design pieces in San Vittore e 40 Martiri – a deconsecrated church in Milan.

Lachlan Turczan X Google

Los Angeles based artist Lachlan Turczan works with the medium of sound, light, and water, bringing a pristine representation that navigates the relationship between water and design sensibilities. A three-chapter based installation, Shaped by Water funded by Google is a multi-sensorial experience that studies the concept of cymatics and treats water as a living entity. Examining the sonic and visual characteristics of water that is collected in eleven metal basins.