Mountain at heart: Cober celebrates its first seventy years with art

For several years, Cober has been linked to the world of art through The Art of Skiing project. Every year an Italian artist , linked to the world of mountains and sustainability, is selected and asked to translate their poetics with one or more works created ad hoc for Cober. To celebrate its seventieth anniversary, Cober has decided to expand this concept and appeal to the ability of artists to think outside the box, a fundamental attitude for all innovators.

In 1953, Renato Covini founded Cober with the aim of creating the first ski poles factory in Italy. In the 1960s, important innovations were introduced in the production of poles: shafts went from steel to aluminium. The grips, until then made of leather, were first produced with rubber and then with plastic, to offer a more ergonomic grip.

Flavio Covini, Renato’s son, joined the company in the 1980s and immediately dedicated himself to the research and development of new technologies and new machinery for the production of poles. He takes care of all production phases, for which special investments are made with a far-sighted perspective. In the 1990s, Cober chose to specialise exclusively in the design and production of poles – expanding the collection and creating new, discipline-specific poles – developing extraordinary technological know-how.

“We are particularly proud of this achievement. We have maintained the philosophy that has accompanied us since the beginning: the focus on sustainability and well-being, social responsibility, and Made in Italy quality, while pushing the accelerator on innovation. From prototypes to machinery and automation, our path is one of continuous evolution to respond to the demands of increasingly demanding and meticulous customers, with an attention to detail from the raw materials used to the choice of colours,” explains Flavio Covini, general manager of Cober.

Mountains at (He)Art celebrates Cober’s seventieth birthday. A project that involved, over the course of a year, twelve very different artists, both on a personal level and in terms of artistic production, all Italian like Cober, all young – anagraphically, in spirit or ideas – and aligned with the brand’s three cornerstones: sustainability, nature, innovation.

Each artist was sent a pair of Cober poles, different by season and discipline of use, to be used as a generative element for the creation of a work of art, leaving carte blanche on the execution. Thus the poles were reproduced, cut, incorporated, reshaped, brought to an abstract level or brought back to the raw material. In fact, each artist reacted in a different way when faced with an object foreign to their own artistic production, offering a personal interpretation that broadens the boundaries of what is usually associated with the world of outdoor sports.

The project, launched at the beginning of 2023, concludes with the presentation of the twelfth artist and the opening of the Mountains at (He)Art exhibition where the works will be brought together for the first time. The opening of the exhibition will be on 11 December, International Mountain Day and the day chosen by Cober to celebrate both their goal and their heart at the same time: the mountains.
The twelve artists were selected by Sofia Castoldi and Ludovica Simone who, together with Cober, curated both the project and the exhibition Mountains at (He)Art at ArtNoble Gallery, via Ponte di Legno 9, Milan.