Ron Gilad awarded Designer of The Year by Wallpaper

The ninth Wallpaper* Design Awards, an annual pat on the back to the people, places and products that have brightened up our world over the last year has awarded Ron Gilad Designer of the year. Ron Gilad had a bumper year in 2012. The Israeli-born artist/designer was the talk of Milan’s Salone, where his conceptual style proved to be both functional and commercial to boot. It’s Gilad’s ability to give weighty materials like steel and marble a lightness and dynamism that make him a force to be reckoned with. Grado° Collection for Molteni&C Ron Gilad’s work insists that we seriously consider the sweet fruits of dissatisfaction. Gilad’s new collection of furniture for Molteni&C continues his signature probing of the basic geometric form. Though comprised of typically pared down forms, all embody his elegant wit and ironic vision questioning our relationship to the everyday objects in our lives. Tables large and small, cupboards, bookshelves, mirrors and wall shelving, play conceptually and materially with subversive elements allowing for a transformation into objects that intrigue and delight us. Planes are rotated and blunted, notably the wooden and glass tables and bookshelf units, creating a shift form the 90 degrees to the 45 degrees corner with no edge, a cube is extracted from its volume leaving a void which, no longer there, is indicated by its ghost in red paint, red shelves pierce the wall in a visceral gesture that challenges our perception about both wall and shelves. The use of primary colors in this collection, reiterates the fact of its basic forms. ‘Pana-Cotta’, both heavy and delicate, poses the paradox of fragile stability, while the ‘open box’ outlined coffee tables and console are pure open lightness suggesting hidden treasures. Though Gilad’s work encompasses history, culture and tradition, his constant questioning and innate dissatisfaction he leads us, like the Pied Piper, and we gladly follow his music entering a world where convention and safety are upended giving way to a world where the subversive and the absurd are the new normal. Biography and Grado° Collection