spotless bananas & avocados turn into functional objects in robert stadler's 'OMG-GMO'

Carwan Gallery presents ‘OMG-GMO’ by Robert Stadler

From April 13-23, 2023, Carwan Gallery brings OMG-GMO, an exclusive commissioned by Robert Stadler, to Fuorisalone 2023. For this special project, the designer wittily comments on the relationship between humans and the environment through the genetic manipulation of fruits and vegetables, that are transformed into functional ceramic objects. The project is the result of a collaboration between the designer, BITOSSI Ceramiche and Carwan Gallery and will be displayed in an exhibition curated by Nicolas Bellavance-Lecompte, presented in partnership with Association 5VIE, as part of their official selection of curated projects for Milan Design Week.

all images by Filippo Telaro

flawless fruit and vegetables turn into playful furniture

In his exclusive commission for Carwan Gallery (find more here), Robert Stadler (find more here) addresses the artificiality of the tame fruit and vegetables we cultivate and consume, highlighting the fact that their current form is the result of a very long process of agricultural domestication, selective breeding, and bioengineering. ‘Designed’ over thousands of years, farming products such as tomatoes, bananas, eggplants, and many others bear little resemblance to their wild, undomesticated relatives. In recent years, this engineering has become even more extreme, involving genetic modification and sophisticated growing techniques that produce fruits and vegetables of almost artificial perfection and symmetry – such as square watermelons, straight cucumbers, seedless oranges, calibrated cherries, white strawberries, and more.

For the project ‘OMG-GMO’, Robert Stadler borrows the forms of these engineered fruits and vegetables to create ten ceramic, hand-painted objects that ironically transform the organic into something structural and functional. Conceived as a series of small-scale monuments, these objects both criticize and mock human manipulation of nature: a slice of Japanese rectangular seedless watermelon becomes a stool, zucchini bends in a perfect L-shape to form a shelf, and wheel-like eggplants support a glass coffee table, in a reference to Gae Aulenti’s Tavolo con Ruote. Each object transforms a fruit or vegetable in a functional and refined way, with BITOSSI’s ceramists mimicking their color and texture in every detail. After Milan, the series will travel to Greece to be exhibited at Carwan’s flagship in Piraeus in the summer of 2023.