Life begins at 40: Happy birthday Up 5_6 chair!

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It’s the 40th anniversary of Gaetano Pesce’s anthropomorphic Up Collection, and B&B Italia has reissued it’s most seminal piece -- the Up5_6 armchair in a shimmery-silver, neoprene personalized with a serial number.

The famous Pop art chair has been displayed in international museums around the world and most recently in the exhibit by Antonio Citterio in the Museum of Design at the Milan Triennale.

Initially vacuum packed (the 1969 chair expanded as it came in contact with the air), it is now made out of polyprophylene foam. The voluptuous form depicts a female figure tied to a ball-shaped ottoman and at the time expressed Pesce’s notion of women.

‘Despite themselves, women have always been prisoners of their own making. Along these lines, I liked the idea of giving this armchair a feminine shape with a ball and chain, the traditional image of the prisoner.’

At 40, the chair is still good-looking, although its symbolic message is dated. They should include a pair of scissors with each sale -- so women can cut the cord. www.bebitalia.it

-- Barbara Thornburg