Designer, architect and artist, the work of legendary creative Gaetano Pesce is everywhere, all at once. His iconic 1960s UP collection for B&B Italia celebrated 50 years, with four designs still in production; he's made the pages of Vogue and Vogue Living with expansive features on his work, along with two new books, ‘Out in the World with Gaetano Pesce’ and ‘Gaetano Pesce the Complete Incoherence’; and has shown in Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Milan and Melbourne, with another in the planning for Rio de Janeiro. At 83, Gaetano Pesce is a man still on a mission.
In 2022 an illustration by Gaetano Pesce covered the Aspen Art Museum with giant, colourful mountain peaks from the designer’s ‘My Dear Mountains’ series that would shape-shift into a limited series of bags for fashion house Bottega Veneta at Milan Design Week. My Dear Mountains is a theme Pesce has been working on for a while, and like all of his work it’s personal. Embracing figuration and stories, rather than pure function (he detests modernism), the collection is typically idiosyncratic, based on the mountains of his early years in Italy and the prairies of America, his home today. ‘I wanted a bag with an optimistic view,’ remarked the designer at its launch. ‘The future has to be figurative and it has to communicate – such an object has to tell a story.’
The UP5 armchair designed by Gaetano Pesce in 1969 for B&B Italia, remains one of the designer's most collectable pieces. Photo c/o B&B Italia.
Gaetano Pesce grew up in La Spezia and studied architecture in Venice. Early in his career he wrote a manifesto defending the right to incoherence in art, the need for change, to be free, and not to repeat oneself. It’s a philosophy that shaped his career. For Pesce, whose work explores what he describes as ‘the liquidity of our time’, the borders between art, design and industry are irrelevant. His continuous research into materials, visual language and technology have been translated into a myriad of designs, for manufactures and for limited edition, many now iconic and highly collectable, and all with a story.
Gaetano Pesce's UP7 foot is six times the size of a human foot, and is both a piece of sculpture and a seat. Photo c/o B&B Italia.
One of the most evocative stories is his 1969 UP Series developed in collaboration with B&B Italia. It included seven voluptuously potent chairs (four still remain in production), the most famous, UP5, also known as La Mamma, would be the first production piece to hold a political message. For Pesce, a designer at the zeitgeist of social change, putting form to a piece that celebrated the power of women by denouncing systemic patriarchy, he would immortalise the moment with one of the Salone del Mobile’s most talked about events. As onlookers watched, the UP5 was released from its cryovac state, slowly taking form, its air-sensitive foam expanding to the awe of the crowd.
The original advertising campaign for the UP5, also known as La Mamma. Photo c/o B&B Italia.
The original flat-packed UP collection, each piece made from air-sensitive foam that took 15 minutes to expand each piece to its full size. Photo c/o B&B Italia.
UP2 and UP3 by Gaetano Pesce. Along with UP5 and the UP7 foot, all are still manufactured by B&B Italia. Photo c/o B&B Italia.
The Aspen Art Museum wrapped with Gaetao Pesce's 'My Dear Mountains'. Photo © Adrianna Glaviano.
'Out in the World with Gaetano Pesce' by Museum, and following. Photos c/o Museum.
The 'Vieni a Vedere' installation at Bottega Veneta during Milan Design Week 2023 transformed the fashion brand's store into a magical grotto complete with two limited edition bags by Pesce. Photo c/o Bottega Veneta.
The numbered 'My Dear Mountains' handbag designed for Gaetano Pesce for Bottega Veneta. Photo c/o Bottega Veneta.
Material experiments define Pesce’s practice and continue inside his Brooklyn studio, and through collections held by MoMA and the New York Metropolitan Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Centre Pompidou, and the Vitra Design Museum, and, for a brief moment, at the Piazza del Duomo in the centre of Milan to mark UP5’s 50th birthday. The towering 26-foot version of his infamous La Mamma armchair would be a reminder that Gaetano Pesce is still firmly on a mission.
