{"id":16621,"date":"2014-09-21T13:53:21","date_gmt":"2014-09-21T11:53:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.area-arch.it\/a-double-interview-to-gaetano-pesce-and-paulo-antonio-pedo-filho-melissas-manager-2\/"},"modified":"2015-10-08T12:25:06","modified_gmt":"2015-10-08T10:25:06","slug":"a-double-interview-to-gaetano-pesce-and-paulo-antonio-pedo-filho-melissas-manager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.area-arch.it\/en\/a-double-interview-to-gaetano-pesce-and-paulo-antonio-pedo-filho-melissas-manager\/","title":{"rendered":"A double interview to Gaetano Pesce and Paulo Antonio Ped\u00f3 Filho, Melissa\u2018s Manager"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marco Casamonti<\/b><\/span>: You are a designer who has given proof of great versatility over the years, working in every field, as an architect planning both buildings and interiors, as a designer of furniture and accessories for the home, and now you have, with surprising naturalness, dedicated yourself to designing clothes and shoes. It is certainly a matter of an unusual trajectory, and I therefore believe it would be interesting for the readers to understand how you have immersed yourself in this new kind of project.
\nGaetano Pesce<\/b><\/span>: I would say without any difficulty. It may be interesting to suggest the idea that every designer\u00a0or architect who exercises\u00a0a creative profession may design or cut or alter shoes, without any great effort, turning them into industrial design items or one-offs,\u00a0as long as he feels like it and wants to do so.
\nM.C.<\/b><\/span>: Melissa is a company inclined to involve designers who are not necessarily operating within the specialized fashion sector; in fact, it is known that this has worked well with other architects who had designed objects for the home. Has the relationship with the company, and in particular the work on the product, been more difficult and complex than your previous experiences?
\n<\/span>G.P.<\/b><\/span>: No, no! It has been very easy. Fortunately they are people who want to find innovative solutions. Melissa is a company that interprets research in a way I feel very much at home with, if anything I have had the feeling that other colleagues that the company has worked with\u00a0in the past, as for instance the Campana brothers, have used a number of codes inspired by my approach, creating a shoe model enveloped in spaghetti; others, on the contrary, have ideated very traditional, I would even say banal, products, because some of them are not so much authentic innovators in the field of design as decorators. It is important to define and recognize the role of the designer, he is a researcher who designs by working in-depth on the whole process, while there are many who often only skim the surface, decorators who work on the forms, that may also be elegant, but they are only the outer layer of what we understand as design.\u00a0Melissa has understood this concept well, because I see my shoes in the shops of New York and in the whole world, and this is a good sign.
\nM.C.<\/b><\/span>: The interesting and innovative aspect of your design is that also those who buy a pair of shoes may intervene, take off pieces, change them; it seems to be an aspect that is live and not imposed, we may say it is\u00a0a matter of a democratic shoe, in the sense that everyone can design and modify it in his own way.
\nG.P.<\/b><\/span>: True. I went to\u00a0a presentation in a gallery\u00a0in Rome last November, and the moment I entered I noticed that someone there had already bought my shoes,\u00a0a young lady who had arranged them the way she preferred. I was very pleased, because it meant, in the first place, that the message had been received, and furthermore that creativity is not a privilege but an opportunity that belongs\u00a0to everyone, it is not\u00a0a limited and limiting condition, because if you provoke creativity, people can express themselves.\u00a0These results are very important and gratifying for me and for my work.
\nM.C.<\/b><\/span>: This seems to be the truly innovative aspect\u00a0of the Melissa project: the fact that you have conceived the design of a shoe as an open, developing project\u2026
\nG.P.<\/b><\/span>: It is an open project capable of industrializing objects that refuse to adapt\u00a0to a standard, it is a matter of the future of industrial production, also in the sense of adaptation and alteration. A product that, in the final analysis, refuses the marketing of items that are all identical to one another, as if there did not exist an original, but only an infinite series of copies;by adopting this strategy,\u00a0on the contrary, every piece\u00a0is different, unique, individual.
