FENDI triclinium installation at design miami references historical portraits of reclining women

FENDI presents ‘Triclinium’ by Lukas Gschwandtner

For Design Miami/ 2022, FENDI invited Vienna-based artist Lukas Gschwandtner to create the ‘Triclinium’ installation that references historical portraits of women reclining on furniture. The exhibit presents a selection of canvas-covered chaise longues and wearable textile sculptures that reflect Gschwandtner’s connection to the history of ancient Rome, the ‘Eternal City’ where the Italian luxury house was founded. The artist sees the new work as an opportunity to engage with boundaries and experiences, presenting it as an iteration of his case study series ‘Pillow Portraits’.

The installation consists of various chair designs and also includes a disassembled FENDI Peekaboo handbag lying on the floor to reveal its internal construction. The piece deals with the size and dimensions of the human body, as well as its interaction with space, furniture, and objects in historical and contemporary contexts. Through the work, the Austrian artist explores the body language suggested by a piece of furniture and how this suggestion is interrupted and repurposed through its use.

view of the ‘Triclinium’ installation at Design Miami/ | image courtesy of James Harris (also header image)

the connection between Fendi and LUKAS Gschwandtner

While working on this piece, Lukas Gschwandtner discovered a personal connection between FENDI’s historical relationship to leather production and his own background in leather craftsmanship. At the same time, the Vienna-based artist recognized a material connection in the Italian brand’s use of Calico, a heavy, plain-woven textile made of unbleached cotton. Commonly used for toiles – a sample garment made to test a pattern – this fabric had also already established itself as a key motif in Gschwandtner’s practice, allowing him to focus on pure form.

In the work, the canvas is seen as undergarments and the additional textile layers as ‘dresses’, whose material relationship allows the artist to play with proportions and visual weight. When wearing the Pillow Portraits, the wearer’s body assumes the pose of a corresponding work of art, such as Antonio Canova’s Pauline Bonaparte as Venus Victrix, Titian’s Venus of Urbino and Sleeping Ariadne, the reclining Roman Hadrianic sculpture also evoked in the Giorgio de Chirico painting Solitude, where she appears against a backdrop of arches reminiscent of the FENDI headquarters at Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana.

the installation consists of various chair designs and a disassembled FENDI Peekaboo handbag l image © designboom

guests immersed in space and texture

By drawing simplified forms from paintings and artworks, Gschwandtner’s canvas sculptures abstract their historical, class, and gender context, creating space for personal interpretation. The final piece to complete the installation at Design Miami/ 2022 (find more here) is a reinterpreted FENDI Peekaboo handbag, for which the artist filled each compartment of the bag with plaster before cutting away the original material to reveal the internal construction printed on the cast. The empty space between the various scattered elements of the exhibit leaves room for free navigation, allowing guests to immerse themselves in space, and texture.

In Triclinium, Gschwandtner creates both a subconscious and physical space for conversation, in dialogue with the work, oneself and with others. He reflects on how museums are more often experienced and how ancient surfaces are read in relation to a contemporary inclination for documentation and dissemination.