1997.39.a-b, Mario Bellini, "Area 50" lamp, designed 1975

Mario Bellini's "Area 50" lamp features a whimsical flower-like form that softly and subtly diffuses light from a naked bulb. On lighting, the designer/architect says, "the intangible nature of light led me...to move away from an attachment to bodies and objects and to reduce the lamp to a synthesis of 'effect' and 'gesture.'" In this example the gesture of the twisting, paper-thin lamp shade is accentuated by the solid supporting cylinder, which suggests classical forms and reveals Bellini's strong architectural background. 

The "Area" series of lighting was designed in 1974 for Artemide, where Bellini's goal was to diffuse the light from the bulb indirectly through the screen that surrounds it like a "gently undulating collar." This is light as ambiance, as the effect of the play of reflections, not merely as something that enables us to see.

Enrico Morteo, Mario Bellini: Furniture, Machines & Objects, (New York: Phaidon, 2015), 85.

Until 1997: Collection of David T. Owsely, New York, New York

From 1997: Dallas Museum of Art, gift of above

13310560: UMO. Listen to a gallery talk in Form/Unformed given by Kevin W. Tucker, Curator of Decorative Arts and Design.

Apply to objects where number equals 1997.39.a-b