Reflected Identities: Simon Berger’s Mirror Collection for Gallotti&Radice at Milan Design Week 2023.

For Milan Design Week 2023, Gallotti&Radice in collaboration with Salvioni Design Solutions transformed their flagship store into an art gallery to showcase Reflected Identities, a brand new collection of mirrors by Swiss artist Simon Berger.

Dissolving the boundaries between art and the reflected image the mirror is transformed into a ‘living canvas’ as the artist used a hammer to hand engrave the object consisting of a black lacquered metal frame encasing a perfect circle made of two halves. As Gallotti&Radice explains, “[the mirror] reflects a female giving back the image of a double soul: the reflection of a real identity in connection with the expressive force of feminine elegance, the utmost expression of the artist’s essence.”

“Engraved glass and mirrors come alive through plays of perspective and material reflections as a tribute to the feminine universe,” they elaborate. “A new and unprecedented installation between art and design, signed by the Swiss artist Simon Berger, which celebrates a fragility that is only apparent, the result of a figurative perception that elevates glass to a work of art. In his hands, the hammer is not an instrument of destruction but an amplifier of identity perspectives.”

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Through Simon’s art, simple sheets of glass come alive under the blows of his hammer, acting as a paintbrush that leaves its mark on a canvas. Instead of shattering, a precise design takes on defined contours according to the intensity of the blows so as to reproduce lines and shadows. The closer and shorter the blows, the stronger the contrasts and shades. Points apparently disjointed from each other give life to a portrait that shows itself thanks to a play of perspective that increases its rendering when captured by the camera of a mobile phone.

This collection pays tribute to a material that has always been part of the historical heritage of Gallotti&Radice, which famously started in 1955 as an art space dedicated to glass decoration. A return to the origins with a collection dedicated to art lovers. It follows the brand and Simon’s collaboration last year on a limited edition of exclusive pieces, named ‘Unbreakable Identities’.

One such piece was a table made with an open pore black lacquered ash wood top and cylindrical bases with black chrome metal parts. Designed through an innovative process involving chipping, cracking and beating the glass becomes an ideal support for Simon to play with transparencies, fragility and light in a never-before experimented play of perspective. The artistic celebration of a beauty that lasts forever, framed by the purity of the crystal element for a table is a true work of art.

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[Images courtesy of Gallotti&Radice.]