Manitoga, in collaboration with Magazzino Italian Art, presents Formafantasma at Manitoga’s Dragon Rock: Designing Nature.
Always interested in the complex relationship between design and the natural world, Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin of the duo Formafantasma present a selection of works in dialogue with Manitoga - the house, studio, and surrounding landscape of the renowned American designer Russel Wright. An iconic example of modernist architecture in the idyllic Hudson Valley region, Wright’s home – known as “Dragon Rock – is made of stone, wood, and glass, and was conceived in dialogue with the landscape in which it was constructed.
The selection of objects, presented in harmony with the architecture of the space, focuses primarily on Formafantasma’s early works, in which the research of materials and preference for the organic, encounter in both familiar and unexpected ways, Wright’s experimental attitude and his vision of architecture as an extension of the surrounding landscape.
Manitoga is open to visitors by guided tours, and can be reserved at visitmanitoga.org.
The installation is possible with the support of Galleria Giustini / Stagetti, Rome.
About Formafantasma
Andrea Trimarchi (1983) and Simone Farresin (1980) are Studio Formafantasma, an Italian designers duo based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Their interest in product design developed on the IM master course at Design Academy Eindhoven, where they graduated in July 2009. Since then, Formafantasma has developed a coherent body of work characterized by experimental material investigations and explored issues such as the relationship between tradition and local culture, critical approaches to sustainability and the significance of objects as cultural conduits. In perceiving their role as a bridge between craft, industry, object and user, they are interested in forging links between their research-based practice and a wider design industry.
Their work has been exhibited internationally in museums such as MoMA, New York, US; Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, US; The Chicago Art Institute, Chicago, US; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, FR; TextielMuseum, Tilburg, NL; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, NL; MUDAC, Lausanne, CH; Mint Museum of Craft and Design, North Carolina, US; and the MAK Museum, Vienna, AT. In March 2011, Paola Antonelli of the Museum of Modern Art in New York and esteemed design critic Alice Rawsthorn listed their studio amongst a handful of practices that would shape the future of design.
About Manitoga
Located in Garrison, New York, approximately one hour north of New York City, Manitoga is the former home, Dragon Rock, and 75-acre woodland landscape of American industrial designer Russel Wright (1904-1976). Manitoga is a National Historic Landmark and one of the few 20th century modern homes with original landscape open to the public.
Manitoga/The Russel Wright Design Center stewards Manitoga as the embodiment of Wright’s design philosophy and life’s work and celebrates good design for living in creative harmony with nature through programs and events. In 2021, the Russel & Mary Wright Design Gallery opened to the public, offering a permanent onsite display of the Wrights’ groundbreaking designs for the American home.