OrienTales. Eastern stories through western eyes Book by A di Alessi

The National Palace Museum of Taiwan can be regarded as the Louvre of the East due to the richness and variety of its collections of antiques, paintings and calligraphies, objects, books and documents. Its collections, which originated from the imperial collection of the Ch'ing dynasty and the previous dynasties Sung, Yuan and Ming, make it the main custodian of Chinese art and culture. The collaboration between Alessi and the NPM of Taiwan is due to the museum's intention to be more internationally open and to promote better knowledge in the West of Chinese culture and history. Together we asked Stefano Giovannoni to devise and design a kind of mascot for the new Museum of the XXI century. This gave birth to the families "Mr Chin" in 2007 and "OrienTales" in 2008, for the "A di Alessi" catalogue: a series of small characters each depicting a domestic role. The close relationship with the National Palace Museum's extraordinary artistic collections has, in a manner of speaking, allowed Stefano's imagination to run wild, pushing him to measure himself against and apply his contemporary interpretation to the millennia-old tradition of Chinese applied arts. "Mr.Chin" and "OrienTales" are also a kind of new chapter in the evolution of the "playful approach" of which our designer is an acknowledged master: rather than being created by a single injection, as traditional pressing technology requires, these character objects are pressed as different pieces, and subsequently assembled as if they were wooden figurines or porcelain dolls, thus allowing more emphasis to be given to Giovannoni's refined hand painted depictions. In "OrienTales", besides the hand decorated plastic, a material appears that is more closely related to the arts & crafts tradition: hand decorated fine bone china. Like a spell cast by Giovannini's design, these objects evoke the graciousness of 18th century ceramic knick-knacks whilst clearly showing their contemporaneity.