Wall mirror "Ollo" by Alessandro Mendini for Museo Alchimia, 1988

Italian work, 1988. H 160 X W 120 cm. Wood and mirror. Good condition. A wide frame in a black and white checkerboard pattern, bordered all around with a yellow crenellation that overhangs the plane, and topped with a small flag of the same colour. The mirror itself occupies a much smaller central square than its frame: the function is relegated to the centre, while the decor occupies the rest. Alessandro Mendini (1931-2019) is the central figure of Studio Alchimia, a Milanese workshop founded in 1976 that predates Memphis and establishes the principle of design liberated from function. Mendini develops "redesign" there: taking an ordinary object and covering it with a decor that shifts its meaning. "Ollo, " designed in 1988, applies this principle to a mirror — the most mundane object in an interior becomes a graphic surface. A piece from a generation of mirrors that Alchimia has made a manifesto, at a time when the movement had reached maturity. Good condition.