What I definitely liked about this year’s Moscow Design Week is its higher class. Last year’s MDW was a first attempt, clearly done with a bit of scepticism towards its own necessity. The quality of English translation of booklets, the infrastructure of events, venues and displays – all was done for the purpose of actually doing it.
I wasn’t sceptical about MDW’s future, but I was wondering how they were going to improve. The improvement came by almost secretly, I’m sure some people didn’t even realise the Design Week was going to happen. It did happen though and amassed such a huge number of high caliber designers from Europe and America that we are already feeling hungry for more. This is exactly what a girl at the Central Artist’s House said in response to my question, whether or not she enjoyed the Week: “I would love to see more“.
2011 being a cross-cultural year between Russia and Italy, it probably made sense to bring the leading Italian designers to Moscow and to dedicate one of the major exhibitions to all things “made in Italy”. This is also a curious reference to last year’s Design Week when visitors were invited to the Manezh Exhibition Centre to explore ‘the French art of living’. This year it was the same “art de vivre” – but Italian style.
Compared to the Italian, the French “art de vivre” looks almost too classical. Although the French played with matryoshkas and Eiffel towers in their own way, the Matrioska Superhero by Jacopo Foggini, or a classical chair painted in rainbow colours by Giulio Cappellini both breathe new life into familiar, if not dull, objects.
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| Being a Fabio Novembre Chair |
Needless to say, such irreverence to classical things inspires, provokes and prompts. It’s not been the first time ever that I saw and sat down into a Fabio Novembre chair. However, it’s been the first time I realised that the entire experience of sitting in this chair reeks on the plot of the famous film, Being John Malkovich. I called my ‘exploits’ with it rather simply: “Being a Fabio November Chair“.
