Javi Aznarez x Foscarini: What’s in a lamp? Animations
Javi Aznarez has created six animations for What’s in a lamp?, Foscarini’s creative project exploring the relationship between illustration, animation and Italian lighting design.
Represented by Dutch Uncle, Javi brings his distinctive visual language to the Italian lighting brand’s designs, with animation by Arnau Solà Vila.
The first animation in the series introduces a collaboration built around creative freedom and experimentation. As Javi explains
It is rare for a brand to give an artist complete freedom to play around with its products. Says Javi Aznarez
Foscarini offered exactly that, allowing him to explore the possibilities of its lamps through illustration and animation.
Arnau Solà Vila animated the work with care and attention to detail.
Foscarini : Aplomb lamp by @lucidipevere
THE SPARK THAT MADE HIM AN ARTIST by Javi Aznarez
A caveman scratches lines into stone, punctuating each mark with a low, guttural grunt. And it happens under the sharp, geometrical glow of Aplomb, the Foscarini lamp whose concrete marries perfectly – by contrast – with the setting.
It’s a typical Javi Aznarez situation: somewhat funny yet also passionate in the illustrations by the Spanish artist, always ready to load every image with a clever light-heartedness that remains in the heart.
Because strip away the humor, and what's left here is something almost reverent: beneath that primitive need to leave a mark is the essence of art as a human gesture.
Aplomb’s clean, sculptural light doesn’t just illuminate the scene but elevates it, casting the first artist in history in the same refined glow as any studio today.
Foscarini : Twiggy lamp by @marcsadlerstudio
THE SPARK THAT KEPT HER DRY by Javi Aznarez
In the middle of the sea, a reader can no longer make out the words on the page. She leans further into the light than anyone reasonably should.
She doesn’t fall. Twiggy’s slender stem holds, steady as a mast, and she gets her page after all.
It’s pure silent-comedy timing, the kind of exaggerated, perfectly-cued peril Javi Aznarez choreographs with real affection for his characters rather than at their expense. But underneath the laugh is something quite sincere: light, here, isn’t just illumination but desire itself, the one thing worth risking your balance for.
Foscarini : Lightweight lamp by @tomdixonstudio
THE SPARK THAT DIDN’T FLINCH by Javi Aznarez
You can plan it all: a beautiful home, a cool job, a nice family setting. But what happens when most of the dinner ends up on the wall because baby wants to have its way? Somewhere between those splattered vegetables and the floor there is an urgent need to find a new balance.
And as dad wipes, unbothered, mum calmly reaches up and dims Foscarini’s Lightweight lamp on the scene.
It’s the layered, densely inhabited world Javi Aznarez builds so well: every corner holds its own small story, and it’s all there for you to explore.
Under Lightweight’s glow, the chaos is left to happen. Because you can plan a graceful dinner but who said that a messy one cannot be just as homely?
How we feel, after all, often depends on the light we decide to shine on our daily existence.
Foscarini : Tonda lamp by @ferrucciolaviani
THE SPARK THAT TURNED OFF THE SCREEN by Javi Aznarez
Blue light, flat and cold, spills from a television onto a New York living room. A couple sits close. They are both physically there but… are they really?
Then she reaches for Tonda.
One click, and the cold flicker gives way to a round, warm, unmistakably human light. And they have no doubt: she throws the remote across away because they have had enough of screens for the night. And they are suddenly really together.
It's a scene with all the retro, editorial elegance Javi Aznarez brings from his years illustrating for The New Yorker . A single, perfectly staged gesture doing the work of an entire story. Tonda doesn’t compete with the television: it simply makes it irrelevant.
What’s in a lamp? — Foscarini’s artist collaborations
What’s in a lamp? invites international artists and illustrators to reinterpret Foscarini’s lighting designs through their own visual languages. The project brings together illustration, animation and product design, exploring how a lamp can become a starting point for unexpected ideas, characters and stories.
The project has featured Dutch Uncle artists Noma Bar and Brian Rea, alongside an international roster of illustrators and artists including Luca Font, Federico Babina, Oscar Pettersson, Maja Wrońska, Kevin Lucbert, Alessandra Bruni, Luccico, Stefano Colferai, Fausto Gilberti, Antje Damm, Jim Stoten, Jorge Arévalo and Marianna Tomaselli.
Noma Bar’s conceptual approach uses negative space and visual associations to create striking interpretations of everyday objects. Brian Rea brings his own illustrative storytelling to the project, demonstrating how Foscarini’s lamps can become characters within animated narratives.
Javi Aznarez’s six animations continue this exploration, offering another distinctive interpretation of Foscarini’s designs and demonstrating how illustration and animation can bring new perspectives to contemporary lighting design.
Credits
Artist: Javi Aznarez
Animation: Arnau Solà Vila
Client: Foscarini
Project: What’s in a lamp?
Agency: Dutch Uncle
Discover Foscarini and follow @foscarinilamps and @agencydu on Instagram.
