The two artists, Arianna De Stefani and Gabriele Farina, think big and imagine a “maxi” version of the iconic Lem stool by Lapalma. Protagonist of the art exhibition “A decade of evolution in design” carried out by IFDM in its tenth anniversary – where 19 furnishing pieces have been reinterpreted by a group of students from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts – the stool is enlarged in the dimensions and the abstract significance.
“Stairway to heaven” would sing the Led Zeppelin, a staircase that leads to paradise. But also a comfortable sitting for the Big Friendly Giant by Roald Dahl. The symbolic power of this reworked piece cannot be confined, as boundless is the creative excitement that led the artist duo. The evocative images follow in a play of remarks and recalls with the most diverse cultural fields, thanks to the strong visual impact of the work and its amazing configuration, which leaves only a labile trace of the original Lem stool.
The seat is fixed at 1.90 meters so that the footrest protrudes as far down as the backrest rises to become a staircase.
Inaccessible because of its height, the stool symbolically represents the exhortation to overcome the human obstruction. The reach of the seat corresponds to the point of arrival, the moral conquest, and therefore the motivation for achieving ever higher goals to which the staircase leads.
