Daniel Libeskind's 'Counting the Rice' table
Moroso has made a limited edition of 30 of Daniel Libeskind's desks, which are designed especially for performance artist Marina Abramovic's meditative ritual performance Counting the Rice.
With mobile phones and computers keeping us in constant contact, it can feel like you're in several different places at any one time. Many people crave a feeling of mindfulness - the sense of being fully in the 'here and now'.
The idea has featured in the work of performance artist Marina Abramovic, who has devised a meditative ritual in which the practitioner spends a minimum of six hours counting grains of rice or individual lentils.
This 'Counting the Rice' ritual has inspired one of the world's greatest architects, Daniel Libeskind, to design a special Counting the Rice table.
Made by Moroso, the table will be available in a limited edition of just 30.
The production of the 'Counting the Rice' table is part of a much broader partnership with Abramovic and the Marina Abramovic Institute (MAI) - Abramovic is also close to the firm's art director, Patrizia Moroso.
The proceeds from the sale of this collection will be donated to MAI, which is a platform for immaterial art and long durational works, including those of performance art, dance, theatre, film, music, opera, science, nature, technology, and undiscovered forms that may develop in the future.
The table first went on show at this year's Milan Furniture Fair, in the form of a prototype made of wood.
The limited edition features high-performance cement instead of the wood seen in the first version, giving rise to a creation that Moroso says 'sits midway between work of art and design product'.
This partnership with Marina Abramovic will continue at Art Basel in Miami December 4th-7th, 2014. Featured at the event will be both the prototype and the second piece from the limited edition series of the 'Counting the Rice' tables. The next Moroso project for MAI will also be presented, this time the brainchild of Patricia Urquiola, one of the brand's long-standing designers, created especially for audiences of long durational performances hosted by MAI.
