Nina Yashar: «We want to represent nowadays zeitgeist, which is hardly anymore about single choices, but rather about abundance, heterogeneity, medleys, opposites meeting, mixing and dialoguing»
Milan Design Week 2022 – Nilufar Depot
The most eagerly awaited time of the year for design lovers is finally back in its original guise without the limitations imposed by the pandemic in the past two years. Milan Design Week is not only an opportunity to discover the latest trends of contemporary design, but also to live and experience the city of Milan from a different angle.
An international fair, born spontaneously in the early eighties by the will of companies operating in the furniture and industrial design sector, which continues to live thanks to individual promoters putting their efforts together in order to create a collective event.
Companies’ show-rooms, design studios, exhibition spaces of various types, but also disused factories and hidden urban pearls, take on new life thanks to the visionary creativity of designers, artists and curators.
In 2015 Nina Yashar, one of the most prominent pioneering taste-makers in the world of contemporary design and owner of Nilufar Gallery, located in via della Spiga, opened Nilufar Depot, a former silverware factory building located in via Lancetti.
Spread over three floors, the large 1,500 square-meter space presents itself as a sort of contemporary theater, where historical pieces of design coexist and dialogue with the works of some of the most appreciated creatives of the new generations. On occasion of MDW2022 Yashar brought together twenty-five international designers whose works are showcased in via della Spiga’s gallery and in Nilufar Depot.
A triumph of shapes, colors and materials combining the best of contemporary design: both young and established brands and designers capable of translating the contingencies of contemporaneity into furnishings and objects of daily use.
«We want to represent nowadays zeitgeist, which is hardly anymore about single choices, but rather about abundance, heterogeneity, medleys, opposites meeting, mixing and dialoguing», states the gallery founder.
Starting from the assumption that contemporary taste is influenced and shaped by the multiple stimuli of today’s world and its multifaceted culture, Yashar presented her new selection of collectibles in an unprecedented way.
From huge size carpets to tableware, from experimental design objects to artistic environments, the storytelling of this year’s exhibition tackles contemporary design in all its forms. The fusion of practices, styles and aesthetics aims at offering the audience a new form of entertainment.
Ground floor: Innesto
Before entering the former industrial space, visitors are welcomed by Out of Body, Patrick Tuttofuoco’s installation investigating the sensation of out-of-body experiences: a series of design objects shaped like parts of the human body. A huge domestic setting designed by Italian designer Martino Gamper takes up most of the ground floor.
The big colorful geometric rugs – hand woven in Nepal – cover the gray concrete floor providing the exhibition space with a new playful look. The three environments composing the installation curated by Yashar seem to refer to the gallerist’s personal vision of rugs as well as to her culture.
Born in Tehran in 1957, Yashar relocated to Milan where her father became a leading merchant of Persian carpets and precious textiles. After starting her own activity, at first she dedicated herself to the dealing of antique and 19th-century French carpets.
In Innesto the huge rugs are the absolute protagonists defining the exhibition space and creating a theatrical scenography for the equally eye-catching pieces of old furniture reinterpreted by Gamper in a contemporary key.
The practice of grafting (‘innesto’ in Italian) is employed when a gardener wants to grow something new onto an established plant often leading to the specimen to grow something different from its original form. Not only a conscious recycling action, but a thorough understanding of the past resulting into an innovative approach applied to the recovery of old furnishings.
Too Much, Too Soon!
On the right side of the ground floor, visitors are invited to experience in first person the visionary installation of Andres Reisinger, prominent name of the contemporary digital generation of artists. With Too Much, Too Soon!, Reisinger puts in place the squatting of Yashar’s office and turns it into a dream-like environment without betraying the profound essence of its original occupier.
Taking the rebellious approach of 1950’s and 1960’s Free Jazz, Reisinger makes its four new illuminated sculptures – Oz, Dot, Endless and High – the protagonists of the environment, being the geometrical lamps the only source of light. Yashar’s office is completely enveloped in stainless steel and aluminium, while the floor is covered with a pink carpet.
The surreal experience of the visitors is also accompanied by a musical composition transporting the audience into a contemplative dimension enhanced by the new role played by the objects taking over for the humans who usually inhabit the space.
Other projects showcased on the ground floor of Nilufar Depot are Reborn, the rebirth of white porcelain objects produced by Ginori 1735’s Manifattura through the artistic interventions of international artists; An Italian Garden by Ashley Hicks, Gabriella Crespi and Osanna Visconti, an environment combining their different aesthetics inspired by the natural world, in particular Italian gardens; Delta207, an experimental lamp designed by Robinson Ferreux; and Super Sonic Table by Architude, among others.
Established and emerging designer at Nilufar Depot
The middle floor and top floor are dedicated to the creative production of established and emerging contemporary designers and studios. Each exhibition space is characterized by a specific aesthetic and provides the audience with a glimpse of the designer’s work through a few pieces carefully selected by Yashar and co-curators.
Analogia Project propels visitors into a marine-like environment with Acquario, a glass and ceramic collection which investigates the transposition of the natural world into the domestic one.
Like many designers and architects before him, Andrea Sanguineti reflects on exoskeletons – objects and living beings characterized by not having a defined structure and statically supported by the external surface of their bodies – giving birth to the Volage Table, created by the union of four vertebrae, which are both legs and supports of the top, and by a tube that connects them together.
Summer Room by Bethan Laura Wood explores the relevance of having a ‘room’s for one’s own’ in the tradition of Virginia Woolf through the aesthetics of British Aesthetic Movement and Art Nouveau. More rugs are also presented on the upper floor from Caturegli/Formica’s series Virus, Women, Acid-Base, Chromosome Paintings and Tiger Tracks.
Finally, the middle floor’s selection is completed by Vibeke Fonnesberg Schmidt’s Piero Lights, three sconces, a chandelier and the IVI table light born from the intersection between color, materials and form.
Colors and unconventional shapes are also the watchwords of Emissive Chandelier from the Emissive Shaders Series by Audrey Large: a digitally handcrafted model brought into the physical realm through various digital fabrication processes.
The Como-based design studio Draga & Aurel presented The Candy Box, a series composed of modular coffee tables, a night table and a suspension lamp, called Bon Bon, PY and Caramel respectively. The collection is entirely made of resin in accordance with their previous collections and their distinguishing production techniques.
Draga & Aurel’s smooth and sinuous furniture pieces are put in dialogue with the Shaggy Double Lounging Sofa by John Brevard: a contemporary handmade sofa made of buclè fabric. Finally, Craftmania designed by Carlo Lorenzetti, Etienne Marc and Odd Matter and curated by Studio Vedet, is a series of collectible design objects in which craftmanship, art, traditions, science and progress come hand in hand and collaborate.
Nilufar Gallery
Originally located in via Bigli and specializing in antique carpets, Nilufar Gallery moved to via della Spiga and ventured into modern and contemporary design by the late 1990s, exhibiting works by the great mid-century designers alongside unique carpets, cutting-edge furniture designs and pieces by emerging talents.
In 2015, Nina Yashar opened Nilufar Depot in a former silverware factory building. A large 1,500 square-meter space spread over three floors and located in via Lancetti (Milan) that is inspired by La Scala Opera House in Milan and that hosts a selection of the extensive Nilufar collection, in a setting where contemporary design harmoniously dialogues with iconic historical design pieces.
