Sotheby’s: Gaetano Pesce

Sotheby’s France will host a wide-ranging retrospective of Gaetano Pesce, featuring around forty unique pieces, reflecting his versatile talent as architect, designer and artist.

After the retrospective “Le Temps des Questions” at the Pompidou Centre in 1996, Pesce returns to Paris for a wide-ranging retrospective at Sotheby’s France supported by B&B Italia, featuring around forty unique, marketfresh pieces.

Works on show will include furniture, lighting and drawings, most of them unique. Visitors will be greeted by a monumental wooden version of Pesce’s hallmark UP-5 Donna chair, edited by B&B Italia: the first of his objects to bear a political message, commenting on the female condition.

Another iconic piece is his 1970 Moloch lamp – a design staple transformed into a sort of Lighting Monster by virtue of its outsize dimensions.

Furniture on display will include his symbolically named Samson and Delilah tables, which play on imperfections linked to their manufacture process and also have more than one function.

Several pieces illustrate the new glass techniques Gaetano Pesce pioneered at Cirva (International Centre for Research on Glass & the Visual Arts) in Marseille between 1988-93: Trastevere, L’Heure de Point and Bauta. The exhibition also features models and preparatory drawings for objects, furniture and housing projects.