MARCANTONIO

Marcantonio Raimondi Malerba, an incredibly intelligent designer with unquestionable talent. Malerba succeeds in astonishing his audience with dazzling combinations and magical inventions, yet also with great simplicity and immediacy. A dresser on top of a wheelbarrow isn’t just two objects, but something never seen before, just like a crate with the legs of your granny’s wardrobe, a totem of bedside tables or a chair structure, a bit like the iconic Proust by Alessandro Mendini, but with no padding, covered in cushions. However he also produced objects of exquisite elegance and linearity on the one hand, and references to contemporary art, if not genuine masterpieces, on the other. And lest we forget all the animals: monkeys and rats holding light bulbs, a gorilla on a desk, crocodile hangers and horned dogs. First a set designer and then an artist and designer - professions which aren’t entirely removed from each other yet which still have a relationship of mutual contamination - Marcantonio adopts a playful approach to provide us with a world full of fun, yet also awareness and contemplation. Because, as we all know, play is to be taken seriously!