2010 – MILANO – GIOVANNI LEVANTI

Place: Milano, Fabbrica del Vapore, Careof-ViaFarini-Docva
Date: 14 Aprile – 20 Maggio 2010
Curator: Beppe Finessi
Exhibition design: G.Levanti – B.Finessi

Somebody who gave himself time, took his time and knew how to bide his own time.
Somebody who got to know such great masters as Ettore Sottsass and managed to cross paths with him during that now legendary period of the Memphis group in the mid-1980s, and somebody who chose a sensitive and poetic mentor, Andrea Branzi, to teach him the tricks of the trade poised between industrial production and high craftsmanship, learning all about the pleasure of free research, often a far cry from production in large numbers and always very close to pure experimentation.
Somebody who since then, during twenty-five years work working in partnership with major industrial concerns and much niftier but equally brilliant enterprises, has always managed to choose his own pace, really taking his time and working with just a few chosen people, with whom he grew in his own thoughtful and carefully measured manner.
Somebody who deliberately shut himself away in his own (almost) silence, meticulously elaborating upon his own everyday gestures armed with his own thoughts (i.e. projects), somebody who, over the last twenty-five years, an outsider and loner deep down in his heart, has never lost his innocence, a young boy who still gets excited and a real sparkle in his eyes, somebody who has now reached a period of obvious maturity and incisiveness, while he continues to work:
– forcing and stylistically surpassing the idea of traditional padding, overcoming every kind of conventionality and continuing the ingenious and startling work of Joe Colombo, inventing objects that are soft and can be used alternatively. Somebody who thinks that the words ‘magic’, ‘spellbound’, ‘enchantment’ and ‘amazement’ are a fundamental part of our lives.
– on the form and sculptural quality of objects, designing them so that they are ‘simply’ beautiful, particularly and above all when seen in profile (“Seeing the rainbow in profile”, thanks Munari), and somebody who has not forgotten that colour, any colour, is a vital aspect of our lives, even if “it is only light” as the poets say, and in this respect he must
have stolen these secrets from the great Ettore during his early years.
Somebody who thinks that the words ‘silence’, ‘serenity’, ‘intimacy’, ‘inspiration’ and ‘beauty’ are important nouns which should never be forgotten in our work and thoughts.
All words which a certain Luis Barragán pronounced on the day of his Pritzker Prize speech, so that the world of design, which seemed intent on forgetting them, never would.
All words which seem, indeed are, the very essence of Giovanni Levanti’s personal vocabulary. (Beppe Finessi)