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Sunday, 9 March 2008 | Levent OZLER
I Saloni 2008
COSMIT, the organizers of i Saloni, announced last week the exhibitions and extraordinary cultural events that will take place this year during i Saloni - the most important annual home/contract furniture fair in the world. I Saloni will again take Milan by storm from April 16th to the 21th, with six main exhibitions at the Milan Faigrounds at Rho, and two groundbreaking art installations in the city of Milan .
I Saloni is enthusiastically gearing up for an exciting 2008, following last year's unprecedented success with over 270,000 visitors (165,000 of whom visited from 145 foreign countries) and close to 2,000 exhibiting companies.
Presented on over 220,000 square metres , i Saloni will feature the renowned Salone Internazionale del Mobile (47th edition); the bi-annual Eurocucina, the International Kitchen Exhibition(17th edition); the new SaloneUfficio, International Biennial Workspace Exhibition (formerly EIMU, 14th edition); the International Bathroom Furniture Exhibition (2nd edition); the International Furnishing Accessories Exhibition (22nd edition); and the SaloneSatellite (11th edition), which this year will present young design talent in a brand new made-to-measure pavilion.
As always, there will be an infinite variety of goods on view. The Salone Internazionale del Mobile, together with the International Furnishing Accessories Exhibition, will be a showcase for excellence, covering all types of domestic furnishing in every conceivable style, from classic to design to modern.
Eurocucina will feature the very best in kitchen furniture, as well as furnishing accessories and the collateral event, FTK (Technology for the Kitchen), which is devoted to technological innovation for built-in electrical appliances.
On the office front, SaloneUfficio will showcase furniture and accessories for the workplace and solutions for the home office under the special theme, "Ufficio Fabbrica Creativa" (The Office as Creative Hub), turning the spotlight on modern offices, viewed as the factories of today and the ultimate hubs of creative activity.
To highlight this theme, renowned artist Michelangelo Pistoletto and his foundation Cittadellarte will create "Art Sign Offices", a huge installation/event at the Loggia dei Mercanti, the epicentre of Mediaeval Milanese commercial life. The project will be displayed in eight modular rooms, each dedicated to an office symbolic of a different sphere of human activity. At the center will be a large mirrored cube (4x4x4 m) - a place of reflection and meditation that will contain one of Pistoletto's most historic works: Square Metre of Infinity.
The greatest surprise will be COSMIT's cultural contribution to the city of Milan - a thrilling multimedia perspective on Leondardo da Vinci's The Last Supper, by British artist and filmmaker Peter Greenaway. Greenaway announced that he will use an extraordinary combination of state of the art technology, music, and cinema, to reinvent the iconic work of art. Using simple light projections onto the surface of the painting, he will bring the masterpiece to life, revealing what he sees hidden in da Vinci's brush strokes. This will be the second in Greenaway's series of animated masterpieces, having first realized a similar project for the Rijksmuseum on Rembrandt's The Night Watch.
The event will take place from April 16th to 22st in the Sala delle Cariatidi at Palazzo Reale and from April 16th to May 30th in the Refectory at the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, the actual site of the The Last Supper. The installation will breathe life into an icon of Milan 's and Italy 's cultural heritage, signifying the relationship between i Saloni and the Municipality of Milan and, by extension, the Ministry of Architecture and the Cityscape of Milan.
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