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From Home Furnishing Business

Obradovic & Basedow Bring Collection to Design Miami

November 26, 2024  by Karen Parrish in Business Strategy, Designer Weekly, Industry   

This exhibition project sits at the intersection between art and design and expresses the unique synergy between the creativity of Visionnaire, a symbol of the internationally recognized meta-luxury and excellence of Italian-made products, and the Lake Como-based couple.

Following its Milanese debut, the collection will be making landfall in Miami, embellished in this case by a key element—an artwork by Aurel K. Basedow, entitled AKB_23_101(the artist’s name, the year of creation, and the production number), measuring 100 x 100 cm, once again affirming Draga & Aurel’s role as key players in a course of research that combines two-dimensional painting with the three-dimensionality of design objects.

Narrazioni Intrecciate takes shape from the interaction between Aurel’s pictorial works and the mastery of his partner Draga in converting these ideas onto unprecedented surfaces and materials, particularly in the world of textiles that Draga knows well, “I worked for a long time in fashion as a textile designer and fabrics were my first love, it was natural to imagine bringing Aurel’s works to fabric, as they are so powerful and kinetic,” she says.

These fabrics are the result of a combination of different yarns, designed in an attempt to reproduce Aurel’s unique painting technique, which is marked by strong, vigorous brushstrokes of color, creating unprecedented and unpredictable descriptive elements.

“I converted this technique using various materials to preserve the different levels of interpretation of the work. The splashes of color have been rendered through blends of fine yarns. The shiny shading was achieved using strips of transparent lurex: the shiny effect of the paint was reproduced with polyurethane yarns, while the more tactile effects were rendered with slub cotton, bouclé, and chenille, to best create the texture of Aurel’s brushstrokes”, adds Draga.

Standing out for its intense shade of blue, this exhibition project encourages us to reflect on the concept of layering, whether physical or conceptual. In this setting, the combination of colors emerges as an eloquent tool to describe both the approach and the result itself, enveloping the spaces and the objects in a continuous interaction between art and functionality.

Draga & Aurel’s ability to merge distant but common aesthetic and tactile dimensions is expressed in every item of the collection, transforming design into a multisensory experience that is able to engage the viewer.

The Aries armchair, produced in an 8-piece limited edition, features minimal contours and stands out for its use of fabrics that evoke the complex pictorial layering in Aurel’s artworks. The weave and weft of this jacquard materialize as tactile surfaces, giving the seat an unusual immersive quality.

The three-dimensionality becomes a vehicle through which the color and the material acquire a new level of depth, involving the observer in an experience of expanded expressive perception. The Muse room divider, made from printed satin, plays on alternating levels of transparency and overlapping, bringing out the visual movement of the various layers of color.

The resulting kinetic effect calls to mind the typical dynamism of Aurel’s works, in which the accumulation of signs and colors produces a continuous dialogue between surfaces and space. In this furnishing object, the transposition of the paintings into prints on lightweight materials like organza elevates the visual narrative, giving a tangible form to the duo’s experimental intent.

With the Lego console, geometry manifests itself in a play on shapes that allude to the phases of compositional development. In this context, layering—a central component throughout the collection—becomes a metaphor for the object itself; in this instance, the elements playfully overlapping and coming together are made from concrete and aluminum.

The pendant lamp, Sputnik, is made up of multiple aluminum tubing components with a rhomboid form, which creates an intricate visual effect while the Thessa separè uses the geometrical shape of a square to lend the object a sense of movement.

Finally, a large jacquard tapestry that appears to want to enshroud and embrace all the pieces belonging to this collection is used as an architectural arm to divide the space. Strongly desired by Visionnaire and bearing witness to the company’s commitment to exploring new creative languages, the Narrazioni Intrecciate project marks a further step in the artistic journey of Draga & Aurel, where the boundary between art and design dissolves, leaving room for an open dialogue between materials, forms, perception, and media.

As a whole, the collection doesn’t only consist of functional objects but, rather, intends to reproduce an impressive sensory and visual experience within a simultaneously flowing and layered narrative that is continually evolving and seeks various different levels of interpretation.