ALL IS WELL-GUESS WHO I AM?
2024 Fuorisalone | Milan Design Week | Tortona Design District
April 16-21, 2024
Space Model+Studio, via Novi 2/Via Tortona, Milan
Opening Tuesday 16 April at 4pm
After the solo exhibition Floral Window at the Triennale di Milano, presented on the occasion of the Fuorisalone 2018, six years later the Chinese designer Ma Cong finally returns to Milan with his new project at the Fuorisalone 2024. The Spazio Model+Studio in Via Novi, at the crossroads with Via Tortona, will host the ambitious exhibition event ALL IS WELL- GUESS WHO I AM?
If Ma Cong’s “All is Well” at the 2019 Venice Biennale was a brilliant response to the theme “May You Live in Interesting Times”—a Western misconception and misrepresentation of Chinese culture—then this year’s “All is Well” IP at Milan Design Week expands its reach globally, addressing the significant “trap” that lies beneath the prosperous surface of the information age: the rampant spread of rumors, fake news, and asymmetric information on global social platforms.
During this year’s Milan Design Week , in the Tortona district, visitors will see the pig head emoji from “ All/Pig is Well ” transformed into a wearable “headgear” for IP characters. This image pays homage to Anton Chekhov’s classic work “The Man in a Case” – contemporary individuals immersed in a deluge of information, but lacking sufficient vigilance, turn into unwitting “men in cases.”
Between black humor and artistic vein, Ma Cong presents conflicting elements that generate entertainment but also reflection.
Take the IP sculpture series “ Guess who I am ?” as an example: it is inspired by a children’s game. The cute IP characters cover the eyes of classical sculptures from Eastern and Western cultures in a seemingly playful manner, with some scenes even replicated from the artist’s childhood memories. The juxtaposition of solemn historical sculptures with IP pig-head images creates disorientation, while the exaggerated body movements and ambiguous “Emoji” expressions of the IP characters suggest a deeper reality: is contemporary society’s reliance on social media, primarily for entertainment purposes, becoming a brake on the narrative of our times?
These interpretations are not the only correct answers, but it is certain that each viewer can have his or her own idea in front of the IP sculptures " All is Well ". This varied and subjective perception is precisely what the artist pursues: to provoke thought without giving answers, to reveal without showing everything - according to an artistic philosophy imbued with oriental romanticism. The design objects created by Ma Cong are able to capture the delicate balance between traditional oriental culture and contemporary aesthetics. The "Cultural Heritage" collection combines more traditional Chinese techniques of intangible cultural heritage and new materials such as gold leaf, lacquer, ceramic, velvet flowers, filigree, acrylic resin - a skillful blend of ancient and modern, East and West.
Ma Cong created an IP character for the iconic item known as the “emoji headdress”: IP art as an emotional bridge between contemporary art and everyday life.
The IP -ALL IS WELL project will be developed in various collections of furniture and design objects. Representatives of the collaborating Italian companies and a delegation of senior executives from the Jiangsu Region who financed Ma Cong's project at Fuorisalone 2024 will be present at the opening .
Ma Cong and her innovative brand Hundredicrafts have gained international recognition, winning numerous awards such as the German "Red Dot" Design Award, the Italian A'DESIGN Award, and several gold awards at the "Baihua Cup". Hundredicrafts has also been frequently invited to showcase work at prestigious design events such as Milano Design Week, Milano Triennale, Salone del Mobile Milano, London Design Week, and Paris Design Week.
From “Running Cloud” being named “the most beautiful work of the exhibition” at 100% Design Exhibition in London, to “Floral Window: the Sparks of Literary Mind” which made it into the “TOP 30” of Milan Design Week 2018, and then “RUYI” in collaboration with Italian furniture brand Savio Firmino in 2019, the Ma Cong team has as its distinctive feature the contemporary transformation and innovation of traditional Chinese culture.
Event coordinates:
Title: ALL IS WELL- GUESS WHO I AM?
Headquarters: Spazio MODEL + STUDIO, Via Novi 2/Via Tortona, Milan
Opening: Tuesday 16 April 2024 at 16.00
Date: April 16-21, 2024
Opening hours: 10.00-19.00
Organization: MA-EC Gallery Milano
info: +39 02 39831335
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