Tartar Console - / By Ettore Sottsass / 1985 by Memphis Milano Multicoloured

The "Memphis Milano" catalogue includes icons designed by the famous Memphis collective between 1981 and 1988. True works of art, these collector's items revolutionised the creative and commercial logic of design in the 80s. Founded in Milan in 1981 by Ettore Sottsass, the Memphis group brought together international architects and designers such as Michele De Lucchi, Matteo Thun, Martine Bedin, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Shiro Kuramata, George J. Sowden. A true cultural phenomenon, Memphis really shook up the design codes by voluntarily stepping outside of the lines of "good taste" of the time. It was out with the pure, hard functionalism and austerity Bauhaus-style, and in came fantasy with colourful and eccentric creations. The first Memphis collection landed in the design world like a bombshell: a proliferation of exuberant patterns, explosive colours, intrepid asymmetries, geometric shapes stacked up like totems, new use of plastic laminate considered "cheap" until then. Soon, Memphis became THE subversive label of Italian design with its wacky, colourful world inspired by comics, Pop Art, cinema, Kitsch and Art Deco. It was a revolution: design, until then confined to the showrooms, invaded the media and inflamed passion. Considered symbols of Anti-design and New Design, the Memphis creations are above all the manifestation of an unlimited creativity which breaks free of the constraints dictated by industry and the law of the market. Within the confines of design, architecture, art and post-modernism, these exceptional pieces are now sought after by collectors around the world and exhibited in the most prestigious museums. More than 20 years after the end of the movement, the "Memphis Milano" company continues to produce around fifty hand-crafted historical pieces designed by Memphis between 1981 and 1988. These original models are collector's items all bearing the "Memphis" seal, a guarantee of authenticity. In addition, each piece has its own paper certificate of authenticity, itself bearing the "Memphis" seal. Some models bear the designer's signature. The Tartar console table was designed in 1985 by Ettore Sottsass. She presented a motley collection of geometric forms in laminated plastic and reconstituted veneer. The elements are decorated with varied motifs in a diverse range of colours. The Tartar console table, which appeared in the Memphis 1985 collection, reflects an important change in style for the Memphis collective. Barbara Radice, Artistic Director of Memphis, explained: "The 1985 exhibition evokes smoky, urban atmospheres, streets straight from a scene of Blade Runner or adventures from The Terminator, a desperate, post-nuclear hero wandering through burning landscapes amidst the ruins of an imaginary "day after tomorrow" world. It's the technological High Middle Age, a literal No Man's Land: the future, if there is one, needs to be conquered day after day. The absurdity of a world in which there is almost 60 tons of dynamite for each person. Furnishings are no longer optimistic, full of childlike joy or pop, or even irony. It's almost austere, tyrannical, barbaric".