The Best of Milan’s Surreal Exhibition of New Designers, According to Dwell’s Editor-in-Chief
From a sconce with a ponytail to an ice bucket with feet (and earrings), the work at Alcova leans into the uncanny.
Sometimes we joke that it’s the "Superbowl of furniture design" or "South by Southwest for chairs," but more people attend Milan’s annual design week, anchored by the venerable trade show Salone del Mobile, than attend either of those events. Last year, "Salone" alone drew 307,000 visitors, increasing the population of the city of 1.3 million inhabitants by nearly 25 percent. For one week, Milan becomes the best place to discover the trends and ideas in furniture design from all over the world that will be coming to your living room soon.
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Alcova, the massive show dedicated to emerging design talent, is always something of a scavenger hunt. Founder/curators Valentina Ciuffi and Joseph Grima always stage the six-year-old exhibition, which made its stateside debut in Miami last year, in unusual and impressive locations, filling them with objects by dozens of emerging designers. It’s a lot of new work to take in, but your reward is finding a few gems by designers you didn’t know.
This year is no exception. About 45 minutes north of Milan in a town called Varedo, Alcova has taken over two very different but equally jaw dropping locations. The first is a beautifully decrepit villa, complete with peeling plaster and pockmarked frescoes, dating back to the 16th century and built by the prominent Bagatti Valsecci family. (Side note: Their eccentric palazzo in central Milan is one of the best, weirdest house museums on Earth.) The other is the Villa Borsani, the former home of architect Osvaldo Borsani, built in the early 1940s and now perfectly preserved as a museum. The dreamy locations were fitting. There was very little of the tired Memphis-inspired aesthetic that we’ve seen so much of in the last decade, and instead the best work has a surrealist slant, playing with strange materials and a sense of the uncanny.
Early on a Sunday morning, photographer Olga Mai and I headed north of Milan to see it all. Here are some highlights from the show, which runs through April 21.
First, we went to the Bagatti Valsecchi villa, which even in the morning sun was giving serious haunted house vibes.
Photo by Olga Mai
Yes. That’s a pile of sand.
Photo by Olga Mai
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Just inside the villa’s main entrance under high ceilings painted with flaking frescoes, mushroom-like lamps by Harry Thaler Studio sprouted out of improbable dunes. I mentioned surrealism, right?
Photo by Olga Mai
Heading upstairs, one standout work was a two-story chandelier by recently founded Vancouver studio Sfossils with lighting elements tucked inside of ceramic rods with a variety of glazes ranging from crackling earth tones to fluorescents.
Photo by Olga Mai
Stone candle holders by Polish-born Milan designer Daniel Kolodziejczak included one made from a soft, translucent onyx.
Photo: Olga Mai
One notable feature of Alcova is that the organizers usually give prime real estate to work by students. The assignment for this project by fashion students at Prague’s UMPRUM, was to reimagine the red carpet.
They did so by attaching outfits to large red balloons some of which bulged out of the villa’s windows.
Photo: Olga Mai
In recent years, Alcova has anchored the work by emerging designers with installations by established studios, including this monolithic piece by New Yorkers Colin King and Calico Wallpaper.
Olga Mai
The best presentation in the villa was by design gallery Adorno.
Olga Mai
They showed elegantly slumping glassware by Poland’s Szklo Studio.
Photo: Olga Mai
Inky ceramic vessels by Georgiev Zabeta.
Olga Mai
And flanking a walel piece by Pani Jurek, two sconces by Mexican designer Isabel Moncada that look like Art Deco-inspired fixtures sporting ponytails.
Photo: Olga Mai
Here's one up close.
Photo: Olga Mai
In fact, lighting with hair made appearances throughout the show as in this work by Athens designer Leo Maher sporting a Kurt Cobain look. I guarantee that some version of this is (or will be) a trend. You heard it here first.
Photo: Olga Mai
Seating by fellow Athenians Objects of Common Interest contrasted with the tattered historic structure.
Photo: Olga Mai
Next stop was across town at the Villa Borsani, where visitors waited in line to enter the limited-capacity house museum.
Photo: Olga Mai
Expressive vessel-like wooden sculptures by Cengiz Hartmann dotted the garden.
Photo: Olga Mai
The house’s most striking architectural feature is the stair in the entry hall. Furniture by Los Angeles brand Atelier de Troupe, including an armchair and divider screens, felt right at home in the 1940s space.
Photo: Olga Mai
As with any party, guests congregated in the kitchen. At Alcova, they were drawn to tableware by Natalia Criado.
Photo: Olga Mai
Made of brass, some silver-plated, the Colombian designer’s work is some of the best I’ve seen this design week.
Photo: Olga Mai
The sense of the surreal extends to her ice bucket with feet (and earrings) standing firmly on the kitchen counter.
Also stunning were four sconces by Seoul duo WKND Lab. Their ceramic bell-shaped shades have bits of powdered glass in the glaze that give the finish an engrossing shimmer.
Photo: Olga Mai
A wavy wooden table by Stockholm Studio Tooj added a pop of blue on the ground floor.
Photo: Olga Mai
In the adjacent sitting room, Colombian designer Lucia Echavarria, who calls her studio Magnetic Midnight Maison, presented a series of furniture finished by artisans working in traditional crafts like hat-making and hammock weaving.
Photo: Olga Mai
Back outside, Olga’s favorite pieces were a series of marble masks by Bernice Curt Architecture stationed in the garden.
Photo: Olga Mai
That’s a wrap. Stay tuned for the best presentations around town from style editor Julia Stevens, and the best of the main event, Salone del Mobile, from news editor Duncan Nielsen later this week.
Related Reading:
Everything Dwell’s Design News Editor Saw at Salone del Mobile In One Day and Seven Miles
Everything Dwell’s Style Editor Scouted—and Loved—From the Showrooms of Milan Design Week
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