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Meet the Baroccabilly, an existentialrebel outsider who findshimself lost in Baudelaire’s ‘luxe-calme-volupte’. He looks for a shamanistic passion in the objects that surround him. His sparkly hazel eyes rarely miss a trick - that close-fitting Savile Row suit, Egyptian cotton shirt, Italian stiletto tie. And he’s no less particular about his surroundings. He is always on the lookout for special objects to make his private world express his complex nature: a devil may care attitude mixed with an eye for sensuous detail. He looks for opulence in materials and simplicity of form. These pieces constitute a snapshot of his world. From sofa to lamp, chandelier to carpet, this collection furnishes a way of life, a home, a world.
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BAROCCABILLY
Nigel Coates
BAROCCABILLYFebruary 8th - April 1st 2011
Meet the Baroccabilly, an exist-ential rebel outsider who finds himself lost in Baudelaire’s ‘luxe-calme-volupté’. He looks for a shamanistic passion in the objects that surround him. His sparkly hazel eyes rarely miss a trick - that close-fitting Savile Row suit, Egyptian cotton shirt, Italian stiletto tie. And he’s no less particular about his surroundings. He’s always on the lookout for special objects to make his private world express his complex nature: a devil may care attitude mixed with an eye for sensuous detail. He looks for opulence in materials and simplicity of form. These pieces constitute a snapshot of his world. From sofa to lamp, chandelier to carpet, this collection furnishes a way of life, a home, a world.
Baroccabilly World: H50 W70 cm, pencil ink and oil pastel on paper.
Pompadour chair: H86 W112 D95 cm, timber frame, silk upholstery. Edition of 12
Castellieri: H60 W61 D54 cm, H50 W73 D60 cm,Swarovski crystal, fabric, leather and stainless steel. Edition of 6
Hypnerotosphere Saddle:H85 L100 D50 cm, fibreglass frame, stainless steel base, leather upholstery. Unique piece
In Baroccabilly world there’s a concise sensibility at work. Each of these objects has an animalistic nature; they’re friendly enough to be stroked, but just might bite back. They reflect an existential attitude to design that invests the object with anima. Each of them is an animated body. Whether by formal, psychological or behavioural means, each interprets the human condition in a precise and particular way. For instance the Aviator sofa has a bilateral split; its fleshy indent suggests progressive contact between two sitters, and for arms and knees to interlock. The Baroccabilly carpet is more Warholesque with a vertebrae repetition generating a physiognomy of its own. Then there’s the many-headed Gianno lamp, all seeing and ever vigilant. The voluptuous folds of the Pompadour chair bring out the feminine side of everyone, and create a virtual skirt for even the toughest men who sit on it. They might hide behind reflective sunglasses, and be disconcerted by their enlarged version, the Aviator mirror. It turns the wall itself into a body. In its absence of a torso, the Wings table is all flight and no body, whereas the Hypnerotosphere saddle is a body packed with sexual energy. And presiding over all, the Castellieri chandeliers encapsulate flights of fantasy. These ‘castles in the air’ translate the intimate forms of the furniture into miniature cities that in their drifting suspended state, reinforce the imagination as a survival tool.
In Baroccabilly world there’s a concise sensibility at work. Each of these objects has an animalistic nature; they’re friendly enough to be stroked, but just might bite back. They reflect an existential attitude to design that invests the object with anima. Each of them is an animated body. Whether by formal, psychological or behavioural means, each interprets the human condition in a precise and particular way. For instance the Aviator sofa has a bilateral split; its fleshy indent suggests progressive contact between two sitters, and for arms and knees to interlock. The Baroccabilly carpet is more Warholesque with a vertebrae repetition generating a physiognomy of its own. Then there’s the many-headed Gianno lamp, all seeing and ever vigilant. The voluptuous folds of the Pompadour chair bring out the feminine side of everyone, and create a virtual skirt for even the toughest men who sit on it. They might hide behind reflective sunglasses, and be disconcerted by their enlarged version, the Aviator mirror. It turns the wall itself into a body. In its absence of a torso, the Wings table is all flight and no body, whereas the Hypnerotosphere saddle is a body packed with sexual energy. And presiding over all, the Castellieri chandeliers encapsulate flights of fantasy. These ‘castles in the air’ translate the intimate forms of the furniture into miniature cities that in their drifting suspended state, reinforce the imagination as a survival tool.
