untitled (Achille), 2015
marble, steel, plastic, electric
190 x 33 x 216 cm

exhibition view The Rules of the Game, Studio Museo Achille Castiglioni / Triennale di Milano, Milan / IT

Christoph Meiers grandparents used to have a copy of Achille Castiglioni’s Arco lamp in their living room. It could be considered as a poor copy of Castiglioni’s design, because its author obviously forgot about or did not understand Castiglioni’s concept. Important elements, such as the hole in the marble base that makes it easy for two people to carry the lamp with the help of a broomstick, are missing. Castiglioni himself saw copies as compliments, a sort of tribute to the quality of the original. At the Studio Achille Castiglioni, Meier replaced the original lamp in the foyer with is grandpartent’s copy, leaving the original version’s broomstick leaning against the wall beside it, and replacing the switch on the copy with the simple Rompitratta, the element in the lamp design of which Castiglioni was proudest. In this way, he integrated Achille Castiglioni back into the system, so that he is once again, somehow, the one who decides if the light is switched on or off and if the object works or not. In Christoph Meier’s ongoing practice, copying is a valued method to persue, a secure and good reason unto itself, and he does not see the reason to always introduce its original. Through this little manipulation the copy of Castiglioni’s Arco floor lamp becomes a unique object with its own identity that explores authorship, artistic value, and the conditions of producing and displaying an art object.