Campi I 2008 / 2008

Simply Flowers

Speaking of Massimo Gardone also lends a good opportunity to talk about wallpaper, and that in the best sense. His floral world acknowledges no boundaries between art and design. Like others before him, the sought-after Italian photographer, filmmaker, and designer crosses them playfully.

One forerunner was the Frenchman Raoul Dufy, an exponent of Fauvism and the creator of large wall paintings in Paris. He lived from 1877 until 1953 and earned his livelihood primarily by designing floral patterns for Lyon's large silk manufacturer. These found their way into the worlds of haute couture and interior design. In the 1940s he designed "Nightflowers" with gauche colors that could have been the godfather of Gardone’s photographic experiments "Black and Dark."

Under the art direction of Patrizia Moroso the Moroso design studio took on Gardone's floral resplendence, mating it with a modern ambiance, sometimes printed on silk, sometimes as wall decoration. At the same time, Gardone is captivated by the photographic medium and paper. Something majestic resonates in his works; some seem abstracted from a palace where an Italian prince once dreamt dark dreams, alternating with blooming visions of a light, Mediterranean spring day.

Massimo Gardone comes from a long tradition of Italian artists and designers who paired technical brilliance with passionate feeling in their work. He is one of the few to not only revel in the decorative; he continues to think and has dared to put the fragile object of his romantic visions under the X-ray to get a little closer to the truth.

Horst Klöver