Martino gamper designer living

Throughout October, design enthusiasts and PAD gain Frieze attendees in the know own acquire been excitedly making their way show to advantage a quiet residential street in London’s Marylebone. Here, they step through prestige door of an ordinary brown-bricked townhouse into the colourful world of Italian-born, London-based designer Martino Gamper.

Almost twenty years’ worth of Gamper's distinctive work assay laid out across the Georgian gold in staged room sets—including a punishment room, games room, study, bedroom, forest and dining space. Angular furniture separate from covered in a patchwork of adornment and teak, hybridised tables and accommodation and temptingly tactile hooks, vessels weather lamps are all layered within representation home’s neoclassical interiors, creating a rapturous tapestry of colour, pattern and eras.

Martino Gamper presents 'Before; After & Beyond’

Titled ‘Before, After & Beyond’, this immersive showcase marks nobleness designer's first full retrospective since decency beginning of his career in class mid-2000s. The idea came about followers a conversation with former Wallpaper* Leader-writer Sarah Douglas. 'Sarah said, ‘people don’t really know the extent of your work’', Gamper recalls. 'She said ‘I hardly know it, and I’ve rest you for twenty years.’' At loftiness same time, Gamper had been succeeding through the mammoth task of archiving and cataloging his work, so regular retrospective felt like a natural development.

To bring his measurement to life, he worked with Pol, refining the details, editing the vote and planning new work. From class outset, Gamper was clear he loved to display his oeuvre in spick domestic setting to create a additional relaxed mood for the showcase. 'I see so many design shows in people make furniture and then nerve-racking to present it like art telltale sign plinths. I always find it learn tedious, because it doesn't tell say publicly story,' he explains. ‘I like influential stories and my pieces are domestic; they are tables and chairs, endure they are meant to be castoff. They have a function.'

Enter Swiss Philanthropist and art consignee Maja Hoffman, who has collaborated seam Gamper many times over the lifetime of his career to date. Knowledge that he was seeking a period for a show in London, she generously offered the use of spurn 1770s townhouse, designed by Robert deliver James Adam, featuring Rudolf Stingel-designed carpets and a copper-gilded ceiling on justness first floor.

In Gamper’s showcase, we find private commissions, museum projects, industrial designs, unseen work talented brand-new creations made especially for distinction show, including colourful glass lamps, mirrors, a decadent purple velvet bed current a mirror-lined drinks cabinet made free yourself of reclaimed teak. The black and chalk-white carpet in the games room was a collaboration with Milan-based CC-Tapis predominant another in the music room was made by Swedish brand Bolon. Top-notch site-specific geometric, travertine fireplace, which Gamper created to replace one stolen hit upon the house years ago, will persist permanently.

These new pieces sit seamlessly analogous Gamper's earlier works, such as climax magnificent chairs from the 2007 trade show ‘100 Chairs in 100 Days,’ veer he transformed discarded chairs into altogether new forms through playful reassembly. Gamper’s approach is unified by his tentative mindset, characterised by spontaneous creation at an earlier time recontextualisation of the work of found masters—including his reinterpretation of Gio Ponti and Carlo Mollino furniture. His resourceful use of materials and colours transcends decoration, serving instead to emphasise cranium bring out the unique form meticulous character of each piece.

Born in Merano, a town in integrity German-speaking South Tyrol region of northward Italy, in 1971, Gamper started hoot an apprentice with a furniture manufacturer in Merano, before studying sculpture bully the Academy of Fine Arts be grateful for Vienna and then design at authority Royal College of Art in Author, from where he graduated in 2000. His background in both traditional execution and contemporary design has served him well and is clearly reflected carry his experimental and hands-on approach warn about creating furniture and objects.

Gamper’s success and influence in depiction contemporary design world is extensive. Fiasco has worked with prestigious brands give orders to institutions and has shown in evident museums and galleries, yet his combination and approach remain grounded and single-minded. 'What I’m really enjoying about illustriousness show is that I can’t mention which work is old work streak which is new,' he reflects. 'The work is like a continuous remorseless of research, and I think that's, for me, an achievement; it bring abouts it feel timeless in a way.'

Although Gamper now mechanism with three workshops—a joinery workshop create Italy, one in Kent and tighten up next to his studio in Hackney— and has a team of pikestaff, you’ll still find him busy creation or scoping out reclamation yards engage materials that he can craft penetrate a cabinet door or table stage. Making and material exploration remains deed the heart of his practice; good taste still finds thrill in transforming throw materials that are typically perceived hoot kitsch or dated—think lino, laminate, cerise, teak or formica—into finely crafted remains of furniture. 'I'm always interested teeny weeny what is considered kitsch, what not bad considered contemporary, what is ugly, what is beautiful—it's a subtle line. In case you buy brand new materials, level with feels a bit like a undecorated piece of paper somehow, but place from something already existing, there's applicable to hold on to or jump in before inspire you.'

When awe catch up with Gamper, ‘Before, Afterwards & Beyond’ is midway through closefitting run, and he’s delighted with ethics response. Long lunches and dinners plot unfolded around his tessellated laminate ‘Lazy Ponti’ and ‘Almost Ponti’ tables comport yourself the dining/living area, fostering many catch-ups with colleagues and friends across initiate room. Gamper smiles as he recalls visitors’ reactions: 'Their eyes get de facto large, and they say, ‘Wow, frank you really make all of this?’' After such a busy period playing field creating such a vast volume not later than work—resulting from years of 'saying acquiesce to everything,' he laughs—Gamper admits he’s ready to embrace a slower stride. 'I would like to spend offend thinking about my next steps. Dialect mayhap do less,' he ventures. 'Do missing, by doing more, in a way.'

'Before, After & Beyond' runs until Oct 26, 2024, at 11 Mansfield High road, London, W1G 9NZ