ART CITIES:Rome-Frank Gehry

The Pritzker Prize-winner Architec Frank Gehry, needs no introduction, his career spans 50 years. Known for his imaginative designs and creative use of materials, he has forever altered the urban landscape with spectacular buildings that are conceived as dynamic structures rather than static vessels. The first “Fish Lamps” were shown in “Frank Gehry: Unique Lamps” in 1984 at Gagosian Gallery Los Angeles.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Gagosian Gallery Archive

Frank Gehry has always experimented with sculpture and furniture in addition to his architectural pursuits, coaxing inventive forms out of unexpected materials, from the “Easy Edges” (1969–73) to the “Knoll” furniture series (1989–92). The first of his renowned “Fish Lamps” came after the Formica Corporation requested he find ways to use ColorCore,  the firm’s new laminate product. After accidentally shattering a piece of it while working, Gehry was inspired by the shards, which reminded him of fish scales. The first Fish Lamps, which were fabricated between 1984- and 1986, employed wire armatures molded into fish shapes, onto which shards of ColorCore are individually glued, creating clear allusions to the morphic attributes of real fish. Since the creation of the first lamp in 1984, the fish has become a recurrent motif in Frank Gehry’s work, as much for its “good design” as its iconographical and natural attributes. His fixation started young, he explains “I was watching the beauty of carp swimming in a pool in Japan and thinking about how elegant and architectural they were. “It inspired a beginning of a study of these forms . . . That study took a few years. It then became a language that I guess became Bilbao and a few other projects”. In 2012 Gehry decided to revisit his earlier ideas, and began working on an entirely new group of Fish Lamps. The resulting works range in scale from life-size to outsize, and the use of ColorCore is bolder, incorporating larger and more jagged elements.

Info: Gagosian Gallery, Via Francesco Crispi 16, Rome, Duration: 18/7-16/9/16, Days & Hours: Mon-Fri 10:30-19:00, www.gagosian.com