Il Riposo del Designer 1963

Fabio de Sanctis made this sculpture called 'Il Riposo del Designer,' or 'The Designer's Rest,' out of what looks like plaster or clay. I love the tension between the solid and the draped, between something as functional and familiar as a chair, and this ghostly covering. The folds, the texture, the almost too-heavy look of the material makes me think about the act of covering as an act of concealing. What could be underneath? The title tells us that it’s a designer’s rest, or is it their resting place? The chair is like a body, draped and waiting. It reminds me of the way Alberto Giacometti elongated and distressed his sculptures to convey existential themes, or the shrouded figures of Christo and Jeanne-Claude. Here, De Sanctis makes a space to think about art, design, labor, and time, inviting us to imagine what the designer might have been thinking when he made it.