SELETTI – SUMMER 2024: MAGNA GRAECIA BY ANTONIO ARICÒ

Images courtesy of SELETTI

A New Cobalt Blue Version and a New Natural Terracotta

Seletti, the Italian figurative design company loved worldwide for its way of reinterpreting reality beyond conventions, celebrates the arrival of summer with the expansion of Antonio Aricò’s Magna Graecia collection in a cobalt version, along with the addition of new items to the natural terracotta collection.

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Once again, Seletti surprises with an ambitious project that integrates traditional forms with a contemporary and aesthetically appealing design approach.

Born from the collaboration with Antonio Aricò, Magna Graecia is a family of outdoor/indoor objects made entirely of terracotta, inspired by the styles of the ancient Greek colonies in southern Italy. Magna Graecia aims to invade terraces, gardens, verandas as well as living rooms, lounges, and entrances of homes worldwide, bringing everywhere a material closely tied to Mediterranean tradition. Garden furniture retailers in this material are, in fact, very common in southern Italy, and Aricò’s goal is precisely to bring those warm and sunny atmospheres everywhere.

Launched in 2023, Magna Graecia returns as a protagonist in Seletti’s 2024 catalog: sculptures, vases, jugs, and terracotta accessories are now coated in a dazzling and intense blue color, evoking the beauty of the sky and sea of Calabria, the region of origin of the Italian artist-designer. Magna Graecia Cobalt Version represents a new interpretation of the Mediterranean lifestyle, that fresh energy that invigorates summer gardens and lifts the spirits.

The collection ranges from more functional to decorative objects: wall or free-standing vases with Doric, Greek, or wave decorations, are accompanied by a jug with stereotyped traits, an Ionic column to use as a pedestal, or ashtrays decorated with Greek motifs. To these are added the most decorative pieces: the two large and sensual “bronzes”, inspired by the famous sculptures of Riace, male and female head-shaped vases inspired by Caltagirone ceramics, the cup and amphora with battle decorations and scenes of love, or the busts of Man and Poppea.

In the words of Antonio Aricò: “Terracotta is a very poor material, but with which you can create magic. I am fascinated by its ‘naked’ color and the natural imperfection of its thickness, qualities that led me to create a family of objects that could speak of craftsmanship and at the same time tell passionate stories through the interpretation of Magno-Greek decorations.”