gaetano pesce's radical designs shows in LA exhibition 'dear future'

the future perfect exhibits five decades of gaetano pesce

Radical Italian artist Gaetano Pesce exhibits five decades of design at his first solo gallery show in Los Angeles, ‘Dear Future.’ The show is presented by The Future Perfect, and opened just in time for L.A. Art Week within the ground floor of the gallery’s sprawling new flagship in the Hollywood Hills. A comprehensive overview of the designer’s experimental works from 1969 to 2022 includes rarely shown historic furniture pieces alongside contemporary variations of his iconic designs, as well as new and never-before-seen works. ‘Dear Future’ is on view at The Future Perfect’s Los Angeles gallery from February 16th — March 31st, 2023.

Gaetano Pesce, Dear Future at the Goldwyn House, exhibition view
image by Rich Stapleton © The Future Perfect

italian design in los angeles

Now showing at The Future Perfect’s LA gallery, Gaetano Pesce is renowned for his provocative and experimental style, his radical processes, and his combinations of art, design and architecture. Much of his work expresses social commentaries with explorations of new materials and technologies. The designer‘s ideas have been largely shaped by his early involvement with Radical Design, an artistic movement that began in the midst of Italy’s civil unrest and economic crisis and was strongly influenced by a group of Italian architects who challenged the hyper-rationalism, functionalism, and industrial precision of 20th-century Modernism.

Gaetano Pesce, Dear Future at the Goldwyn House, exhibition view
image by Rich Stapleton © The Future Perfect

‘If Modernist architecture and design disregarded the individual and attempted to standardize the human spirit, Pesce’s lifeswork has been to upend prescriptive modes of thinking — a form of counter-design that favors incoherence, unpredictability, eccentricity and originality,’ says Gallery Founder David Alhadeff.

‘His future is not one of myth — it is an attainable reality free of war, inequality and uniformity, where human individualism is expressed in objects and style.’

Gaetano Pesce, Dear Future at the Goldwyn House, ‘Leaf Shelf — Yellow’
image by Elizabeth Carababas © The Future Perfect

social commentary through experimental form

Going back to his earliest furniture series, the Up series, released with B&B Italia in 1969, Gaetano Pesce has been embedding social critique in his work through expressive forms and untraditional materials. His most renowned piece from the series is surely the UP5_6, commonly referred to as La Mamma. This curvaceous armchair with its voluptuous, feminine proportions is said to be reminiscent of the Venus of Willendorf.

La Mamma also comes with an attached ottoman to symbolize the ‘ball-and-chain’ of social expectations placed on women. For Dear Future, B&B Italia have produced a special edition of the chair made from recycled bottle corks from Italy; one of only two ever made and released in 2021.

Gaetano Pesce, Dear Future at the Goldwyn House, exhibition view with ‘UP 5&6 in Cork’
image by Rich Stapleton © The Future Perfect

‘Ever since I was young, I have discovered that I have a particular attraction for everything that was supposed to occur. In other words, for all that is new arriving from the Future. As a result, not being satisfied with what had already taken shape, I set about wondering what the Future was revealing to us,’ Pesce reflects.

‘In particular, what was about to happen to the so-called ‘culture’ of Design and Architecture. In the beautiful exhibition in Los Angeles there will be some examples of what I have just expressed. Enjoy your visit.’