Moroso is Official Supplier at the LEA – LEAD EXCLUSIVE AREA for the Nitto ATP Finals at Turin’s Teatro dei Ragazzi
Moroso is the Official Supplier at the LEA (LEAD EXCLUSIVE AREA) for the Nitto ATP Finals (13-20 November 2022), the FIT’s hospitality format created to welcome international guests of the ATP, Sport e Salute, and the Italian Tennis Federation.
The LEA Area will be inside Turin’s Teatro dei Ragazzi, which was built as an electrical cabin in the 1930s and is now used to stage theatre productions for children and teens. During the tennis event, the theatre will also be hosting the art and design exhibition Woodland, by Giorgio Galotti and Claudia Pignatale.
Woodland is intended to offer visitors a back-to-nature experience by encouraging them to think about the natural world and the need to shake off the effects of civilization to rediscover the harmony of a life regulated by instinct.
The exhibition starts on the front wall of the theatre with a series of neon works entitled Dai su fammi un sorriso! (Give us a smile!) by Vittorio Corsini. In the foyer, visitors can admire Yves Scherer’s sculpture Boy (2019). The sculpture acts as a link between outdoor and indoor, to present the world behind it, where we find the ambient installation Volée (2022) created by Serena Confalonieri, on the walls. Moving down the two side corridors we come to Gaia De Megni’s black and white video ATHLA (2022, 4.43 min), which narrates an archer’s attempt to shoot arrows at the Cascade of the Sun, and A Painting of a Tree (Ailanthus altissima) by Henrik Håkansson, which reminds the onlooker of man’s intervention on our planet.
In the small theatre, where the lounge is set up, there is a site-specific intervention by Mandalaki, entitled Meta-Nature: a green installation meets the artificial light of “halos”, light projectors inspired by the colours of nature. Then comes a sculpture by Francesco Arena: a bronze see-saw with an inscription in honour of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina: “All the present days look the same, every past day is different in its own way” (2021). The room is completed by Marco Pettinari’s three sculpture tables designed as crystallized blocks of ice: the result of a study of how to represent a primordial substance using artificial materials. The lounge area is furnished by sofas and chairs made by Moroso, Official Supplier of LEA 2022.
The iconic Victoria & Albert sofa by Ron Arad has curved, flowing contours in a continuous line: the shape was designed without once taking the pencil off the paper. Victoria & Albert is accompanied by the small sofa Pipe, by Sebastian Herkner: a design based on simplicity, the most reassuring aspect of “oversize”. The sturdy, minimalist frame is made from an aluminum tube with a plump rounded seat reminiscent of an inflatable cushion. Finally there is Doodle, a collection by Front Design for Moroso, whose designs based on the outlines of thoughts are the pretext for these embroidered pieces. The sofa is designed to look like a folded blanket. The seat is delicate, deep in thought, with soft arms and an enveloping shape. The quilting follows the traces of the doodles making them three-dimensional. Completing the itinerary is a room in the large theatre, where a vast installation by Patrick Tuttofuoco, entitled Spacetime (2017), offers visitors the unique experience of having permanent visual contact with a white neon lightning bolt
The restaurant in the theatre hall is furnished with maple and ash tables designed by Studio F. paired with Impossible Wood chairs by Nipa Doshi & Jonathan Levien for Moroso, made from a process of conceptual reinvention: a curved wooden frame that can only be made by injection moulding. The chair heralds a new formalistic sequence as it mediates and interferes with the natural wood, whose visual and tactile qualities are preserved in a moulded plastic product. It is an aesthetic act of trespass that invites an instinctive perception instead of a logical, sequential interpretation.