\nM.C.<\/b><\/span>: It is a matter of\u00a0a strategy that somehow creates an interaction and relationship between the world of art and the world\u00a0of industrial design…
\nG.P.<\/b><\/span>: Precisely. And, with regard to art, I would like\u00a0to underscore, as aim and goal, that art has never been what we think about or discuss today; art has always been\u00a0a \u201cuseful\u201d art that has served to meet precise and determined requirements; the necessity of a portrait,\u00a0of a representation within the walls of the home,\u00a0of a landscape, of still lives. In the final analysis, in the past the market did not so much require art for art\u2019s own sake as it required products created by means of painting, sculpture or other forms and disciplines of entertainment, as music and dance. This is why I believe one must pay attention when speaking about art because, as I see it, it only has a future if it is useful for society, for the lives of people. Now it seems to me that art is sometimes only useful for those who visit museums of contemporary art, who as Baudrillard put it do not understand anything; everyone say that what they see,\u00a0or witness, is extremely interesting without knowing why, a condition that probably often also applies to the authors.
\nM.C.<\/b><\/span>: Returning to Melissa,\u00a0I would like to understand the relationship between those who think and design and those who produce; in the final analysis the company has really produced a product\u00a0in the style of Gaetano Pesce,\u00a0in the sense that it has tried, also in terms of the material used, to get closer to\u00a0a whole way of thinking and working, to your resins,\u00a0to your experience with plastics, in short, it has identified itself completely with your approach.
\nG.P.<\/b><\/span>: What we usually do when we work experimentally, especially when Melissa has come to see the product, is to present a shoe that is already finished (a perfect model, not a drawing). They have therefore been able to take it back with them, show it to the managers and understand that there was really something innovative in our proposal.\u00a0After which they have cooperated with great skill and attention, and a very high quality workmanship. Perhaps someone still thinks of Brazil\u00a0as a developing country,\u00a0a kind of third world, but\u00a0in the case of Melissa I would say we are speaking of a company on the very highest level and of proven capability.
\nM.C.<\/b><\/span>: We will change subject, from objects to cities, I would like you to briefly tell me what you think about La Spezia and New York. You know the former because it is the city where you were born and for which you have designed\u00a0a fish-shaped dam,\u00a0a visionary, marvellous and amusing project which, however, nobody in Italy has had the courage to build.\u00a0Then I would like a definition for New York, which is the city where you have chosen to live and work.
\nG.P.<\/b><\/span>: First of all I would like\u00a0to say that the place where\u00a0I enjoy most to live is New York, precisely because you find the greatest offer\u00a0of services. New York is still\u00a0a city where people need\u00a0to work, not like Venice\u00a0or probably also Florence,\u00a0it is a city where people want to keep shops open and offices available 24 hours\u00a0a day. In New York it is not the citizens who serve the city, something which happens\u00a0in the old metropolises, but\u00a0it is the city, with its wealth\u00a0of opportunities, that is at the service of those who live there. In a certain sense,\u00a0it is a domestic city. It is not\u00a0a great capital, as everyone thinks, because New York\u00a0is like a village where people communicate easily, where problems are shared.\u00a0As far as La Spezia\u00a0is concerned, as I have already underscored with\u00a0my installation at the Triennale, the considerations I have stigmatized with my crucified Italy apply; our nation suffers because the government has not only ceased to create the services necessary to live decently; it also has a class\u00a0of managers incapable\u00a0of suggesting innovative ideas and projects, a generation unable to elaborate great ideas. We have inherited\u00a0a country from the past that has been able to produce strong and original models, ideas and thoughts that the world has celebrated for centuries, and that it still comes to see.\u00a0Today Italy no longer proposes any great ideas; the fish you were speaking about was a\u00a0project that, if realized, would have attracted visitors to La Spezia which is, vice versa, an unvisitable city, without any attractions if we exclude the fact that it is close to Portovenere.
