To a world glutted with cold and empty geomterics, Gaetano Pesce brings an exuberant affirmation of unfettered form, rich in symbolic implications.
Transgressing whatever dividing lines could separate art, design and architecture, and ingeniously clustering deconstructed objects with human elements in dramatic space settings, this fiercely individualistic genius has added a new, profound dimension to everything from furniture to buildings and large urban complexes.
He has always asserted his uncompromising independence from any canon of universal or absolute aesthetics, expressing his freedom from the constraints of modern industrial realities. His creations are raucous, sensuous and emotional to the point of shaking us into an awareness of the drama, joy and pain of our human condition.
Gaetano Pesce, born in La Spezia (Italy) in 1939, spent his childhood years in Padua, Este and Florence. He studied architecture at the University of Venice and design at the Institute of Industrial Design in the same city. Among his distinguished teachers were Carlo Scarpa, Ernesto Rogers and Richard Sapper.
He is professor at the Institut d'Etudes Urbaines in Strasbourg. Among the universities and institutions that he has taught at are Yale, the Universities of Quebec and Montreal, the Pratt Institute of New York and the Institutes of Architecture of Hong Kong and of Sao Paolo.
His works are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, the Modern Art Museum in Turin and many other institutions worldwide.
Gaetano Pesce became famous as a furniture designer when in 1969 he created the UP series of soft, anthropomorphic, polyurethane-based seats. The UP series is currently being re-edited by B&B Italia. It comprises a set of seven seating units of various dimensions and shapes.