For the final show of 2024, Friedman Benda gallery in NYC presents Obsessed by Nature, furniture by Italian designer Enrico Marone Cinzano. At first I read the title as referencing a character trait instead of the natural world. Cinzano’s precise work leans heavily into the industrial vernacular and makes use of repurposed objects like automotive seats, car headlights and electrical insulators. But the exhibition description does specifically mention an obsession with nature’s immutable beauty and logic as some context for the work.
Personally I think what’s interesting about Cinzano’s approach is starting a design with found and discarded objects. The default still remains to begin solving a design problem by creating something new. Giving an existing object or material a second life and new value should be an equally valid approach and considered starting point.
The Basculante rocker chair certainly gets a value boost by being based off a salvaged seat from a Ferrari. But I also appreciate the decorative beauty of the more common electrical insulators on the Bianca lamp.
Full Description
Friedman Benda is pleased to present Obsessed by Nature, Italian designer Enrico Marone Cinzano’s first solo exhibition with the gallery, opening on November 14th. Deeply inspired by nature’s beauty, Marone Cinzano explores the spaces where perfection meets imperfection, reality
meets fiction, and concept carries form. The exhibition unveils new work rooted in his profound understanding of nature’s undeniable ‘truth’—a truth that is immediate and universally accessible.
Beyond an obsession with nature’s immutable beauty and logic, these works navigate a delicate interplay between organic and industrial elements, seeking not fusion but an equilibrium of opposing energies and properties. Collecting and hunting for objects across time and geographies is central to Marone Cinzano’s practice. The process of collaging these discrete elements is a way of finding answers. In his words, it is a process of “developing reinterpretations and contrast, whereby the original purpose is morphed into new functionality, resulting by steering the raw materials into an artistic sculptural object with strong aesthetic values… What was becomes something else, what was discarded, and undervalued material, becomes part and parcel of a, hopefully, beautiful, quality functional object.”
Through meticulous craftsmanship, his existential inquiries become accessible, tangible, and functional. It all comes down to the object’s function, longevity and staying power in the world. “It is not even any more a question of recycling; it is a question of what materials form part of our daily lives, of putting out timeless solidity. It is not only a question of form but also of purpose and utility. It is, after all, a question of maximization, of potential.”
The diverse stones and marble slabs used in several of these works are, in Marone Cinzano’s eyes, “a gift in themselves, pure natural luxury and elegance.” Obsessed by Nature is, in its purest essence, a designer’s attempt and urge to find meaning and what is yet to come. A tribute to the object for its own sake, it is an affirmation of its enduring significance and timeless presence in our world.
Intro Text and Photography: Dave Pinter
Additional Description: Friedman Benda
