David Bergé — Bialetti: A catalogue

David Bergé's proposal for a catalogue of Bialetti, the Italian maker of stovetop coffee pots, built from pots the artist tracked down himself.

In the 1920s the three Bialetti brothers, Camillo, Cezaro and Alfonso, were making aluminium household goods in workshops in northern Italy. Alfonso's son Renato later took over the family name, moved the stovetop coffee maker into industrial production in the early 1950s and went on to sell some 300 million of them. He cloned his own design to keep rivals at bay and saw no need to keep records, prototypes or an archive.

Into that gap stepped Bergé, a Belgian artist who lives between Athens and Brussels. He collected Bialetti pots at second-hand markets, in the brand's flagship shops and around the ruined factory. The book traces how this piece of precision engineering was made, drawing on the memories of Bialetti family members, people who once worked in the factory and union representatives. His collection of 62 machines has been installed alongside a large 50 x 70 cm version of the book, and the project has been shown at Design Museum Gent and the Grassi Museum of Applied Arts in Leipzig. Designed by Lyosha Kritsouk.

Spector Books, 2023. 80 pages, 69 black-and-white and colour illustrations, thread-sewn hardcover, 16 x 23 cm. In English.