enrico marone cinzano’s LED lamp at design miami/ basel is encased with WWII tank prisms

the lamp combines a large slab of leftover pink onyx and recovered world war II tank prisms illuminated with LED light.

lea zeitoun June 15, 2024 5 min

enrico marone cinzano lands at design miami/ basel 2024

Italian artist Enrico Marone Cinzano presents the Rosa Tank Lamp with Friedman Benda at the 18th edition of Design Miami/ Basel 2024. Joining a group installation at the gallery’s Booth 2 on sculptural design, the monochromatic Rosa Tank Lamp has been consciously crafted by combining a large slab of leftover pink onyx and recovered World War II tank prisms illuminated with LED light. Marone Cinzano’s piece is exhibited alongside Ini Archibong, Wendell Castle, Carmen D’Apollonio, Misha Kahn, Samuel Ross, Ettore Sottsass, and Barbora Žilinskaitė. Through this collective show, the gallery examines idiosyncratic visual languages, material choices, and distinct processes by eight leading studios.

enrico marone cinzano's LED lamp at design miami/ basel is encased with WWII tank prisms - 1 — all images courtesy Friedman Benda and Enrico Marone Cinzano

Rosa Tank Lamp blends pink onyx with WWII tank prisms

Born from an idea after Enrico Marone Cinzano (see more here) purchased a large slab of leftover pink onyx sourced in Italy, the translucent rock forms the base of a hand-painted steel structure encased with recovered World War II tank prisms illuminated with LED lights. The Rosa Tank Lamp exhibited at Design Miami/ Basel explores the artist’s interest in nature and the environment by producing designs focused on sustainable and found materials, combining pink hues with industrial materials. The unique work blends craftsmanship, a profoundly conscious and ethical approach to repurposing recovered materials, and proportions influenced by the Golden Ratio.

enrico marone cinzano's LED lamp at design miami/ basel is encased with WWII tank prisms - 2 — Enrico Marone Cinzano presents the Rosa Tank Lamp

enrico marone cinzano leverages the golden ratio

A self-taught Italian designer, Marone Cinzano creates unique works devoid of restricted rules and informed by a strong visual memory, influenced by Italy’s architecturally rich cities, such as Florence, Rome, and Turin. His ideas draw from many facets, such as his fascination with physics, mathematics, nature, and sociology, intertwined to construct a holistic approach to design. His inspiration from the Golden Ratio helps create an organically balanced design. The ratio itself comes from the Fibonacci sequence (named after the Italian mathematician Leonardo Bonacci), a naturally occurring sequence of numbers that can be found everywhere, from the number of leaves on a tree to the shape of a seashell. This formula helps formulate dimensional relationships between art and design and, eventually, the creation of harmonious compositions.

This scientific discipline has informed Enrico’s use of a hybrid of sustainable, durable, and recycled materials. Later this year, Enrico will also stage his first solo exhibition in the US at Friedman Benda Gallery in New York from November 14th to December 22nd, 2024.

enrico marone cinzano's LED lamp at design miami/ basel is encased with WWII tank prisms - 3 — recovered World War II tank prisms illuminated with LED lights

seven other participants at friedman benda’s booth

Exhibiting beside the Italian artist, Samuel Ross presents Fire Open Stone (2022), which explores the connections between body, material, meaning, and memory, drawing inspiration from West African furniture, modernism, and brutalism. Up next is Misha Kahn with her Saturday Morning series mirrors comprising sewn flexible vinyl molds and cast resin with references to historical motifs, and Mole Eats Worm (2020) sofa, Barbora Žilinskaitėalso joins the group installation with Sunbather (2023), a piece reflective of her exploration of brightly colored dyes and surrealistic organic corporeal forms. Meanwhile, Ettore Sottsass’ Aluminum Cabinet (C) and (D) (2024) reflect the designer’s pursuit of craftsmanship, moving away from industrial materials during the last fifteen years of his life.

As for Carmen D’Apollonio, she explores humor and fun with two ceramic lighting pieces, blending diverse influences from the modern art history canon, with references ranging from ancient Greek and Roman statuary to 20th-century British potters and Modernist painters. Keeping up with lighting pieces, Ini Archibong presents the monumental Dark Vernus 1 chandelier as a suspended gathering of vessel-like forms and his Shade Table made of shaded obsidian. And last, Wendell Castle completes the group show with the No Bounds (2017) table, which belongs to a series of textured cast-bronze works he realized at the end of his career. Combining the wood-laminating process he pioneered earlier in his career with 21st-century digital technology, this major work testifies to Castle’s prolific imagination.