Armando Testa transforms a lemon into a lightbulb for Milan Design Week 2023

Italian designer Armando Testa participated in the group show FIAT BULB. La sindrome di Edison in Pavilion 15 of the Salone del Mobile.Milano, reinventing the Lampadina Limone from 1968. Lampadina Limone was published on the cover of the magazine L’ufficio Modern (The modern office), on November 11 1968, and was turned into a sculptural work Sintesi '59. For Salone del Mobile.Milano Armando Testa's principle was— “Never rely on ideas taken from others, rather always meditate on the forms of everyday life by transforming a lemon into a light bulb." In addition to synthesis and humour, the unprecedented has always been Testa’s winning card.

FIAT BULB. Sindrome di Edison (FIAT BULB. The Edison Syndrome) is an exhibition that pays tribute to an object, the classic incandescent lightbulb, its intrinsic power bound up with its apparently simple, firmly embedded and therefore iconic and recognisable shape. The history of the contemporary lightbulb is that through art and design, it is structured as a sequence of lightbulbs that switch from their primary and pragmatic use into unsettling objects and small experimental installations—astonishing and paradoxical. Devised in a cyclical form and created from cool, industrial materials, far removed from any customary household function, the show revolves around the idea of the 'seriality' of its subject, its apparent repetition as a form, allied with its uniqueness as a work.