A mini exhibition by Kazuyo Komoda at Achille Castiglioni’s “studio of marvels”, held to accompany the presentation of a new monographic work on the Japanese designer.
The objects on display at the exhibition, which will remain open until 18 November, will include an as yet unseen piece entitled “Candelone” given by Komoda to Castiglioni on the occasion of the latter’s 80th birthday, consisting of a large 80-wick wax candle. . Milan, November 2013 Milan, November
“If you are not curious, then don’t bother”. The work of designer Kazuyo Komoda (born in Tokyo in 1961), which combines curiosity with a subtle irony and a constant effort to get to the essence of things, would appear to draw daily on these words of Achille Castiglioni.
The advice of the Italian designer is also something of a leitmotiv in Francesca Acerboni’s new monograph, which provides a lively and interesting overview of the career of Komoda, whose work springs from a unique and fertile dialogue between her Japanese soul and her avowed fascination for the Italian creative imagination.
In her book, author Acerboni closely examines Komoda’s interest in the “poetics of the quotidian”, a common thread running through all of her work.
With their often ambivalent feel, her pieces seeks to reveal the latent vocations of everyday objects, subverting their primary function to disclose hidden meanings rooted in sensation and immateriality, and display an acute sense of the ritual of gesture, tracing a delicate equilibrium between necessity and action, sensuality and emotion.
The study’s thematic section focuses on a wide selection of the designer’s production, including furniture, diaries and notebooks, cutlery, shop designs and urban installations, as well as her more recent selfproduced work which, rather than representing a departure from the field of industrial design, functions as a parallel path affording Komoda greater scope for personal expression. The volume concludes by examining the theme of the mirror, an ever present in Komoda’s work, which would seem to point to a desire “not to leave too many traces”, to record only delicate, gossamer reflections of the self.
Design: Kazuyo Komoda
www.kazuyokomoda.com
