Gaetano Pesce believed that design should reflect the messiness of life — full of emotion, contradiction, and surprise. At a time when the modern office was defined by uniformity and control, he imagined a workplace that felt more like a living organism than a machine.
Gaetano Pesce: Design as a Human Act
One of the most radical and emotionally expressive artists of the late 20th century, Gaetano Pesce embraced incoherence and treated design as an extension of the human experience. His work blurred the lines between the personal and the political, the functional and the fantastical.
He embraced imperfection, color, experimentation, and individuality — often working with resin, foam, and fabric to create forms that melt, stretch, ripple, and surprise.
“I don’t make things so they appear nice or elegant. I make objects to communicate different stories to people... My work is about communicating to those who are unique, to encourage them to stay different and true to themselves and their character.”
'WORK/LIFE IMBALANCE' celebrates the controversial and radical office interior by Gaetano Pesce for TBWA/CHIAT/DAY, 30 years later. Featuring never before seen prototypes in addition to a selection of other works. An exhibition curated by Kalei x Sweeterfat.
“I wanted to create the ad agency of the future. A place that would liberate people from the hierarchy, from the clutter, from the dreariness. I wanted it to feel like a cathedral of ideas.”
— Jay Chiat
Jay Chiat: Rethinking the Rules of Work
Jay Chiat, co-founder of the ad agency Chiat/Day, was known not just for iconic campaigns — including Apple’s “1984” — but for pushing the boundaries of how creative work gets done. In the early 1990s, he set out to completely reinvent the office.
Chiat’s vision was simple but radical: no assigned desks, no filing cabinets, no personal clutter. Employees would log on wherever they liked, supported by early wireless technology and laptops — a prescient move years before “hot desking” and remote work became mainstream.
Interior highlights
“Design must produce an intellectual and emotional experience. It should be provocative, not passive.”
— Gaetano Pesce
WORK/LIFE IMBALANCE: The Office, Unbound
As conversations around remote work, return-to-office mandates, and burnout continue to shape today’s workplace, WORK/LIFE IMBALANCE revisits a project that anticipated these tensions decades earlier. Gaetano Pesce and Jay Chiat envisioned an untethered office space where desks were unassigned and each day could look (and feel) entirely different, shaped by dripping resin, anthropomorphic forms, and new worlds around every corner. Pesce offered a sensorial, unruly alternative to business as usual long before tech campuses added their slides and game rooms.
WORK/LIFE IMBALANCE is on view at Kalei from July 1st to August 3rd, 2025. Curated by Kalei x Sweeterfat.
