Chris Fusaro
Argenteria Miracoli
Chris Fusaro is an Italo-Canadian artist and industrial designer. He engages with various materials and processes, illustrating sensibilities for both mass production and craft. Through a distinct approach, his designs examine and emphasize the formal qualities of construction, bringing their structure, materiality and fabrication to light. He earned a degree in Industrial design followed by a BFA in sculpture at Concordia University. After working for artists like Jon Rafman and Gaetano Pesce, he started his own studio in 2019.
He interprets design in an unfettered and personal way, defying tradition in which a functionalist approach typically prevails. His use of materials like plastic and metal are balanced between their utilitarian heritage and potential for new abstractions. The mediation of this tension is what makes his practice as close to the artist’s as the designer’s. Never reducing an object to its use or form, he introduces through them a narrative which gives to their material presence all of its symbolic density.
Argenteria Miracoli is the oldest silverware shop in Milan. Its punch number 6 dates its tradition to 1912 and, for this reason, it boasts the title of “Bottega Storica” (Historical Atelier) and Negozio Storico (Historical Shop). This time-honoured family tradition originally began with grandfather Romeo Miracoli, who founded the silverware atelier. The interest in Miracoli’s production has always been very high, thanks to the excellence in quality and production, an excellence that is also testified by participation in the prestigious School of Applied Art in Industry. The tradition of Argenteria Miracoli has always been handed down from generation to generation, along a line of succession that has kept the original methodologies and procedures unaltered, from its origins to the present day, to guarantee a cultural and qualitative continuity that has made Argenteria Miracoli famous throughout the world.
Today the business is run in the original forge with the same passion and expertise. Each piece is designed, created, turned and polished by hand, according to the great Milanese silversmith tradition. On the tables and in the original showcases from the early 20th century tea and coffee services, candlesticks, sauce boats, soup tureens, frames, trays and silver cutlery, in all styles. The true pride of the workshop is the production of enamelled silver animals, made with extraordinary meticulousness, creativity and skill, a much-loved and appreciated collectors’ item.
