Martino Gamper

Martino Gamper was born in 1971 in Merano, Italy and now lives and works in London. He started out as an apprentice furniture maker in Merano, and then went on to study sculpture with Michelangelo Pistoletto at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. In 2000, he received an MFA from the Royal College of Art in London, where he studied under Ron Arad.

Gamper's practice covers a diverse range of projects, from exhibition design, interior design, specialist one-off commissions and the design of mass-produced products for the top of the international furniture industry. Martino has an ongoing interest in the social aspects of furniture design. In particular, he is fond of corners and the multiple emotions evoked by a single rectangular boundary. Alongside this interest in underused spaces, Gamper also cultivates an interest in unwanted objects. By repurposing furniture that has been discarded on the street, he has created a disparate family of objects. For his first exhibition, "100 Chairs in 100 Days," in October 2007, Gamper organized a collection of seats on two floors of a large Victorian house in South Kensington, central London.