RADICAL thinker

Architect, artist, and designer Gaetano Pesce’s six decades of work span ambitious architecture projects, iconic furniture designs, and, most recently, the set for Bottega Veneta’s Spring/Summer 2023 show.

Gaetano Pesce was born in La Spezia in 1939, and began to exhibit his art at the age of 18. After studying architecture at the University of Venice, Pesce taught at the Institut d’Architecture et d’Etudes Urbaines in Strasbourg; Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh; the Domus Academy in Milan; the Polytechnic of Hong Kong; the Architectural School of São Paulo; and the Cooper Union in New York. His works are part of the permanent collections of some of the most famous museums in the world. Pesce began experimenting with polyurethane, foam, and resin early in his career, and it is these materials, with their bold colors, tactility, ability to respond to light, and artisanal finishes that have catalyzed attention to Pesce’s work and fixed it within the collective imagination.

You moved to New York in 1980, after having lived in

L’OFFICIEL: Venice, London, Helsinki, and Paris. What drew you to New York?

New York, and in particular Brooklyn, is

GAETANO PESCE: undoubtedly where the creativity of the inhabitants suggests new ways of speaking, dressing, and behaving. After a few years, these ways of presenting, discovered in New York, are assimilated around the world and used as fashions, unfortunately also with a certain superficiality. New York is the place that best captures the values of a time. My job is to observe those that arrive and those that remain, possibly making them subjects of my work. For example: the puppet supported by strings, the subject of my industrial skin [a wall-mounted design made with a liquid material that quickly solidifies], says, It is only this ridiculous figure who still believes in equality. I am convinced that this belief does not belong to those who know New York well. My home is located on the East River, because I have always loved the mobility of water, its different shine, its richness of color. When you look at it, it reflects the sky.