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“INTERWARE is about a new generation of design. As a rule, the term ‘couture’ is used in connection with the past. My work is a fusion of past, present and future. The memory of the past is there in the handicraft, the poetry and the familiar elements, while the future is presented very practically and realistically by means of technology and innovation. But it is not based on a ‘total look’. They are just the things I love - the things that have a place in my world.” (Maurizio Galante)
Maurizio Galante and Tal Lancman have been working together under the label INTERWARE since 2003. INTERWARE is a society for “transversal design”: a crossover of design, art, architecture and life that ignores common delimitations. “Is it possible to draw a connecting line between the standard and the popular, the duplicated and the unique? Can the elemental exist alongside the refined? The common alongside the rare?”, the two artists ask.
After studying architecture and fashion design at the start of the 1990s, Maurizio Galante began to establish himself in the field of haute couture. Tal Lancman is a trend forecaster and designer; he has been working since 1995 as creative director for View Textile, an important specialist magazine for trends in colours, textiles, fashion, furnishings and marketing. Between 2003 and 2009, the two worked for Mudam as Design & Food Curators in charge of the product lines on offer in the Mudam Boutique and Mudam Café. Mu, the mascot of the museum, is also their creation.
The exhibition Transversal Design brings together numerous projects carried out by INTERWARE in the past years. Poetic installations, such as the leaping Tiger Cloud (2009) made of 2.500 sheets of tulle, are accompanied by lamps and light objects, such as Altaïca Tigris (2010), a crystal chandelier in the shape of a tiger’s skull. One could also mention Danae (2008), which recalls the golden rain of Zeus, or Corail or (2010), which is inspired by marine life. Similarly playful and decorative motifs can be found in the series of pouffes and cushions TATO TATTOO (2008-). Other forms of seating, such as Flirt (2007) and Blow Up (2007), play with moods, colours and shapes, while the chair Valentina C (2006) combines glamour and fashion.
INTERWARE’s works playfully experiment with materials, as can be seen in the “marble” chair Louis XV goes to Sparta (2011) or Maurizio Galante’s haute couture creations, the model dresses such as Galanterie Echelle 1/5 (2004), or his sculpture-like, elegant realisations. Their common works even include landscape design, like temporary or permanent garden projects, as their participation in the garden festival in Chaumont-sur-Loire (2003) and the design of a rose garden (2005) in Guyancourt near Paris.
The “transversality” of INTERWARE is evident in its creative approach to various aesthetic and functional problems: every object, be it furniture, clothing or interior decoration, is executed by the best craftspeople with the same mixture of artistic inspiration and technical perfection. Maurizio Galante and Tal Lancman constantly expand the limits of haute couture and design by unfolding their creative universe.
Maurizio Galante was born in 1963 Latina, Italy. He lives and works in Paris. Tal Lancman was born in 1962 in Tel Aviv. He lives and works in Paris.