Exquisite Corpse
Lukas Gschwandtner
October 11 – December 31, 2025
Numeroventi
Via Pandolfini 20, Florence, Italy
Opening hours:
Monday to Saturday
From 10am to 5pm
With a Publication
Artistic Direction Studio Barth-Frey
Texts Jacopo Menzani | Angelo Flaccavento
Photos Ilaria Orsini and Daniel Civetta
Numeroventi is pleased to present Exquisite Corpse, the first solo exhibition in Italy by Austrian artist Lukas Gschwandtner. Developed over the course of a year during his residency at Numeroventi in Florence, the project explores historical seating—particularly Florentine and Tuscan Renaissance chairs—reinterpreted through a contemporary lens shaped by furniture design, architecture, and exhibition practices.
Lukas’s research combined iconographic studies, theoretical inquiry, and field visits to museums such as the Museo Horne, with its nineteenth-century interpretation of Renaissance interiors, and the Museo Stefano Bardini, known for its bold colour schemes and distinctive installation strategies. He also studied private collections that reflect carefully curated domestic settings. These experiences deeply influenced his approach to installation and presentation.
Conceived as linear, geometric frameworks that function as spatial drawings, Lukas’s reimagined chairs and stools integrate evocative details cast in plaster and suspended with magnets. The impannata—a wooden frame once used to obscure interiors—was also revisited by the artist, transformed into a surface mediating between inside and outside, concealment and display. Two fabric-covered benches complete the installation, inviting visitors to sit and experience the exhibition from within its own architectural framework.
Exquisite Corpse is an inquiry into how we archive, shape, and present the past. It offers spatial reflections that distill the essential forms through which we recognize and define an era. The series maintains a close connection with Florence—its museums, collections, domestic interiors, and the ways in which memory is preserved and displayed.
The exhibition is accompanied by a publication produced with Studio Barth-Frey, featuring texts by Jacopo Menzani and Angelo Flaccavento, with photography by Ilaria Orsini and Daniel Civetta.
Enter the private view ︎︎︎
Lukas Gschwandtner (Salzburg, 1995) lives and works in Vienna. He holds a BA in Spatial from Chelsea College of Arts in London, UK, has received previous training in accessory design and traditional leather craftsmanship at Schloss Hetzendorf in Vienna, AUT.
Gschwandtner had solo exhibitions at Peana in Mexico City, MX (2023); Solo presentation, invited by Fendi at Design Miami in Miami, US (2022); Maniera in Brussels, BE (2021); Lant Street, curated by Jermaine Gallacher in London, UK (2020); Gschwandtner has presented works at PadParis in Paris, FR (2021, 2022, 2023, 2024); Design Miami in Basel, CH (2021); Collectable in Brussels, BE (2022). Gschwandtner has collaborated with various fashion houses such as Acne Studios and Lemaire. He has worked on several scenography projects, including the SS24 Acne Studios Show as part of Paris Fashion Week, FR (2023); He created Installations at Dover Street Market in London,GB (2024); and Beijing, CN (2022). Additionally, Lukas participated in the Persona Residency Exchange Program in Monterrey, MX (2019); funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund as well as Numeroventi in Florence, IT (2024-2025).
NUMEROVENTI is an interdisciplinary residency and research-oriented platform fostering creative exchange between artists, cultural institutions and local communities, based in Florence, Italy. Founded in 2016 by Martino di Napoli Rampolla and housed in a 16th century palazzo in Florence’s historic centre, the project aims to be a space where artists can investigate, develop and materialise their practices through an international residency program. From 2025 Numeroventi inaugurated a second venue in Bahia, Brazil.
Enter the private view ︎︎︎