A Concrete Poetry at Alcova 2023
FAIR PARTICIPATION: ‘A CONCRETE POETRY’
SALONE DEL MOBILE MILANO
17 APR - 23 APR 2023
We were THRILLED to BE showing AT THE Salone del Mobile Milano, at Alcova,
THIS APRIL 17TH-23RD 2023, which attracted a record number of 90,000 visitors.
PRESENTED ARTISTS:
STEFAN BUXBAUM
FRANZ FERRO
Our show A CONCRETE POERTY was part of Alcova’s commitment to ‘bring historical and significant spaces for the city to life in transforming them into a stage of unrivalled beauty for a selection of designers shaping the future’.
We were participating in the fifth edition of the trailblazing Alcova event with selected pieces by Stefan Buxbaum and Franz Ferro. A new collection of 12 unique cast concrete cabinets and a desk evoke a surprising sensation in contrast to the softness and sensibility of nature and plant specimens cast onto them. The ’stone’ pieces perfectly blend into the overgrown and concrete beauty and deserted ruin aesthetic of the Alcova site, where nature has become a charming part of this brutalist architecture.
The cupboards of Stefan Buxbaum - a casting and concrete expert - are technical feats: the corpus is cast in one piece, in a lightweight technique. For his emblematic plant models, the artist applies his chosen specimens and petrifies those paragons of beauty as permanent reliefs onto the surfaces.
Franz Ferro’s new concrete desk, an elegant piece of ‘stone’, is perfect to get immersed in one’s tasks. The desk distinguishes itself through its pure form where a simple concrete volume carries a wooden plane.
The two materials form a seamless natural togetherness.
SOME OF THE FEATURED ARTWORKS / CABINETS
Stefan Buxbaum
Wisdom Stone At Home, concrete cabinet 2023
Cast concrete and metal with stone texture; concrete shelves
121 x 68 x 43 cm / 47.64” x 26.77 x 16.93”
Stefan Buxbaum
Cherry Tree, concrete cabinet 2023
Cast concrete and metal with plant relief; concrete shelves
180 x 90 x 50 cm
Stefan Buxbaum
Black Night, concrete cabinet 2021
Cast concrete with dark pigments and metal with plant imprints; concrete shelves
121 x 68 x 43 cm / 47.64” x 26.77 x 16.93”
Stefan Buxbaum
Mora Thicket / Blackberry concrete sideboard 2021
SIZE: H: 85 L: 165 D: 38 cm // H: 33.46", L: 64.96", D: 14.96
MATERIAL: cast concrete with plant reliefs, dark grey pigment, stainless steel feet, and concrete shelves. Suitable for outdoors.
Stefan Buxbaum
Forest Coat concrete sideboard 2021
SIZE: H: 85 L: 165 D: 38 cm // H: 33.46", L: 64.96", D: 14.96
MATERIAL: cast concrete with plant reliefs, dark grey pigment, stainless steel feet, and concrete shelves. Suitable for outdoors.
Stefan Buxbaum
Mugwort Dream, concrete cabinet 2021
Cast concrete and metal with plant imprints; concrete shelves
121 x 68 x 43 cm / 47.64” x 26.77 x 16.93”
Stefan Buxbaum
Crochet Planet, concrete cabinet 2023
Cast concrete and metal with crochet and plant reliefs; concrete shelves
180 x 90 x 50 cm
Stefan Buxbaum
Forest Spring, tall white concrete cabinet 2023
Cast concrete with white pigment, and metal with crochet and plant reliefs; concrete shelves
180 x 90 x 50 cm
About the venue
“The venue for the 2023 edition, the Porta Vittoria Abattoir, is an immense and abandoned infrastructural complex that occupies a deep block south of the Porta Vittoria railway link. With an area of about 15 hectares, it was in the past the seat of the municipal slaughterhouse and an important logistics node in the city.
Built between 1912 and 1914 following designs by Giannino Ferrini and Giovanni Filippini, engineers of the municipal technical office, it was progressively decommissioned between 1995 and 2005.”
Alcova is a platform for designers and companies investigating the future of living and making. Each year, during Salone del Mobile, Alcova brings together the people and institutions defning design culture today through ground-breaking work on living environments, products, systems, materials and technological innovation.
About the artists
STEFAN BUXBAUM (austria)
Buxbaum was born in Austria in 1971, studied sculpture at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna, and since 2003 has been working in the fields of sculpture, design, and furniture. As a casting specialist, his preferred material is concrete where he constantly challenges its qualities and limitations to staggering results. There is a technical sophistication inherent in his work, which has its own melody and adds a new lightness and aesthetic to the gravity of the material.
Franz Ferro (Austria)
Born in 1984, Ferro grew up in a craftsmanship environment and a family workshop dedicated to carpentry. After his first paths of being a chef, he continued to study an MA for Sociology at the University of Vienna. After that he reconnected with his roots and undertook a diploma in interiors, furniture construction & design. In 2022, he established his own practice and carpentry workshop for interiors and furniture.