Gaetano Pesce; Matthieu Blazy - Come Stai? - 2024

A new collectible artist's book commissioned by Bottega Veneta with Gaetano Pesce and Matthieu Blazy.
When new Creative Director Blazy invited pioneering designer Pesce to create the space for Bottega Veneta's Summer 23 show in Milan, it was the beginning of a rich design collaboration. At the heart of the project was the Come Stai? chair, a new expression in Pesce's oeuvre, which echoes his lifelong quest for individuality and diversity. With an insightful interview between Pesce and Hans Ulrich Obrist, this limited-edition artist's book explores the ideation, approach, and process of the collaboration, uncovering many connections between Pesce and Blazy's creative practices and values.
Contributions from Blazy and Maria Cristina Didero document the project's origins and place in Pesce's wider oeuvre, while a vivid layer of photographs by Stephen Shore and Sander Muylaert illustrate the chair's development and production. The volume carries over the Come Stai? design with an atypical profile informed by the chair shape, and cover inspired by its resin and canvas materials.
Just like Come Stai?, each book cover is unique.
Gaetano Pesce (1939-2024) was an Italian architect, painter, designer, sculptor and philosopher. His work, which includes numerous public and private projects in the United States, Europe, South America and Asia, and is featured in over 30 permanent collections of the most important museums in the world (MoMa, New York and San Francisco; Metropolitan Museum, New York; Vitra Museum, Weil am Rhein; Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Centre Pompidou and Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris...), blurs the boundaries between art, design, urbanism and architecture.