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Take a screenshot: Dedar launches fabric wall panels by Martino Gamper and Brigitte Niedermair
If the image looks familiar, that’s because you’ve probably seen hundreds of versions of it before online, though never, it’s fairly safe to say, in this way.
In a collaboration between designer Martino Gamper and the artist Brigitte Niedermair, Screenshot is a series of blue-themed wall panels that pay homage to historical greats such as Yves Klein, Picasso, Van Gogh, Giotto and Matisse via a series of large, framed fabric wall panels.
The abstract works, appearing as tiles in slightly different shades and dimensions, have been determined by searching – with very bad wifi – for the artists’ images on the internet. The nominal "screenshot" is of the moment just before the images fully load, when all the screen displays is a series of coloured squares.
Sometimes, it would seem, the patchy internet coverage of Italy can be a good thing. It’s good in Milan during Salone, when it forces you to forget uploading that latest Instagram in favour of actually talking to a designer over an espresso. It’s good in Puglia when it allows you to relax and enjoy the scenery just that little bit more than many of us have become used to lately. And it was good when Gamper and Niedermair were driving to Dedar’s headquarters and factory in Como, brainstorming ideas for a brief which had thrown them unexpectedly together to celebrate the interior textile house’s 40th anniversary.
Initially, says Gamper, the pair were imagining that they would work with Dedar’s considerable archive, somehow translating the textiles in a new way through a design or pop-up. “And then we were talking in the car on the way there and researching ideas as we went on our smart phones. But in that area there is not a good connection. And at certain times we tried to search for an image but the screen came up like this, very, very, very slowly.”
Neidermair nods. “We thought, wow, this could be an idea. And we wondered, maybe we should look at what happens when you put in Pablo Picasso through Google. The screen came up all blue. And I was like, okay, this could be really interesting.”
When the pair returned home they began investigating the idea further. “But here in London the connection is just too good,” she laughs. “You have to have very bad wifi, but if you’re very quick, you can make the first screenshots. So in the end, this is a screenshot. It’s a photography project of sorts.”
Gamper and Neidermair decided to choose a group of artists who are celebrated for using the colour blue. “From the screenshot photography, I transformed each single colour into a pattern and then we tried to transform that onto Dedar’s Tabularasa textile,” says Neidermair. “And from that, we transformed it into designs, objects.”
The result is a highly unexpected project, which takes the idea of a wall decoration, combining the realms of three-dimensional design and art history, and produces a series of beautifully printed panels framed in teak and brass. The panels can be customised into any number of configurations, so offering various opportunities and possibilities. For Dedar, it perfectly expresses the company’s longstanding role as a champion and patron of art, creativity and craftsmanship.
Dedar, now run by brother and sister Caterina and Rafaele Fabrizio, is a family business with a track record for developing high-end and adventurous textiles. Working with producers of silks, wools, jacquards, velvets and cottons, and making much use of Milan’s thriving fashion industry, Dedar has worked with a range of creatives in the past, but – at the suggestion of curator Helen Nonini – this is the first time an artist and a designer have been paired up in one project.
Niedermair is well-known for her work with luxury labels such as Dior, her fashion photography and other artistic projects. Martino, primarily a furniture designer, is best known for his exhibition “100 Chairs in 100 Days”.
According to Caterina Fabrizio the idea of putting them together was immediately attractive. “We wanted to move away from what we already know – covering a wall with paper or stretched fabric – to an object with an artistic and design identity of its own,” she says. “We felt Martino and Brigitte could close the gap between art and design. Both starting from very strong concepts, they work in a very similar artisanal way. Craftsmanship is a common feature in their philosophy, and the results are elegant and contemporary.”
Gamper agrees the synergy was a strong one. “We have a nice relationship and friendship, we come from the same place in Italy, so we’re speaking our home language and it’s very easy. And we don’t have big egos - we’re just trying to do something interesting, something playful but in the end something very deep with different layers. You can look with this work in many different ways.”
“Yes,” says Neidermair. “This is just the beginning.”
Maybe next time you’re willing the wifi to work that little bit faster, you’ll now be encouraged to relax. Stand back. And imagine those partially loaded colour blocks on your wall.
Screenshot will be exhibited during Milan design week on April 6-7 at Gallerie Sotheby's, Palazzo Serbelloni, Corso Venezia 16; dedar.com