ROBILANT + VOENA

RICK OWENS - Furniture

Robilant + Voena (Milano)

Robilant + Voena is proud to present the first Italian exhibition of Furniture designed by Rick Owens (1961) from 9th to 24th of April. One of the most famous fashion stylists in the world, he is nowadays also one of the most internationally appreciated designers and he will be disclosed to the Milanese public on occasion of the “Fuori Salone 2014” during the week of “Salone del Mobile”. After the exhibitions in Berlin, Los Angeles, New York and London, the elegant “furniture” will be placed in an unusual location, compared to the previous ones, that of the elegant rooms of the Milanese Gallery instead of the metropolitan locations and their lofts.

The keys words to define his furniture are monumentality and spirituality. Born as a “personal indulgence” they represent nowadays a growing need of creativity for the artist. Described as “some of the most beautifully uncomfortable housewares ever” (GQ), this furniture are conceived with a steady research of perfection of shapes, beauty and luxury despite maintaining their functionality and perfeclty matching the space.

The colours and the shapes are minimalist. Materials include marble, alabaster, bone and fossil wood, sometimes dialoguing with each.

The viewer is moved by the monumentality and the authority of volumes, but at the same time one can feel a sense of rituality and asceticism that Owens sets as the base in his research, also by using monochromatic colour.

As Rick Owens once said, while designing clothes he already imagines the body that will wear them. In the same way in conceiving his furniture, he prefigures the spaces where the furniture itself will be set and how the viewer would enjoy them.

This exhibition includes chairs, tables and benches characterised by archaic and modern shapes, born from a flair that he described as “Biblical, brutalist, Bauhaus and Bakersfield”.

In occasion of the exhibition in Milan, furniture of severe shapes will be alternated with natural elements, as the chairs (Stag Stool) where the stiff and cold geometry of the white marble is linked with moose antler, that refers to the artist’s origin. The bench (2Prong Bench), made in plywood, appears perfectly integrated in the space. His style, defined “glunge” (a mixture of glamorous and grung), finds plenty of expression in the Milanese Gallery, conveying a sense of universality between materials, spaces and bodies which are the basis of Owens' conception.