You might have noticed that we are quite smitten with the works of our current cover star, Martino Gamper – it is the kind of work that you might not quite get yourself to like the first time around, but then you find it slowly growing on you, and as we all know, these are the works that stay around the longest. So we’re going to present every now and then one of his projects here, including a brief excerpt from our conversation with Martino. And where better to start than with his iconic 100 Chairs in 100 Days, which was, well, exactly that. Gamper at the perfect temperature, we thinks.
When you made 100 Chairs, was the restriction of creating each chair within a day useful?
It meant you couldn’t be too precious about the ideas. I think that anyone who performs, who makes something, knows the feeling of not having time is an interesting aspect. It creates a different energy rather than pressure. In fact, the whole concept was to sketch – not with a pen, but in 3D.
How did you feel about the result when a chair was finished? Was the outcome similar to what you had in mind?
Initially, I had very low expectations; I was happy to get one chair a day finished. But as the project grew, I had to live up to the chairs from the previous days… So this became a constant challenge, to not repeat myself and to create an interesting character every time.
Do you find now that you like the pieces best that at the time you weren’t sure about?
Yes, some of them. There were chairs that I didn’t like that much at first, but as time passed, I made friends with them.
Image: Barbapapa, from 100 Chairs in 100 Days and its 100 Ways
Photography by Åbäke and Martino Gamper
