From 14 June to 29 September 2024 White Carrara returns, an event that celebrates Made in Italy design and the excellence of the territory with a widespread exhibition of iconic pieces that tell a story of ingenuity and high craftsmanship, handed down from generation to generation.
The protagonist of the eighth edition – entitled Design is back and directed by Domenico Raimondi – is the white marble of Carrara, which over the centuries has attracted artists and creative people from all over the world, supported by skilled workers and advanced technology. White Carrara is promoted and produced by the Municipality of Carrara in collaboration with Internazionale Marmi e Macchine CarraraFiere SpA and Nausicaa SpA, in co-participation with the North-West Tuscany Chamber of Commerce, with the patronage of the Region of Tuscany and the contribution of the Marble Foundation.
For the entire summer, Carrara will become an en plein air gallery, an incubator of ideas, projects, proposals and a privileged place for designers, architects and artists, artisans and companies, professionals and enthusiasts to meet. The exhibition-event Design is back will be developed around two main nuclei: on the one hand the “homecoming” of some projects realised over time in the city’s workshops, and on the other the new proposals of contemporary designers, to facilitate the meeting between generations and the transmission of know-how.
A project that has led renowned Italian design brands, such as Alessi, Antonio Lupi Design, Bosa and Martinelli Luce, to enter into new collaborations with local companies, at the invitation of artistic director Domenico Raimondi.
“Over the years,” Domenico Raimondi explains, “Italian and international design has resorted to the quarries of Carrara to create everyday objects with a high aesthetic value, using the historical and perfect synergy between the high craftsmanship of artisan workshops and the innovative professionalism of local companies. A true design and cultural heritage, both visionary and aesthetic, that often remains hidden from the city, locked away in workplaces and cramped in processing times, only to be unveiled in stores and showrooms all over the world, becoming the protagonist of everyday life”.
Design is back will be the occasion to pay homage to fundamental pieces in the history of Italian design – the Anna G. corkscrew, the Tree Table + Rabbit Chair, the Soul pouf, among others – but also to present new out-of-scale marble productions, such as the kettle from the Plissè collection by Michele De Lucchi and the Bernardo panda by designer Elena Salmistraro, and excellences of the territory, such as the Gomitolo table and the Introverso and Pixel washbasins by Paolo Ulian.
The sculpture Anna G. was made in a single piece in veined statuary marble by Sa.Ge.Van. as a tribute on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the corkscrew of the same name, designed by Alessandro Mendini for Alessi in 1994. Ten years later, the iconic marble Anna G. is again presented to the public for White Carrara.
Designed by Stefano Giovannoni and produced by Robot City in 2014 for the Salone del Mobile, Tree Table + Rabbit Chair is a marble installation composed of a phytomorphic table and zoomorphic seats in the shape of rabbits. Combining playful-narrative dimensions, ergonomics and functionality, Tree Table + Rabbit Chair over time have developed into a family of Qeeboo products with strong media communication.
Soul is a statuary marble pouf-sculpture with unprecedented fluid lines. Conceived by architect Simone Micheli and realised by Sa.Ge.Van. in 2023, it enhances the essence of the millenary material through soft and unexpected shapes.
Thanks to the synergy between Alessi and Franchi Umberto Marmi, the Plissè collection, designed by Michele De Lucchi, is celebrated through the proposal of a contemporary object with distant roots. A large marble kettle, sculptural yet very light, capable of restoring the dynamism of the pleated garments of the 1950s and 1960s.
For White Carrara 2024, Elena Salmistraro and the Barattini family, through Studi d’Arte Carrara, will create Bernardo in the precious white marble of the Cave Michelangelo. Bernardo is a panda, designed in 2020 and produced by Bosa Ceramiche, symbol of all endangered species. A hero of our times ready to fight to defend all other animals, reminding us, human beings, how vital the salvation of our planet is.
Lastly, his affection for his city led Paolo Ulian to exhibit for White Carrara 2024 the Gomitolo table, produced by Bufalini Marmi through the concentric processing of a single slab to minimise the amount of waste, and Introverso and Pixel, two cylindrical washbasins designed for Antonio Lupi Design, which reveal unique and unrepeatable shapes through human intervention.
The rough-hewn technique, usually used for sculptures, allows the designer to strip and reveal the form and soul of objects.
Among the smaller objects, displayed in shop windows, but also in vacant lots, with a view to urban regeneration, are the eight lamps/sculptures of the Luci di Cava project, created by 8 internationally renowned designers thanks to the technical assistance of Martinelli Luce and the support of FIDI – Florence Institute of Design International, the Up&Up collection of historic design by Upgroup and the La Casa di Pietra collection by Gumdesign.
White Carrara 2024 will also have an Off Circuit, thanks to the participation of artists, workshops and art galleries in the area, which will animate the historic centre with exhibitions and collateral events to the event.
“We believe in the culture of the project as a collective practice, where different ideas, skills and realities meet and mingle, providing tools and qualities that every project needs,” Raimondi emphasises. “We have built White Carrara 2024 with the precious artisan, artistic, cultural and entrepreneurial forces of a community and the treasures of a territory: it is truly a collective experience, based on the responsibility and generosity of sharing what Carrara is capable of. Sharing makes a community stronger, cohesive, proud and makes it courageous, strong and flexible in the face of difficulties. This is the White we have built together, with passion and determination’.
In anticipation of White Carrara 2024, the Academy of Fine Arts of Carrara has involved its students in recovering the memory of design in Carrara, which in the recent past has seen Santini, Munari, Coppola and Mangiarotti as teachers. The cycle of meetings entitled Design: between nature and beauty, the fascination of marble addressed to the students of the design and sculpture course started a creative path that ended with the realisation of some product design projects dedicated to marble.
Special events are planned for citizens and the public: guided visits to art workshops and stone companies in cooperation with Carrara Studi Aperti, excursions to quarries, activities for children, musical events and food and wine initiatives with the involvement of trade associations and local producers.
White Carrara is an opportunity to promote the excellence of the area and confirm Carrara’s vocation as a Unesco Creative City through an initiative that aims to tell the story of the marble “landscape”, the history of a community and the identity of places.
White Carrara is being held at the same time as the exhibition Romana marmora. Stories of emperors, gods and quarrymen, set up at the CARMI museum Carrara and Michelangelo (https://carmi.museocarraraemichelangelo.it/), thus tracing an ideal link between Carrara’s origins, linked to the artistic working of marble, and its present-day declinations. At the mudaC | museo delle arti Carrara (https://mudac.museodellearticarrara.it/), there is a section dedicated to the visual arts in White Carrara, curated by Cinzia Compalati, with the personal exhibitions of the artists Paolo Cavinato and Gabriele Landi, whose realisations meet aesthetic tangencies with the theme of design.
For information and further information: https://whitecarrara.it/.
