Artist:
Mauricio Lupini (born 1963 in Caracas, Venezuela; lives and works in Rome, Italy).

Materials:
Upholstered Gio Ponti “Leggera” chairs.

Description:
“The series of works Stack chairs Caracas 1, Caracas 2 and Teheran are made with “Leggera” chairs (designed by Gio Ponti in 1951) and reupholstered with fabric impressions of 2011 newspapers from Venezuela and Iran. During the 50s, Ponti was invited to Caracas and Tehran to build up three private villas (Planchart, Arreaza, and Namezee) in the context of the process of modernization that involves these countries. Each Stack chairs is related to one building and by the application of some ideas of Ponti an Fornasetti, such as the tower display and the newspaper prints, the work confronts the utopia of 50’s design with contemporary history. Each set of chairs can be exhibited as a tower or naturally used as a seat.”
—”Stack Chairs,” Mauricio Lupini website.

“It would initially appear as if, with this exhibition, Mauricio Lupini wants to point out an unfinished and, therefore, failed Venezuelan modern project. Despite this apparent negative take on modernity, the exhibition could not avoid prompting our own experience of it and filling us with nostalgia. We did not have to look hard to find the essence of how modernity occurred in Venezuela. There, where the ample and modern spaces found in many constructions in Caracas; at the entrance, we find the philodendrons that even today welcome us as in the exhibition to many houses or quintas in Caracas. There are the Stack Chairs with Gio Ponti’s 969 Chairs; the very simple but beautiful Superleggera, also by Gio Ponti, were impossible to acquire for this exhibition, and even the modernist lamps we used to like so much, never mind that these are unplugged, without their cables, and unable to perform their functions. ”
—Iris Peruga, “Mauricio Lupini at Périférico Caracas,” ArtNexus 78 (September-November, 2010).