\nM.C.<\/b><\/span>: I personally found\u00a0it an extraordinary project and I have perceived the embarrassment of the mayor, who thought it was beautiful and interesting but impossible to realize. Vice versa, I think we should try to build and propose extraordinary works to stem banality, attain the unattainable, have visions and try to realize them as our ancestors have done in the past…
\nG.P.<\/b><\/span>: Precisely. We must make a step towards the extraordinary if we want to once more become the prestigious country we have been for centuries. We have ceased to be so, and\u00a0we are no longer even invited to participate in political decisions taken between Germany, France, England, United States and Japan; what we are lacking is the originality we used to have, and that we are no longer able to make germinate and recreate, and this is why life has become gray and people older, sadder and more indifferent.
\nM.C.<\/b><\/span>: Since we have spoken for such a long time about Melissa, what do you think about a city as San Paolo, or rather, what ideas does present-day Brazil suggest?
\n<\/span>G.P.<\/b><\/span>: San Paolo is the equivalent of Milan for Italy. It is a live, very large and densely populated city.\u00a0It is a city that will probably become a world leader within 50 years, because Brazil\u00a0is one of the countries with the greatest natural resources and San Paolo will become the capital of this immense \u201ccapital\u201d.
\nM.C.<\/b><\/span>: Having seen your wonderful and fascinating installation at the Triennale, where you have represented\u00a0a crucified Italy, one\u00a0is overtaken by a feeling\u00a0of distress. In our country there are plenty of persons and companies capable\u00a0of thinking, proposing, designing, but in the public opinion and in the consideration of those who observe us we only seem to live on memory, on past laurels as if we were no longer able to express strong and contemporary values.
\nG.P.<\/b><\/span>: I think Italy has as many intellectual resources as every other developed country, but we do not have oil, uranium, iron; however we do have, and this is universally recognized, a great quality that is worth as much as\u00a0a natural resource, namely creativity, but unfortunately, and also this has been ascertained, we are unable\u00a0to put it into use. We are capable of elaborating great projects, as for instance the bridge on the strait\u00a0of Messina: but to build\u00a0a straight bridge that goes from one side to the other would be the greatest idiocy we could do, because there are thousands of such bridges, the most beautiful of which is the Golden Gate in San Francisco. The challenge\u00a0is to build a bridge that has\u00a0no equal in the world, and\u00a0I have thought that it would\u00a0be \u201cexceptional\u201d to think\u00a0of a development in plan that follows an \u201cS\u201d shape (S as in Sicily), for instance to reduce speed. If the bridge, as I have imagined it, were supported by 20 pillars, representing the 20 regions of Italy, and\u00a0if these supports were to be\u00a0of such a dimension as to house exhibition spaces within for the touristic promotion\u00a0of the places one ideally passed through, then the bridge would really be something unique in the world. The funding, finally, could come from contributions from every region in Italy, in some way restoring to Sicily what it has not received in the past.
\nM.C.<\/b><\/span>: Returning to your project for Melissa, do you consider the fact that these plastic shoes are recyclable, environmentally friendly, is an important and essential part of the project,\u00a0or is it a matter of an accessory condition, because everything must be politically correct today?<\/span> And how important a role has this idea of eco-strategy played with respect to the project in general and your relationship with the corporate structure, its philosophy and way to work?
\n<\/span>G.P.<\/b><\/span>: If I can answer your first question with a percentage, I would say 30%. As to the considerations on how the company works, I can tell you that Melissa has two owners, who are called Grendene and are from Verona.\u00a0The Italianness therefore has deep roots, and emerges everywhere. Grendene has given a Brazilian of Japanese origin called \u201cMatzuo\u201d, who is the art director, carte blanche in terms of creativity; he travels all over the world to find interesting inspirations which are then used to give the collections their form and identity.
\nM.C.<\/b><\/span>: If you can do so without revealing anything, I would like you to tell me about your last projects, the things you have on your drawing table just now.
\nG.P.<\/b><\/span>: I am working on immense armchairs; the large size means that the structure of the objects comes to play an important role in our lives. Their dimension becomes macroscopic. I realize these objects for art galleries and I am very interested in them because it is a completely new procedure. The material is the same as in syringes used for transfusions, which makes it possible to create something very interesting when worked at different temperatures.<\/p>\n