When Contemporary Art Meets Cutting-Edge Design: Gaggenau’s New Ovens Turn Matter into Poetry
In the heart of Milan, FORMAE – What Is the Right Shape of Things? comes to life, an exhibition that weaves together contemporary art and cutting-edge design to explore the relationship between matter and form.
The protagonists are four Italian artists – Franco Mazzucchelli, Carla Tolomeo, Fulvio Morella, and Lorenzo Gnata – in dialogue with the new Gaggenau Expressive and Minimalistic ovens, symbols of a philosophy where technique and aesthetics merge into a single, coherent vision of the world.
Promoted by Gaggenau in collaboration with Sotheby’s and Cramum, the exhibition brings together the previous stops in Florence, Naples, and Verona, offering Milan an immersive experience that transcends the boundaries between art and design to explore aesthetic responsibility, form, and meaning.
Form Meets Function: The Poetic Language of Gaggenau
For over three centuries, Gaggenau has combined craftsmanship, technology, and functional design. With the new Expressive and Minimalistic ovens, the brand redefines the kitchen as both a poetic and rational space: a single, linear cavity, entirely blue inside, elegantly concealing the grill, transforming efficiency into an aesthetic gesture.
“Technology becomes a language when it restores to matter the dignity of everyday poetry,” explains Mistral Accorsi, Product & Brand Communication Manager at Gaggenau. FROM THIS IDEA, FORMAE was born: a project where the technical form of the product becomes a cultural form, reflecting how humans interpret matter.
Four Artists, Four Visions of Form
In the exhibition, each artist answers the question “What is the right form of things?” with a unique language:
- Franco Mazzucchelli sculpts the air, transforming his transparent inflatables into architectures that breathe and reshape the space.
- Carla Tolomeo weaves time and patience into her hand-embroidered sculptural seats, where the artisanal gesture becomes a vessel of memory.
- Fulvio Morella translates touch into vision: in his Braille Stellato, the dots become stars and words of light.
- Lorenzo Gnata explores the boundary between line and space, transforming drawing into orientation, architecture, and contemplation.
Each work, like a Gaggenau oven, unites form and function in perfect balance: technique becomes emotion, and gesture turns into thought.
The philosophy of FORMAE: from potential to act
The concept behind the project echoes Aristotle: “Matter is potential, form is act.”
In FORMAE, this idea takes visual shape: matter transforms, technique becomes art, and form becomes a promise of beauty. Just like in Gaggenau ovens, where every detail stems from a deliberate choice, the exhibited works reflect the care, precision, and responsibility of those who shape reality.
Beauty as Shared Responsibility
“FORMAE does not seek answers, but possibilities,” explains curator Sabino Maria Frassà.
The exhibition invites visitors to participate, not just observe, in the dialogue between art, design, and innovation. In this context, beauty is not ornament—it is an act of trust: form is what unites us, translating the potential of matter into human experience.
The exhibition is held at the Gaggenau DesignElementi Hub – Corso Magenta 2, Milan, and will be open to the public until December 19, 2025.
