CN SALOON... Ron Gilad!

First article of the new series "CN SALOON", with an exceptional guest!

Artist and designer, he gained experience in Tel Aviv, New York and Italy. Just awarded of the Designer of the year prize by Wallpaper*, recently in the Wright in Chicago and at Salone del Mobile with a solo exhibition. Pieces of his work compose the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Art and Design in New York and the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, where he's going to have a personal exhibition next summer.But he has much more to do and to imagine. This (and much more than this) is Ron Gilad.

Ron is described as "philosopher of everyday objects", "with a minimalist elegance", "linguistic", "developer of 3D concepts"... but we were so lucky to talk to him last month and now we'll let him speak about himself and his work.

When did you start to design and why?
I think I was doing sketches from a very young age and then I was bored by just using the pencils and the paper so I started to work with the rulers and suddenly everything started to become very symmetric and architectonic, three dimensional.
Then I studied architecture in high school, but I realized that I was too impatient to wait months or years to see the first product, so I decided to reduce scale and to study product design.

Why do you have this need to create?
I think this is my way to communicate with the world. I communicate my ideas through objects and not through words, as writers, for instance, do.

Do you want to communicate special ideas?
I'm trying to create for myself spaces and my own world, through objects. So it's less about the client and more about myself.

So is your source of inspiration yourself and your interior?
No, not  necessarily. I think that, when you are designing, after all, you are thinking about a certain function. In most of my designs there is a lot of cultural research and things that relate to specific place and time, most of the time relates to the past. Most of the times I'm basing my ideas on what already exists. So it's just like building another layer: it's not like starting from zero and trying to be innovative, I just add another layer on what I see.




Can you make some examples?
The new 56 collection for Adele-C. The idea was to create a surface for sitting and a container. The thing that was missing was how to elevate it from the floor. I didn't want to create a new leg, I looked a little bit in the past and I founded the Thonet chair, which somehow fits very well to be reduced in scale and become a leg. There is something very smoothing, the curves and everything, that doesn't really interrupt the space.



Is it different for you to design pieces for a collection or for an exhibition?
It is, in the sense that I think that when you are working in a gallery you can allow yourself to become a conceptual. However, when you are working with a company you just need to have a concept and develop it in different channels.

Do you have a particular sort of client you are focusing on?
No, I'm trying a lot to have no competition between my clients. Slowly I hope in few years, they will realize they are complementary to each others. I'm creating a world that until now was separated between this companies, I'm putting them together to start something new. (It remember to me something like.. this!)


What kind of relationship there is, between you and Italy?
A very special one. I lived 12 years in New York and even though sometimes I felt comfortable, I always felt some kind of disconnection to the American culture. Not because it is bad or good, it's just different from what I'm coming from. Suddenly I had the chance to start working with Italy, with Italian companies, and I found so much warmth and directness, as I'm used in Israel. Italy for me is like a perfect balance between the Israelian and American culture. There is something very easy: the communication and the possibility to become personal. It's not just about a product or making money, communication with people is the way.

And now... a little talk about CN!

When did you first met Silvio?
I first met Silvio three years ago, when I was working on the first exhibition with Dilmos. we were looking for producers and I don't know how, Dilmos said "we have the best producer, he can do everything" and that was the first time we started a collaboration.

What was your first impression of CN?
I thought that the level of professionalism was very high but there was a lot of respect to the artistic value that I added to my pieces. There was a kind of understanding of what things needed to be engineered, built and finished.