Hook Book – Almost 1000

You could never accuse designer and artist Martino Gamper of being idle. Audacious? Yes. Precious? No. Few individuals have put such a volume and variety of work into the world with their bare hands. His curiosity to experiment through doing is impressive, voracious, perhaps even concerning. How restless is that mind? How raw are those fingers? While a comprehensive retrospective of Gamper’s projects is opening in London in October 2024, a new pearlescent pink book from his publishing house Dente-de-Leone has landed with a thud in time for summer.
Hook Book – Almost 1000 catalogues the indefatigable Italian’s recent focus on – well, the clue is in the title. It is a beautiful object in itself, designed by Åbäke and bearing all the hallmarks of the design studio’s playful sophistication. In a glorious panoply of papers and printing techniques, Gamper’s thousand-odd (and sometimes they are odd) hooks are laid bare. The sheer range is mind-boggling in itself. Each hook is a minor feat; together, the collection presents as a taxonomy of materials and processes – a single archetype extrapolated into smithereens.
Gamper got properly hooked on hooks in New Zealand, where he tends to spend winter. An early collection of hooks was exhibited as ‘Hookaloti’ – a show in 2019 at Michael Lett in Auckland. A second show, in 2023 at Anton Kern in New York, gave Gamper the impetus to rapidly expand his hook library. That show had the beautiful title ‘I Am Many Moods’, courtesy of Gamper’s friend, the author Deborah Levy, who also penned a quietly profound text for Hook Book, titled: ‘Attachment Theory; holding and letting go’.
Gamper’s world is compelling. So when Hook Book arrived, we picked up the phone to find out more…