Around a frame / 133

Fifteen designers, invited by Marco Romanelli to address the theme of the frame, demonstrate how the work of the designer can be extended to object types that are a long way off from the usual furniture.

What can you do today if you want to frame a picture or a mirror? How can we overcome the mental and methodological limitations of the cut and mounted strip?

This is the question Marco Romanelli was asking when he chose the frame as a field for experimentation and research for 15 designers – along with the historic Guarnieri picture framers in via Conte Rosso, in zona Ventura, as an exhibition space. Everyone was given exactly the same rules within which to develop their own thoughts and build their own design: the frame had to be used to enclose a mirror or a photograph (the same for all) that could be enlarged or reduced, cut or multiplied; any material could be used.

Around a frame, overall view

Giorgio Bonaguro came up with the Analogica frame that looks and functions along the lines of the Instagram app, in particular conjuring up the filters that give different colour curves to every photo, doing so in an analogical way. Donata Paruccini meanwhile created a “soap bubble” on the wall that completely surrounds the photo and creates a habitat for it while Juan Soriano Blanco reworked the archetype of the medal and transformed it into a mirror and Leonardo Talarico created a highly minimal object: two simple strips that block the photograph but instead seem to cut it.

Around a frame, overall view
Around a frame, overall view
Around a frame, overall view
Around a frame, overall view
Around a frame, overall view


8–13 April
Around a frame
a cura di Marco Romanelli
Guarnieri Cornici
Via Conte Rosso 18, Milano