Gaetano Pesce

Italian architect and designer Gaetano Pesce's role in the postmodern design movement cannot be overstated. As one of the most influential designers of our time, with a pioneering and innovative approach to design that still lives on today as a great source of inspiration for young designers, Pesce created furniture and objects that crossed borders.

In 1970, the market-leading Italian furniture company Cassina wanted to work with the influential designer but considered that Pesce's designs stood out as far too radical to be marketed under their own name. Therefore, Bracciodiferro is founded - a sister company intended to give Pesce an artistic sanctuary.

The monumental floor lamp Moloch was one of the first products launched by Bracciodiferro between the years 1970-72. Pesce saw the need for a fixture that could fill large halls and public spaces. In the spirit of the Dadaist artist Marcel Duchamp, Pesce chose an already existing product; the Norwegian designer Jac Jacobsen's table lamp "L-1" from 1937 and manufactured by Luxo. By radically enlarging the lamp, it became more than a functional object - an iconic totem and metaphor for commercialization and consumption. Pesce named the floor lamp after the ancient Canaanite god Moloch, who in the Hebrew Bible is associated with the practice of child and animal sacrifice and described as an insatiable monster which Pesce surely wanted to highlight as an antithesis to the prevailing commercialization of society.

Moloch was originally intended to be produced in an edition of one hundred, but it is estimated that between twenty and thirty examples were made before production was discontinued in 1975. The present lamp is number 009 in this edition. A Moloch lamp can be found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.