Gaggenau for art. And attention to detail

Since the second half of May, it is possible to visit Lorenzo Marini's solo show in Corso Magenta, inside the Gaggenau showroom in Milan. In the meantime, the works of Alberto Di Fabio are currently on display in Via Lungotevere de’ Cenci in Rome. Through 15 mostly unpublished works, Lorenzo Marini analyses the crisis of writing and the consequent transformation of language. With his “Out of Words” exhibition, the artist questions himself on what will happen to humans when technological and social evolution will have deprived them of writing and “dispersed” all their words. Meanwhile, Alberto Di Fabio is the painter of the invisible infinite. He is an artist who doesn’t want to paint the sky simply as we see it: he wants to go even beyond, analyzing the interior and astral infinity.

Brand Manager of Gaggenau Erica Sagripanti and curator of the project Sabino Maria Frassà, also artistic director of CRAMUM, told us how the idea of sharing of an exhibition itinerary based on the attention to detail was born. “On Air. Il Presente è il Futuro del Passato” is the artistic and cultural project conceived by the director Frassà, who will oversee a cycle of four exhibitions conceived for the Gaggenau DesignElementi Hub until December 2020. How did this relationship develop? And what added value does art represent for Gaggenau?
Erica Sagripanti: It all began in 2017, during a meeting on the occasion of the inauguration of the fifth edition of the Premio Cramum directed by Sabino Maria Frassà. In that period, we were about to inaugurate our first exclusive showroom in Milan, in collaboration with our partner DesignElementi. When I met Frassà, I immediately understood that there were many elements that united Cramum and Gaggenau, art and design.  So, we developed together an ambitious plan to support the artistic excellence with our spaces as a stage. The project is still successful today, and currently involves the new showroom in Rome.

How does the artistic dimension of Gaggenau manifest itself?
ES: The artistic and cultural excellence embodies the very values of Gaggenau, a historic brand of high-end kitchen appliances that for 337 years, driven by a strong vocation for craftsmanship, sophisticated materials and aesthetic research, has been working to improve the world in which we live. Art has the great merit of providing further dynamism to our spaces in Milan and Rome, and of contributing to making them a catalyst of beauty, ideas and emotions. To leave a legacy of the project, each annual cycle of exhibitions also ends with a limited-edition artist's book that tells the story of the artists who have animated our cultural program. Finally, the desire to continue to dialogue with our audience by exploiting new means has led us to promote an integrated digital and physical approach in this period of greater social distancing: the next exhibition will therefore be possible to be seen both live and via an innovative web platform. What criteria did you use to select works and artists? Which initial suggestions provided by the two showrooms influenced your choices?
Sabino Maria Frassà: I had the great opportunity to collaborate with the Loop Design studio to design both spaces. We worked to convey an idea of an ideal home that was welcoming and hosted the best of the “beautiful” in every signle way. Gaggenau gave me blanche carde, but it’s me who felt the responsibility to appropriately highlight their 337 years of history. So, the real constraint I have set myself was excellence, and I took the risk of selecting: Gaggenau and Cramum do not want to follow trends, but rather aspire to determine them.

What are the parameters, the objectives that you have set yourself and that you are pursuing?
S.M.F.: It is no coincidence that our 2020 cycle of exhibitions is entitled “On Air: il Presente è il futuro del Passato”. People come to the exhibitions because they know that behind them there is no commercial logic, but a thought, a vision, an attempt to see and act on and for the future. So, we presented not only famous artists, but also artists with a great potential and something important to say: Alberto Di Fabio who is one of the most acclaimed Italian painters, Maestro Franco Mazzucchelli who, after his solo show at the Museo del 900, presented with us the unpublished Bifacciali, the young talent Francesca Piovesan, Davide Tranchina who is one of the most successful Italian photographers and will inaugurate on July 8th the next exhibition focused on the theme of distance, which is very topical today.

What connections and unexpected insights did the dialogue with art and furnishing highlight?
S.M.F.: For me, space reigns supreme: I believe we should always live the space, never deny it. The bravest artist in this sense was certainly Laura de Santillana. “ab - the Essence of Absence” was her last exhibition: she was aware of it and wanted to risk, dare and even have fun despite the advancing disease. We decided to let her brains and tangles of glass live inside the ovens, because the oven is the place where glass is born and is a metaphor for the forging of new ideas. Then, with Paolo Scirpa’s exhibition, I wanted to play on the refraction of light on household appliances: we do not realize how ovens and refrigerators are sources of light that animate and bring color to our homes. What reactions have you noticed from the visitors who have entered your spaces?
S.M.F.: The appreciation of visitors has often surprised us: we never thought that the unpublished works of Lorenzo Marini, Ivan Barlafante or Ingar Krauss would achieve such a great success on all social networks. Of course, I must admit that behind so much appreciation lies a tireless work to create a coherent narrative of the project.

How many people does your team consist of?
S.M.F.: Erica and I don’t leave anything to chance. I consider Federica, Damia, Tiziana and Monica from DesignElementi as my excellent and irreplaceable colleagues who manage the showrooms: they are passionate and allow to live and understand this art-design experience every day even when neither me nor the artist are there. For me, their enthusiasm is a success, it creates that kind of empathy that reaches the public and that is our strength. I’m convinced that art and beauty can be contagious, it’s not easy to it, we never take it for granted, but we work on it every day.