Miami Art Week 2019 Meet the Artist: Experience the Art Series
The Artist: Andrea Mancuso
The Idea: Stimulate Curiosity by Juxtaposing the Familiar with the Unexpected
The Art: Metamorphosis
In my Meet the Artist: Experience the Art Series from my visit to Miami Art Week, I introduce you to the work of Italian Designer Andrea Mancuso.
The Design Tourist, aka Karen LeBlanc, and the Artist Andrea Mancuso who created the art installation Metamorphosis at Design/Miami
One of my favorite shows during Miami Art Week is Design/Miami for its immersive experiences, booths that are each a mise-en-scène, placing art objects and furniture into context. Design/Miami is the only satellite show that is laser-focused on design. There, you will find art, sculpture and themed environments such as the immersive scenography, Metamorphosis presented by Perrier-Jouët.
Metamorphosis presented by Perrier-Jouët and designed by Andrea Mancuso on view at Design/Miami
I’ve never seen anything like it—part sculpture, part art installation. The room is covered with ceramic flower blooms painted in the golden tones of the French champagne house’s vineyards. Milan-based Italian designer Andrea Mancuso created the art installation and tells me that I’m actually looking at 11,000 mounted ceramic pieces evoking the concave shape of the champagne bottles he saw maturing in the cellars of Perrier-Jouët.
Artist Andrea Mancuso, co-founder of the Analogia Project, working on his art installation Metamorphosis for Design/Miami at the Alessio Sarri Ceramic workshop.
“So of course, Champagne ages in bottles instead of barrels and they’re stacked on top of each other in the cellars, creating a beautiful pattern. I use that pattern making irregular shapes and I use the color palette of the vineyards during the harvest,” says Mancuso. He is the co-founder of the Analogia Project, a multidisciplinary practice that uses design as a means to distort reality and to provoke emotional connections with the viewer.
“I used ceramic for the possibilities of colors that I could achieve here. There are 11,000 pieces of ceramics in 15 different shades,” Mancuso says.
concave ceramic circles that mimic the bottoms of champagne bottles readied to be painted and installed in a landscape that evokes the Maison Perrier-Jouët vineyards at harvest time.
Metamorphosis is Maison Perrier-Jouët’s eighth collaboration with the fair and draws inspiration from the Art Nouveau movement’s unconventional observations of nature. “Loyal to the ethos of Art Nouveau, Mancuso’s work for the House unites traditional craftsmanship with modern technology and is infused with Maison Perrier-Jouët’s vision of reinvented nature”, explains Axelle de Buffévent, Style Director at Maison Perrier-Jouët.
Metamorphosis, interprets the Art Nouveau heritage of the Maison Perrier-Jouët merging art, history and design.
Mancuso created the space to evokes the Japanese concept of Engawa -a similar concept to a sunroom – that serves as a communal gathering space. His aim for all who entered the art installation was to stimulate curiosity and interaction by intercepting the familiar with the unexpected.
Andrea Mancuso designed a collection of champagne glasses created with the Berengo Foundation in Murano – each inspired by the six characteristic Cuvée’s of Maison Perrier-Jouët and showcased at Design Miami/.
Based on conversations with Maison Perrier-Jouët Cellar Master Hervé Deschamps, Mancuso also designed six glasses, one for each cuvee that describes the notes and the characteristics of each champagne.
Andrea Mancuso designed a collection of champagne glasses created with the Berengo Foundation in Murano – each inspired by the six characteristic Cuvée’s of Maison Perrier-Jouët and showcased at Design Miami/.
The glasses were crafted by Murano-based glassblowers Fondazione Berengo using the demanding practice of lost-wax casting, an ancient technique of Art Nouveau artists. The same meticulous method was used for the champagne bowl that recalls the iconic anemone flower designed for the House in 1902 by Emile Gallé, a Master of Art Nouveau.
Italian ceramicists Alessio Sarri and Nuevoforme helped create the installation of glasses displayed in six alcoves on stands made using lost-wax casting.
The collection of glasses is displayed across six alcoves, presented on stands made using lost-wax casting. Italian ceramicists Alessio Sarri and Nuevoforme also worked on the alcove display and glasses.
“The Perrier-Jouët non-vintage cuvees are captured with the unbridled growth of blooming nature, with roots and leaves climbing up the stem to embrace the bowl of the glass. Whereas developed nature is interpreted with elegant, structured lines to evoke the Perrier-Jouët Belle Epoque cuvees,” observes Hervé Deschamps.
Italian designer Andrea Mancuso, of Analogia Project, created Metamorphosis in the spirit of Art Nouveau. Mancuso’s work for the House unites traditional craftsmanship with modern technology.
Metamorphosis is one of several collaborations with designers and design institutions featured at Design/Miami, a global forum bringing together collectors, gallerists, designers, curators, and critics. The show features the world’s top galleries presenting museum-quality exhibitions of the twentieth and twenty-first century furniture, lighting, and objets d’art. Design/Miami is held alongside the Art Basel fairs in Miami, Florida, each December and Basel, Switzerland, each June.
Learn more about the artists and art objects featured at Design/Miami in new episodes of The Design Tourist filmed at Miami Art Week.
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