b-inspired Exhibitions
Spheres and potatoes
Undisciplined portrait of Gabriel Ordeig Cole
Under this intriguing title, editor of design products Santa & Cole revisits the figure of one of its founders, Gabriel Ordeig Cole —designer, artist, editor, chronicler and character of Barcelona in the 1980s—, with the re-edition of his biographical book, designed by the Barcelona studio Bendita Gloria, and through an exhibition in its new gallery space located on C/ Enric Granados.
Born in London to a Catalan father and English mother, Gabriel Ordeig Cole (1954-1994) was a multifaceted figure whose career, though unfortunately short, defied the boundaries between disciplines. Interior design projects and lighting projects for emblematic Barcelona nightlife venues — such as Boliche, La Xampanyeria, SíSíSí or the cocktail bar Bijou— lamps, furniture, graphic work, chronicles..., all conform an assemblage of heterogeneous elements which, nevertheless, are impossible to separate. In all of them one can be perceived an attentive, intelligent and intuitive gaze, the result of his obsession for objects and for life at its fullest.
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Santa & Cole Gallery, new space at C/ Enric Granados. ©Mariona Calatea
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Book cover, designed by Bendita Gloria
Ordeig's vast creative drive makes it impossible to draw to a linear narrative that gives order or meaning to his legacy, he himself was hyperactive and transversal, literally undisciplined... Can order emerge from chaos? This is the question with which Bendita Gloria brilliantly reconfigures his portrait. Through the book, the images and stories, though seemingly random, are connected in a subversive way, revealing a journey that invites an unconventional discovery of an entire Barcelona era.
The new edition of Spheres and Potatoes. Undisciplined Portrait of Gabriel Ordeig Cole is structured in two parts that reflect the expansive and fragmentary nature of Ordeig's work and thought. First, a collection of graphic works, drawings, photographs of his designs, chronicles and personal correspondence presented in no fixed hierarchy; and then a series of articles written a couple of decades ago by those who knew him closely —such as Borja Folch, Llàtzer Moix and Javier Nieto Santa—. It includes a prologue by Bendita Gloria and an epilogue by Igor Urdampilleta, whose present-day analysis is projected onto a character who is at the same time much referred to and little known. The book is on sale online and at the Santa & Cole Gallery.
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The exhibition presents a selection of the author's ideographic products, covering all the typologies that Santa & Cole currently produce: lighting, furniture and art.
The gallery space features an installation of lamps Sleeping Beauty, designed by Gabriel Ordeig Cole and Nina Masó, a totemic volume that manifests the expressiveness of colours, creating a play of contrasts between cold and warm tones, and whose visually dynamic and balanced composition celebrates the geometric abstraction of Piet Mondrian or Theo van Doesburg.
This lamp went against the grain back in 1986, in an era dominated by cold halogen lights and bare metal structures, opting for the colouring of fluorescence instead. Now produced with LED light, the screen is printed with pigmented inks on a special paper — creating a clean, precise and dense finish — protected from humidity and the passage of time with a transparent laminate. Two black lacquered wooden caps at the ends close and frame this sculpture using a thread.
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Santa & Cole Gallery, installation with Sleeping Beauty lamp. ©Mariona Calatea
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Santa & Cole Gallery, view of the exhibition. ©Mariona Calatea
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Santa & Cole Gallery, view of the exhibition. ©Mariona Calatea
Among the exhibited graphic works is the piece that gives the book and the exhibition its title, originally conceived after a late-night conversation that Gabriel Ordeig Cole had with his friend and business partner Javier Nieto Santa. In a manuscript, the beautiful metaphor about the unpredictability of chance described by Salvador de Madariaga in a speech for the Society for Long Range Planning in London in 1967 is quoted. The spheres and the potatoes are set against each other as desire is set against reality; as the heavenly, seamless plan is set against the rough and tumble of everyday management. Chance not as absolute chaos, but as an ordered principle due to the interaction of unpredictable factors.
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'Spheres and Potatoes', Gabriel Ordeig Cole, 1985. Neoserie, 30 x 24 cm
- Spheres and potatoes. Undisciplined Portrait of Gabriel Ordeig Cole
- Until 26th April 2025
- Galería Santa & Cole
- Carrer d’ Enric Granados, 68
- 08008 (Eixample) Barcelona
- galeria.barcelona@santacole.com
- santacole.com