Milan 2018 – Cutting-edge Czech company Lasvit took over Teatro San Gerolamo to unleash a symphony of glass monsters created by well-respected designers with the best bohemian artisans. The new collection features creatures by Alessandro Mendini, the Campana Brothers, Nendo, Fabio Novembre, Maarten Baas and more. The designers gave a peek into their minds and revealed their personal monsters to us.
RELATED STORIES: Read more about Milan Design Week on Archipanic…
Beside this premiering collection, Lasvit’s signature glass installation featured composition of 108 small Neverending Glory chandeliers at the theatre’s stage. In the middle of the auditorium, Lasvit Art Director Maxim Velčovský created The Independant monstrous installation, and the First of Pendants Rising from the Floor.
More than one hundred TV screens are strapped to its body and broadcast ‘their master’s voice’. Sometimes it’s just a whisper, while at other times it’s more of a translation machine that presents dire warnings in human tongues.
“It is an audiovisual labyrinth that features the most beautiful fake news that mankind has freely created and selected. The most interesting monsters of our time can talk through its screens” says Maxim Velčovský who presents also disproportioned Lenin statues shining in the politician beloved color.
“Every self-respecting object contains a bit of monstrosity” says Alessandro Mendini who created rhombic creatures. Come from outer space the creatures designed by the Campana brothers. While Maarten Baas’ colorful rounded little monsters come with small feet, eyes, and big teeth.
Maurizio Galante & Tal Lancman create a spooky mirror with pink egg-shaped eyes and covered with obsidian scales in green uranium shade. “Behind the idea is the beloved monster who stares back at us when looking into a mirror.”
“From one point of view, you will see the Vitruvian man but look better…” Fabio Novembre created a glass sex-toy with monstrous proportions. Yabu Pushelberg monster-vases were inspired by Japanese folclore of Tsukumogami which says that if an object serves you 100 years, it will acquire a soul.
The eyes of Moritz Waldemeyer’s creatures consists of a matrix of LEDs. Nendo’s mysterious being are “Abstract ideas of the unknown the invisible and the elusive,” explains Oki Sato. Raja Schwahn-Reichmann created a dancing one-eyed demon while René Roubíček‘s design is a blown-glass martian.
The collection of creatures was presented alongside glamorous burlesque dance performances, to a backdrop of Lasvit’s Neverending Glory lights.
All images: courtesy of Lasvit.