Embracing Uncertainty: Gaetano Pesce’s “Dear Future” at the Goldwyn House.

Photo by Rich Stapleton.

Photo by Rich Stapleton.

Photo by Rich Stapleton.

Photo by Rich Stapleton.

Photo by Rich Stapleton.

Photo by Rich Stapleton.

Photo by Rich Stapleton.

Gaetano Pesce has left a little slice of himself in LA for this year’s Art Week. The pioneering Italian artist, industrial designer and architect presented his first solo gallery exhibition in Los Angeles as part of Future Perfect’s 20th-anniversary program.

Housed on the ground floor of the Goldwyn House, a dazzling 20th-century mansion nestled in the Hollywood Hills—and Future Perfect’s latest sprawling flagship—is a kaleidoscope of objects that represent Pesce’s lifelong pursuit to embrace uncertainty, for as he puts it: “Uniformity is what we must fear more than death, since it is death itself.”

The mammoth exhibition, titled ‘Dear Future’ spans over five decades of Pesce’s visionary designs. It’s an apt title for the designer whose works always feel lightyears ahead. New, never before seen works and rarely exhibited historic pieces are found alongside contemporary re-editions of some of his most iconic designs.

“Ever since I was young, I have discovered that I have a particular attraction for everything that was supposed to occur. In other words, for all that is new arriving from the Future. As a result, not being satisfied with what had already taken shape, I set about wondering what the Future was revealing to us,” Pesce reflects. “In particular, what was about to happen to the so-called ‘culture’ of Design and Architecture.”

Gaetano Pesce’s Set for Bottega Veneta Summer 2023 Show.

The Humanist architect-designer-artist was given creative carte blanche to produce a temporary site-specific...

River Table. Photo by Rich Stapleton.

Photo by Rich Stapleton.

Photo by Rich Stapleton.

Leaf Shelf in Green. Photo by Elizabeth Carababas.

Multicolour Lamp with Rocks. Photo by Elizabeth Carababas.

Nobody’s Perfect Black Antenna chair. Photo by Elizabeth Carababas.

With a sensibility defined in the Radical Design movement of the 60s, Pesce is, to this day, driven by risk-taking, curiosity and radical thinking. The celebrated designer is known worldwide for blurring boundaries between art, design and architecture and for provocatively combining social critique with an experimental pursuit of material and technological innovation.

“If Modernist architecture and design disregarded the individual and attempted to standardise the human spirit, Pesce’s lifeswork has been to upend prescriptive modes of thinking — a form of counter-design that favours incoherence, unpredictability, eccentricity and originality,” says Future Perfect’s Founder David Alhadeff. “His future is not one of myth — it is an attainable reality free of war, inequality and uniformity, where human individualism is expressed in objects and style.”

With this as the framework, find the Square Airport Lamp (1986/1994) a flexible rubber light sculpture studded with miniature light bulbs. Although made in a mould, no two lamps are alike. By randomly mixing and pouring the coloured urethane, this handmade fabrication process results in unique pieces with built-in inconsistencies. Pesce also revisited his iconic Up series chair, a curvaceous armchair with ample, feminine proportions reminiscent of the Venus of Willendorf and affectionately known as La Mumma for the exhibition, creating a new edition made of recycled bottle corks sourced from Italy.

Preoccupied with humankind’s relationship to nature and increasing relationship with the built environment, for ‘Dear Future’ Pesce presented his rare work River Table (2012) beset with thick tree trunk legs and a watery transparency, alongside a new series of playful Leaf Shelves (2022).

The Future Perfect Debuts Casa Perfect LA with New Work by Matthew Day Jackson.

The famed Beverly Hills Trousdale Estates is now home to a never before seen furniture collection by artist...

Large Rose Tube Vase. Photo by Elizabeth Carababas.

Red Vase with Legs. Photo by Elizabeth Carababas.

Vase. Photo by Elizabeth Carababas.

Nobody’s Perfect chair. Photo by Elizabeth Carababas.

Airport Lamp. Photo by Elizabeth Carababas.

Soho Chair in Blue. Photo by Elizabeth Carababas.

The Nobody’s Perfect series (2002-present) explores human touch and “mass produced originals”, he says. Taking the impossibility of perfect design literally, the pieces in this line throw caution to the wind and are cast by hand without uniform colours or dimensions. Formerly produced by the Italian company Zerodisegno using an opaque resin, the new editions use a vibrant, translucent resin, poured freeform by the artist himself.

One of Us (2000), a rare piece on show from Pesce’s tongue-in-cheek series of abstract figurative lamps sits alongside gelatinous lava-like resin vases and a series of new idiosyncratic resin side console tables that the artist created for the exhibition.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. For more information, head to Future Perfect’s website. Or better yet, check it out yourself if you can until March 31st at The Goldwyn House.

Hidden Entourage by Supaform.

Housed in the Palazzo Brancaccio in Rome, this exhibition calls into question design’s instinct to be function-forward...

[Images courtesy of Gaetano Pesce. Photography by Rich Stapleton & Elizabeth Carababas.]