Friedman Benda Presents Andrea Branzi At Design Miami/Basel

“The distance between the natural world and the artificial world no longer exists today, because the latter has become second nature.  So when I gather together nature, techniques, industry, arts and crafts, high technology and archetypes, everything seems much clearer.” 

-Andrea Branzi 

For Friedman Benda’s fifth annual solo exhibition at Design Miami/Basel, the gallery will present a survey of the seminal Italian architect, designer and theoretician Andrea Branzi.  

 Throughout his influential career spanning more than six decades, Branzi has held a lifelong fascination with how humans interact with their objects, and has sought to reconcile design and architecture with the evolving challenges of contemporary society. As a prominent theorist, Branzi has offered an analytical and academic approach to the discipline. His radical poetic interpretation of the domestic space challenged the necessity of practicality and rationality, and moved the field of design away from function and towards individuality and expression. This past year Branzi was awarded the Rolf Schock Prize in the Visual Arts in recognition for his significant contribution to criticism and research in the field.  

Genetic Metropolis showcases the gallery’s collaboration with Branzi for the past ten years, and marks the first time Planks, Stones, and Trees will be brought together into one installation. Examples from these ambitious projects were presented in an honorary setting in 2017 at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and several were previously exhibited at his retrospective at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Bordeaux in 2014.  

Highlighting fundamental anchor points from his oeuvre, the installation includes representations from his groundbreaking Animali Domestici series and key works from Alchimia’s bau. haus II collection. Through examples rarely shown outside of a museum context, such as Madri, an early painting from 1965, this exhibition shows the development of a methodology and visual language that defined his career. An innovative new body of work will be unveiled, demonstrating the evolution of his practice. 

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue with critical texts by Branzi and an essay by design historian Glenn Adamson.  

Contact: Abby Addams