FACUNDO POJ

ARTIST STATEMENT:

The first time I walked through an aircraft cemetery, I was in awe at these dead lords of the air. Large commercial airplanes laying on their bellies, missing tails and noses, fuselages cut open like the carcass of a giant mammoth. I asked the manager of the yard what happened to the carcass once all the usable spare parts had been taken away and sold. He said "well, I guess we cut them up to get them ready to become beer cans". Beer cans. My soul was in tears. These flying dragons, these noble machines, are one of man's greatest achievements. A loyal craft which had taken people's dreams all around the world countless times. Beer cans...

I picked up a few parts on my pickup truck. I refused to let their souls be chopped up and their bodies be turned into such un-noble devices.

I gave these beautifully crafted and engineered objects new meaning, new life, new purpose. I decided that "rebirth" was a much more fitting term for their souls, rather than "recycle".

BIOGRAPHY

Facundo is a Miami based designer born in Argentina in 1971. He was trained as a master builder back in his native Buenos Aires and moved to Boston in the early 1990's where he graduated from Architecture school and also received a Masters Degree in Urban Affairs and Environmental Problems. Poj is a handcrafter of furniture and objects. His use of materials is definitely on the unconventional side of the spectrum. Poj spends much of his time looking for treasures in junk yards. He searches for objects with a soul and a lasting quality to them. Mr. Poj ponders on the subject of memory and historic value. Historic value not at the superficial level of style and form, but at a deeper level, he values the biography of objects and materials.

Poj also invests much energy researching new ways of using materials of great qualities which are not that far into the unconventional, but which have not fallen yet into the hands of large scale mainstream manufacturing. All his furniture pieces are designed through high technology, handcrafted, and built for life.

Mr. Poj's design services and exclusive handcrafted pieces have been sought not only by private clients and collectors, but also by important corporate clients such as Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton USA, Veuve Clicquot, Ecoist, Dom Perignon, Citrine by the Stones, Simmons of Argentina and others.

GIANCARLO DE ASTIS

BIOGRAPHY:

As an artist and furniture designer, De Astis pays homage to the numerous man-hours spent by others in creating these fantastic pieces of metal, creatively transforming each part into a new work of art. In his studio, he harmonizes the metal with new materials-glass, wood, stone, leather, metal sheeting, rivets-which results in impressive, highly crafted pieces of functional furniture, including chairs, desks, lamps, tables, and other pieces for the home, office and even public spaces. Aerodynamic and powerful in design, these unique objects reflect the creative mind and boundless energy of the artist and designer.

Giancarlo de Astis grew up in various countries around the world--Mexico, United States, Italy, Venezuela, Tunisia and Australia. As a result of his extensive travels and experiences with diverse cultures, he is fluent in English, Spanish, Italian and French. As a teenager, he attended schools in Florence and Rome, receiving a liberal arts education and exposure to monuments of Western art and architectural history on a daily basis. He graduated Cum Laude from Tufts University in Boston with a degree in International Relations and Economics.

In 2001, a series of dramatic changes in his personal life led De Astis to pursue a longtime dream of designing and building hand crafted furniture using parts from old airplanes. He traveled throughout the Southwest, West and Northwest regions of the United States for eight weeks in a VW camper, making a seminal stop in Arizona to visit the junkyards where planes await their meltdown. He purchased a number of parts and rented a U-Haul truck to bring them back to Los Angeles. Even prior to this moment, he had already begun sketching ideas for furniture. His first inspiration emanated from an airplane ride over the Mojave Desert in 1995, when for the first time he witnessed the "bone yards" where hundreds of airplanes--row by row--are laid to rest.

INSPIRATION:

For Giancarlo De Astis earning his Artistic license starts in the American West, where millions of creative man-hours are already embedded in the shapes of tens of thousands of airplanes glimmering under intense heat.

"When I toured the area in Mojave where the airplanes are parked, I began to notice the shapes and curves of the aircraft. They moved me. The parts and pieces of the planes were beautiful in and of themselves"
Inspired to perpetuate their existence as the works of art they are; Giancarlo blends the splendor of each part with time-honored crafting materials.

In the studio he refines his visualization of the finished piece, chooses harmonizing materials and begins to craft, and so the metamorphosis begins.
During this inventive process a mixture occurs that renews the part as a distinct and functional furniture piece- transformed, the airplane part then survives with fresh purpose. Resulting in extraordinary works of aviation art!

"It's not so much about me it's the piece itself". "I often wondered what it is that makes people still line up to see a painting that was done 500 years ago, I decided it was because the artist had left a piece of himself there and it's the passion of that person - Picasso, Rembrandt and Renoir - that keeps drawing us back. The moment that you touch somebody emotionally, that's the moment. That's what I try to do with my furniture."