March 2019
THE BEAUTIFUL AND THE GOOD - STUDIO FORMAFANTASMA - AMSTERDAM
The concept of beauty and goodness in classical Greece finds its supreme expression in the formative ideal of kalokagathía, the proper condition of those who can prove themselves both good and beautiful.
The kalokagathia therefore supports a complementarity between "beautiful" and "good": what is beautiful cannot but be good and what is good is necessarily beautiful.
In our days and in our history, the magic is renewed: the humble wood flour, a natural and precious material (the good) through the skilled hands of two young artists is transformed into artworks (the beautiful) admired all over the world.
The objects of the 'Botanica' collection are designed by imagining that the oil age we live in has never started. Almost like historians, Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin analyzed the pre-Bakelite period between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when researchers and scientists ventured into experimentation by draining plants and animals, investigating the technical and aesthetic possibilities of natural polymers.
The objects in the collection are characterized by organic and pliant details, while the color range is entirely based on the amber tones of the resins, combined with traditional materials such as wood, ceramic and metal.
In their Formafantasma atelier in Amsterdam, the two designers developed a coherent body of work characterized by research on experimental materials and issues such as the relationship between tradition and local culture, critical approaches to sustainability and the meaning of objects as cultural channels.
Their work has been presented and published internationally and museums such as the MoMA in New York, Victoria and Albert in London, Metropolitan Museum in New York, Chicago Art Institute, Center Georges Pompidou in Paris, Textiel Museum in Tilburg, Stedelijk's-Hertogenbosch , Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, MUDAC Lausanne, the Mint Museum of Craft and Design in North Carolina and the MAK Museum in Vienna have acquired all the Formafantasma projects for their permanent collections.
Download Botanica brochure by Studio Formafantasma