Coat rack, Nero Cactus sculpture by Drocco / Mello - Gufram
Date: 20 10
Artist: Drocco & Mello
Brand: Gufram
Color: black
Material: polyurethane, Guflac® coating
Dimensions: L 110 x D 70 x H 170 cm
Availability: 3 - 4 weeks
Learn more about this product
Limited Edition 1/500
Published by Gufram, 2010
Internal steel structure embedded in polyurethane foam
Cactus: Guflac® coating
Dimensions: L 110 x D 70 x H 170 cm / L 43.3 x D 27.6 x H 67 in
Weight: 28kg
Limited edition of 500 copies, numbered certificate
Guido Drocco is an architect and designer, he comes from the Politecnico of Turin.
From 1962, he worked with the architects Gabetti and Isola. He received numerous architectural awards and continued his collaboration with Gufram.
With Franco Mello, he was part of the Radical Movement of the 1960s, an avant-garde movement using pop culture and even Kitch to challenge the canons of good modernist taste. For the young generation of designers of the 1960s, plastic appeared as a providential material, in a society which reintroduced fantasy and comfort.
The creations of the period all have something of the “manifest object”.
Gufram, the publisher since 1968, brought together in 1972 the collection called "I Multipli", of which the Cactus is a part. It includes unusual pieces always in limited edition (also present in the largest museums in the world) including the famous Pratone (the Meadow), giant blades of grass in polyurethane into which we throw ourselves rather than sit, the giant Sedilsasso "armchair" stones or the Bocca sofa, in homage to Dali's Mae West sofa...
The objects in the “I Multipli” collection have been designed to free users from their behavioral habits. Among their influences, land art represented a real source of inspiration for designers of the 60s.
This collection is made up of designs made from hardened polyurethane foam with a patented lacquer finish called: Guflac®
Here, the Cactus is still a desert plant but it is devoid of thorns and made on a human scale... It is, according to its creator, the "surreal son of phytomorphic-inspired anti-design"
Since then, the cacti of Guido Drocco and Franco Mello have been developed by Gufram with many different colors and names, such as the white Biancocactus, the black Nerocactus, and the red Rossocactus (all from 2010), and finally the Metacactus, with colors as if burned by the sun (2012).
The originals are included in the collections of many institutions, such as the Museum of Modern Art and Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York, the Center Georges Pompidou and Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, Germany, and the Tate Modern in London.
The subject of several, free and often ambiguous interpretations, Cactus is the icon of Italian design that has revolutionized the domestic landscape, by subverting the borders between indoor area and open space. Cactus comes as an ironic totem, and embodies the grit, the imagination and the humor of the design of the Seventies. Likely to draw upon itself everybody's attention, this hall-tree redeems itself from functionalism at all costs, because it can perform its function, but also be used as a merry decorative element. You have freedom of interpretation. Cactus comes to life in 1972 thanks to the genius of Guido Drocco and Franco Mello, and from the start it questions the static and rigid world of interior design.
Its first edition was a very deep emerald shade (sold out edition), and since then it is cyclically reinterpreted according to the color and the style of the moment. In 2007 we had the white version (sold out edition); in 2010 it was the turn of red and black.
In 2012, on the occasion of the first piece's fortieth anniversary, Cactus came in a new limited edition called Metacactus. In this variation the green lime color fades into orange at the tips, as if they were toasted by the scorching sun of the desert.
For Gufram's comeback to France in 2015, the company introduces a new limited special edition of the legendary Cactus, named Lebluecactus (sold out edition). The hall tree designed by Drocco and Mello turns blue - the same shade as the French flag - a representative hue of all the myriad different nuances that populate the many latitudes of the “Hexagon”.
Learn more about the designer
Guido Drocco was born in San Benedetto Belbo, Cuneo, Italy on September 19, 1942. He graduated in architecture at the Polytechnic of Turin (Politecnico di Torino). He carries out professional work in the field of architecture and industrial design and is active in Turin. Since 1996 he has been a lecturer in architectural design at the Faculty of Architecture of the Polytechnic of Turin.
Franco Mello was born in Genoa in 1945. He lived and worked in Turin and Spineto Scrivia. Mello creates in the fields of design, tailoring, graphics, publishing and art. He works on reissues of art books, design catalogs and posters for many Arte Povera alla Transavanguardia artists, including Piero Manzoni, Giulio Paolini, Giuseppe Peone, Alberto Burri, Yves Klein, Bridget Riley and Pinot Gallizio.
Learn more about the brand
They study new choices of materials and mainly choose polyurethane foam to pad and structure their sculptural creations. Polyurethane will become their trademark. In addition to mastering the processing of flexible polyurethane, Gufram has developed and patented a special finish: Guflac®, the true essence of the company's artisanal spirit: this special and unique paint job makes surfaces more uniform, consistent and elastic . Soft, elegant shapes are thus created, innovative shapes that would otherwise be impossible to cover.
Gufram icons, regardless of the collection they are part of, are made by sculpting flexible polyurethane foam which is then finished or decorated by hand with the Guflac® backing.
Their creations, in the wake of pop art, are anchored in the avant-garde movement of the 1960s.
In 1968, Gufram presented its products under the name Multipli: industrially reproduced art objects in limited edition. Gufram then enjoyed considerable success with the public and the international press. Among their most remarkable creations: the Bocca sofa, originally designed by Salvador Dali, the Cactus coat rack, the majestic Pratone seat or even more recently the grotesque stools in the shape of a tombstone The End from the Toiletpaper collection, or the Broken Mirror imagined by Snarkitecture.
These “domestic sculptures” now appear in the most beautiful homes and the most renowned museums in the world.
The Gufram company was bought in 2012 by entrepreneur Sandra Vezza and her son Charley as artistic director. They were able to breathe new life into the company, notably on the occasion of the company's 50th anniversary celebrations in 2016 but also with new collaborations such as that with Moschino “Moschino kissed Gufram”.
Delivery and returns
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IN-STORE COLLECTION
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THE WOODS GALLERY, 22 rue André del Sarte, 75018 Paris
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EXCHANGES AND RETURNS
The customer has a period of fourteen days to exercise his right of withdrawal and return at his own expense the products which do not give him satisfaction in accordance with article L.121-20 of the Consumer Code ,
The products must be returned in their original packaging, in resalable condition.
Any product returned damaged will not be refunded.
PLEASE NOTE: any "personalized" product (choice of fabric, color of wood, custom dimensions, etc.) cannot be refunded: the product is not in stock and is specially made by the manufacturer to the customer.