WORKS

Presented in its first version on August 23, 1985 (its author’s birthday) along with a table by Mimmo Paladino, this bed formed part of the “Buon Compleanno” (“Happy Birthday”) series in which artists were invited by the Galleria Speciale to interpret household furniture as “ceremonial places,” the bed is made up of a set of palanquins that acquire significance only when assembled, when united according to an elementary scheme that could in theory be continued ad infinitum, creating a “place” of greater and greater intensity. As Pettena said on that occasion, “it is a route to be taken together and it is only when the whole group is assembled that the series of sedan chairs becomes a homogeneous, symmetrical, balanced space, an enclosure, a place of ceremony (or sacrifice?), a moment, a sequence of enchantments and/or stunning sensory perceptions.”