'Michele De Lucchi. With the hands and the mind' takes stage at Volumnia

Volumnia presents the exhibition Michele De Lucchi. With the hands and the mind—forty years of experimentation between art, design and architecture, dedicated to Italian architect and designer Michele De Lucchi’s most personal works. Curated by Paola Nicolin and on view from April 8 - September 14, 2024, the show explores his wide-ranging production, from architectural models to his experimental design objects from Produzione Privata (the design workshop founded in 1990 by De Lucchi and Sibylle Kicherer), as well as sculptures and artworks. 

"We wish to continue the story. We like to think that a lively and stimulating conversation has begun between Michele De Lucchi and Gio Ponti, Franco Albini, Marco Zanuso, Carlo Scarpa, Osvaldo Borsani, Mario Ceroli, and other design masters," the gallery team relays.

For over 40 years, De Lucchi has been active in the fields of architecture, interior and product design, graphics as well as installations, with projects that push beyond the boundaries of what has already been imagined and built. Yet, his main source of inspiration in this professional world lies in a more intimate ‘hands-on’ process, where working manually in direct contact with matter, the architect is free to create new forms, beyond any practical or functional constraints. For De Lucchi, working with hands allows thoughts to directly connect with the physicality of the real world. In this manual mental process, the idea is thus turned into a signifying object.

A selection of prototypes and historical pieces (which have become rare over time due to their limited production) outlines the identity of Produzione Privata, to give continuity to the Memphis experience and to devise experimental objects, independent from any market logic. These include furniture designs, furnishings and lamp designs made by craftsmen, a body of work bordering between art and design.

The design exhibition's path continues with the display of objects and artworks, as well as research undertaken by De Lucchi in 2003, and which today includes over 500 sculptures, most made of wood (his material of choice). These unique works are tangible evidence of the process that indissolubly links the search for new forms and architectural concepts to professional projects. For the occasion, three models of small stone architecture produced in 2007 are also included in the show.

In Michele De Lucchi. With the hands and the mind, pencil sketches, tempera drawings and engravings offer an overview of the range of techniques adopted by the artist to express concepts in a nutshell, to formulate hypotheses and come up with new solutions.