Wings table: H46 W88 D94 cm, hand-carved beech, aluminium leaf. Edition of 12
Aviator sofa: H88 W210 D110 cm, timber frame, velvet and silk upholstery. Edition of 12
Al Bowley switches tracks with Iggy Pop who reinterprets a favourite by Lucio Battisti. The room reverberates, reflects, flashes his life before him, through objects, images, memories – and fantasies of what might happen, who he might be, today, tomorrow and some unknown day in an uncertain future. What does he look for in his surroundings? First protection, the assurance that he can curl up and hide, and set himself free within the confines of the cabinet as home. With a prospect on to the city rooftops, this home has an encyclopedic landscape of a life inside it. Layers, crowds, double lines of books and tiny figures, gods, animals and mementos compete for their master’s attention. Every corner and surface fuses with the many players who have appeared here, some who have loved and lived through many encounters folded into these shelves. Bookcases tell it all. Big art and photography volumes vie with philosophy, archaeology, and far off anthropologies. Etruscans, Greeks and Romans compete in pushing their way to the front. Warhol struggles with Bacon, and Ray Pertri’s Buffalo nudges at the history of the Silent Cinema. This ‘Des Esseintes’ cabinet of courage and curiosity mirrors and reflects the man in a myriad of ways. Without conventional façade or connection to the street, this house floats between ground and sky.
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Baroccabilly carpet:W160 L260 cm, wool 100 knots per square inch. Edition of 12
Gianno light:H80 W60 cm, Opalflex®, Crystalflex® and steel. Edition of 100
Aviator mirror:H75 W86 cm, silvered glass and stainless steel. Edition of 12
Nigel Coates: Born in 1949, and trained at University of Nottingham and the Architectural Association. He leads a parallel career in teaching, architecture and design practice and artistically driven, internationally recognised work. His subversive spirit first came to public attention in 1984 with the publication of NATO (Narrative Architecture Today) magazine. A manifesto for a socio-culturally engaged and popular narrative-driven architecture, it advised readers to be the architects of their own lives. Certain themes, in particular the notion of narrative (and its expression through the drawing), have continued in Coates’ designs and research ever since. Art and literary strategies find their way into many of his projects, a phenomenon that characterised much of his early built works, many of them shops and restaurants in Tokyo and London. Throughout his career, he has balanced his work as a practitioner with experiment. His polemical architectural shows include ArkAlbion at the Architectural Association (1984), Ecstacity also at the AA (1992), and Mixtacity at Tate Modern (2007). He has shown at the Venice Architecture Biennale in the British Pavilion (2000), in the Italian Pavilion with Baby:London (2006), and in the Arsenale with his installation Hypnerotosphere (2008). He has designed and built interiors, exhibitions and buildings around the world. Buildings in Japan include the Wall, Noah’s Ark and the Art Silo, and in Britain, the National Centre for Popular Music, Powerhouse::uk and the Geffrye Museum. Coates is a prolific designer of lighting and furniture, with links to Alessi, AVMazzega, Ceramica Bardelli, Fornasetti, Frag, Fratelli Boffi, Poltronova, Slamp and Varaschin. He is based at his studio in London, is Professor of Architecture at the Royal College of Art, and for limited edition pieces is represented by the Cristina Grajales Gallery, New York. Examples of his work are held in museum collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum, Cooper Hewitt and FRAC. He has been Professor of Architecture at the Royal College of Art since 1995.
Curated: Cristina GrajalesGallery assistance: Elizabeth Murphy,Lindsay Johnson, Lizzie Bildner
Publisher: Nigel Coates StudioDesign: Andrea Mancuso, Ace MorganText: Ned Flex, Amber Jeavons
25 Thurloe Street, London SW7 [email protected]
Second Edition 20111000 copies printed in Great Britain by Fresh Printing Limited
All material in this publication is copyright, and may not be reproduced by any means, print, electronic or otherwise, without permission obtained in writing from the copyright holders.
© Nigel Coates, Cristina Grajales Gallery, Poltronova, Slamp
Furniture production: PoltronovaEditor: Roberta MeloniProject development: Elena CavallucciProduction: Rosella Corrieri, Renzo Spagnesi
Light production: SlampEditor: Roberto ZilianiProject management: Luca MazzaProduction: Stefano Papi
10 Greene Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY [email protected]
