It was a series of firsts for Loewe at Milan Design Week 2024; the first time showing its design week installation in the heart of Brera at the historic Palazzo Citterio, and the first time that creative director Jonathan Anderson and all of the 24 featured artists had worked in the medium of light.
’Each season we want to tackle different things within the interior, within how Loewe can explore different possibilities within the function of interior, and for me it was something that we had never tackled,’ Anderson told Wallpaper* as the presentation got underway this week. ’I think it’s something quite beautiful, the idea of illumination within the house [and] within the home.’
Let there be light: ‘Loewe Lamps’ at Milan Design Week 2024
Many of the 24 pieces had already found a home by the end of the week, with that elusive red sticker to be seen on the majority of the works. Comprising floor, table, ceiling and installation lamps, the collection was both a celebration of experimentation and the individual, often rare, techniques of each artist.
See the spherical tower by Dahye Jeong (winner of the 2022 Loewe Craft Prize), which was created using a traditional horsehair weaving method that Jeong is thought to be one of the only artisans in the world using, or the suspending calabash fruit shells by Young Song Lee, each covered in coiled mulberry tree paper hand-rolled by Lee herself. Enrico David’s curved table lamp featuring a backlit woman’s profile was engineered from onyx and glass; and Anthea Hamilton’s kimono-inspired installation came to life through a combination of lacquered wood and privacy glass, giving the ordinary an extraordinary spin.
’Loewe’s team are willing to take a leap of faith and make anything become a reality, so why not make a kimono a lamp?’ said Hamilton, who was inspired by the Italian Radical Design movement and the creations of Gaetano Pesce for the project. ‘My lamp is for a dreamer, it is an oversized, glowing body to watch over you whilst you sleep.’
While it may have been the first time this group of artists has come together to celebrate Salone, each has worked in some form with Loewe before, including Anne Low, who won the Loewe Craft Prize in 2019, and Magali Reus who worked with Anderson in the early days of his Loewe shows.
‘Loewe Lamps’ was not the only event staged by Anderson during Milan Design Week. A few blocks away, off Via Montenapoleone, a collaboration with the American artist Patrick Carroll for his eponymous brand JW Anderson was unveiled (it was staged in JW Anderson Milan store, which opened in 2023).
‘Days’ with Patrick Carroll at JW Anderson, Milan
Entitled ‘Days’, the event featured 37 works by Carroll, who stretches fabrics he has knitted onto wooden bars to appear like canvases, each of which features a quote, a message or a word derived from the central theme of queer art of the 20th century.
‘Some of them name paintings, like Boys Do Fall in Love, [by] Patrick Angus (1984) and there's one that is a quotation from a Derek Jarman journal. So in part, it's kind of trying to construct a narrative or a sensibility of a historical study,’ Carroll told Wallpaper*.
Carroll and Anderson have worked together once before, for Anderson’s first Milan catwalk in June 2022, where models wore Carroll’s knitted outfits to welcome guests to the show.
’I think that for each of us, it's pretty evident what we admire in each other's work,’ Carroll continued. ’Which is primarily an investment in art and the history of art and a desire to continue that history on.’
‘Loewe Lamps’ is on view at the Palazzo Citterio, Milan, until 21 April 2024.
‘Days’, an installation showcasing Patrick Carroll’s artworks, is on view at JW Anderson Milan now.
