Walking through Inga Sempe’s perfectly imperfect house, restored at Milan’s Triennale Museum, feels like an investigative expedition, a treasure hunt, and an embarrassing invasion of privacy all at once. Until September 15, 2024, the exhibition “Inga Sempe” will be on display at the Milan Museum of Fine Arts. “La casa imperfetta”, curated by Marco Samichelli. “The concept for the exhibition was born out of a desire to continue experimenting with exhibition formats that interact with visitors,” he says. “After building a large collection of office and home tools designed with Riccardo Blumer for Alberto Meda’s solo exhibition, we wanted to work with Sempe to explore the domestic landscape as it is.”
“Inga Sempe. “La casa imperfetta” at the Milan Triennale
The exhibition presents projects, objects and designs in a domestic environment resembling a film set, following an itinerary designed by Studio A/C, run by Alessia Pessano and Chiara Novello. “I’m tired of seeing people around us demanding perfection,” Sempe says. “Purity, for example, has no effect on me. I don’t want to meet people or things that are perfect. In magazines, perfection is portrayed as a goal to aspire to, and there are huge empty houses, The same goes for women with perfect skin, great cooking, and perfect children.”
The result is monotonous and far from perfect. Sports medals hang on the bookshelf in the studio. There is a bell on a shelf like you would find in a hotel’s reception area. Next to it were Neapolitan playing cards, a map, and an admission ticket to a municipal swimming pool in Paris. There is a chess set next to the Vico Magistretti Eclisse lamp in the bedroom. Gleason’s shoe cream and shoe polish brush are kept in a basket next to the bed. On the kitchen table, a few candles are folded and a white potholder dangles between a plastic basket and a glass splashback. Next to the espresso cup in the living room is an old-fashioned analog green phone.
“I just wanted to create a house that wasn’t perfect, a far cry from a museum setting where every object becomes a pseudo-masterpiece because it’s placed on a pedestal,” Sempe explains. Masu. “We wanted to include everything everyone had at home: twisted and dried sponges, soap aged like old cheese, government documents.”
of Casa Imperfetta It is also designed to show visitors the intricacies of Sempe’s work, allowing them to explore the products designed by the French designer and her ideas for restoring the tradition of anonymous objects. Inga’s aesthetic is based on old-fashioned charm, simplicity of function and clarity of use. It is flavored with a clever use of color and different ingredients,” Samichelli says.
Sempe is an expert in materials and industrial processes. “Her catalog is huge, so it was not difficult to furnish her entire house.”Apart from sanitary products and telephones, Inga created designs for a wide range of products,” he emphasizes. “References, stains, layering, accumulation, and combinations occur spontaneously, just as they do at home.”
Visitors can interact with the environment, including bedrooms, kitchens, hallways, entryways, and outdoor spaces. Anyone can sit at a desk or open a box on a shelf to reveal what’s hidden inside. “Various prohibited acts can be carried out in museum spaces,” Samicelli acknowledges. “Emphasizing them is a cultural challenge and a bet we want to take on. Touching, turning on, lying on, testing, viewing are the functions that underpin design objects, It’s a simple and innovative way to learn about texture and mechanics.
“Inga Sempe. “La casa imperfetta” is on display until September 15, 2024
milan triennale
Viale Alemagna, 6
milan