Agostino Iacurci and the Art of Wonder
Italian artist Agostino Iacurci brings his distinctive language of colour, geometry and playful storytelling to a beautiful collaboration with Acqua di Parma. For the Maison’s Holiday 2026 collection, Iacurci created a visual world inspired by theatrical characters, geometric forms, alpine landscapes and the architecture of an Italian palazzo, transforming Acqua di Parma’s objects into a luminous and imaginative universe.
Known for his multidisciplinary practice spanning painting, sculpture, drawing and installation, Iacurci has gained international recognition for his large-scale murals and installations, with projects ranging from the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris to institutions and public spaces around the world. His collaboration with Acqua di Parma reflects a shared appreciation for colour, craftsmanship and an Italian elegance that, as he describes it, is “never rigid, yet remains light.”
Miami Living brings you an interview with Agostino Iacurci, exploring the inspiration behind the collection, the role of colour and geometry, the idea of transforming objects into characters, and his interpretation of sprezzatura, the Italian art of making something complex appear effortless.
THE CONVERSATION
How did you interpret the project for Acqua di Parma, and what affinities did you recognise between your visual language and the Maison’s identity?
I approached the project as an opportunity to build a small visual world around Acqua di Parma’s objects. I was interested in animating their universe by turning the products into presences, almost like characters. I believe the affinity lies in the attention to colour, to the handmade gesture, and to a certain idea of elegance that is never rigid, yet remains light.
In working on this collection, what challenges did you encounter, and how did you manage to reconcile your artistic vision with the requirements of product design?
The main challenge was preserving the freedom of drawing within a very precise system: formats, materials, packaging, objects. I tried to work through synthesis, creating a modular language that could adapt to different supports without losing energy. It was very much a team effort; I only played a small part.
Your works manage to combine essentiality with strong expressive intensity. How do you find the balance between formal synthesis and emotional depth?
A simple form can contain a great deal of ambiguity, memory, and character. I am interested in images that seem immediate, yet continue to work over time.
When you began imagining this collection, what was the first element you started from: a colour, an emotion, a memory, or a form?
I started from an attitude — a playful one — and from a sensation: wonder. The idea of a luminous, theatrical, magical Holiday Season, in which objects come to life. From there came the geometric forms, like pieces of a Tangram, and then colour.
All the information across the products is always different from one another: what was it like to create a Tangram-like world that is repeatable yet always unique?
It was like building an alphabet. I created forms and signs that could combine with one another in ever-changing ways. The system remains recognisable, but each composition has its own personality, as if every object possessed a distinct character.
Colour has always played a central role in your work: how did it express itself within this collaboration?
Colour was the tool through which I gave the collection an emotional temperature. I looked for a sense of warmth and humanity by working with watercolour and a palette of earthy tones, then setting them against brighter contrasts and accents. The aim was to find a balance between festivity, elegance, and wonder.
The geometries that define the collection’s Masterpieces have a very strong visual identity: how did they come about, and what meaning do they hold?
They emerged through an exchange with the Acqua di Parma team. We began with the idea of imagining characters similar to the masks of the Commedia dell’Arte, which then took the form of a modular game, a sort of Tangram. This, in turn, generated the entire setting in which they are placed: the architecture of a palazzo and a mountain landscape. Simple forms that, when combined, become figures.
The Advent Calendar recalls the shape of a hotel, where each compartment opens like a window: how did you translate this imagery into a visual experience?
I imagined it as a miniature architecture, like a luminous and slightly unreal winter palazzo. Each window is a threshold, a small surprise. I was interested in transforming the everyday gesture of opening into a narrative experience.
Is there an emotion or atmosphere you would like people to feel when they encounter this collection?
Warmth, wonder, and also a kind of return to childhood.
Which fragrance from the collection represents you most, and why?
I would say Buongiorno, because it has a fresh, green, luminous quality that feels very close to my work. I like the idea of a fragrance tied to awakening and to a new beginning, built through botanical and aromatic notes in perfect balance between simplicity and precision.
Grand Hotel Sprezzatura embodies superlative hospitality, an Italian Arte di Vivere that reveals itself effortlessly in every detail. As an Italian designer, how do you interpret this principle in your creative process?
For me, sprezzatura is an attribute of distinction: making something complex appear simple. I think of great athletic gestures, certain formulas in physics, or many works of art that I love: in all these cases there is an extreme synthesis, a knowing gesture that carries an immense amount of work beneath it, yet lets only the essential emerge.
It is a process similar to distillation: one starts from a rich, layered material, at times even a disordered one, and through successive steps concentrates the aroma until arriving at something crystalline and intense. In my work, I look for a form with that same quality: apparently natural and immediate, like a drop, yet capable of holding within itself the traces of the process that generated it.
Acqua di Parma Brickell City Centre Boutique
Brickell City Centre, East Block, Level 1, Suite 153
Monday-Saturday: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Sunday: 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Phone: (786) 220-8840
Website: www.acquadiparma.com