Salon - The Intersecton of Art + Design - September 2021

A decade of style and design

Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts, LLC Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts, LLC, specializes in American and European art created in the early 20th century with a focus on early Modernism. Exhibiting artworks from Edward Hopper to Gustav Klimt, and sculpture from Gaston Lachaise to Jacques Lipchitz, the gallery also exhibits decorative works

by Modernist designers and architects including Samuel Yellin, Edgar Brandt, Frank Lloyd Wright and Josef Hoffmann.

Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts, LLC New York and East Hampton info@bgfa.com (212) 813-9797 www.bgfa.com

(Opposite) Oscar Bluemner, A House in the Night, 1929 Oil on panel 10 × 8 inches (Below) Chana Orloff, Baigneuse-Nu Couch, 1930 Lifetime bronze 8 × 18 × 8 inches

David Gill Gallery’s vibrant contemporary program features exhibitions and collaborations with leading international artists, architects and designers including Barnaby Barford, Mattia Bonetti, the Campana Brothers, Sir David Chipperfield, Michele Oka Doner, Sebastian Brajkovic, the late Dame Zaha Hadid, Jorge Pardo, Garouste & Bonetti, Daniel Libeskind, Sebastian Errazuriz, Milena Muzquiz, Valentin Loellmann, José Yaque, Lena Peters and Fredrikson Stallard. Works from the gallery can be found in esteemed private and public museum collections.

David Gill 2–4 King Street London SW1Y 6QP, United Kingdom info@davidgillgallery.com +44 20 3195 6600 www.davidgillgallery.com

(Below) Zaha Hadid, UltraStellar doubleseat bench, 2016, American walnut, 26.4 × 47.2 × 28.7 inches.

Limited to 15 + 2P + 2AP (Opposite) Jorge Pardo, Meretricious Untitled 6, 2015, MDF, tzalam wood, acrylic paint, laca, coloured steel frame, 78.7 × 70.9 × 23.6 inches Mattia Bonetti, Lake Como coffee table, 2017, patinated bronze, acrylic, 17.3 × 81.5 × 48.4 inches.

Limited to 8 + 2P + 2AP Garouste & Bonetti, Boys & Girls candelabras, 1994, bronze, gilded and patinated.

Boy: 18.8 × 9.4 × 7.9 inches; Girl: 16.9 × 7.9 × 7.9 inches.

Limited to 30 + 2P + 2AP

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MICHAEL ANASTASSIADES NOVEMBER 11 - DECEMBER 18

Ini Archibong, Vernus 3, 2020 Glass, galvanized steel Ini Archibong, Shade Table , 2019 Polished obsidian, glass

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Salon Art + Design 2021

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Lobel Modern Lobel Modern was established

by Evan Lobel in New York City in 1998 to promote important 20th-century designers, whose originality and exceptional craftsmanship and materials transformed their works into art. The gallery showcases period furniture, lighting, art, and decorative arts. Lobel Modern is a critical resource for designers, architects and collectors the world over.

Featured designers include: Karl Springer, Philip and Kelvin LaVerne, Gabriella Crespi, Paul Evans, Vladimir Kagan, Tommi Parzinger and Anzolo Fuga.

Lobel Modern 200 Lexington Avenue, Suite 915 New York, NY 10016 info@lobelmodern.com (212) 242-9075 www.lobelmodern.com

(Opposite) Karl Springer, exceptional four panel “Coromandel Screen” in black, gold, silver and red lacquer, US, 1986 (Above) Gabriella Crespi, one of a kind large “Caleidoscopo” (“Kaleidoscope”) table lamp in brushed stainless steel and white plexiglass, Italy, 1974 (signed "Gabriella Crespi" on shade) (Left) Jacques Duval-Brasseur, rare bronze table with large amethyst in jewelry setting, France, 1970s (signed by the artist on base)

CONTENTS 13

Salon – The Intersection of Art + Design A welcome to this year’s magazine from Editorial Director Jill Bokor

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By Design: Glithero

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By Design: Seungjin Yang

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By Design: Niamh Barry

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By Design: Elizabeth Garouste

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By Design: Vikram Goyal

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By Design: David Wiseman

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By Design: Roberto Lugo

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An open market After a year of living with the pandemic, how has the design world changed,

by Judd Tully

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Defining a decade Exhibitors reflect on 10 years of Salon Art + Design

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Material culture Why makers are getting more experimental with the materials they use,

by Melissa Feldman

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True colors Bold hues have made a design comeback – and they’re here to stay,

by Dominic Lutyens

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Where it all began We look back at the influential journey of fair impresario Sanford Smith

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A Salon portfolio Galleries and partners present pieces that will be on show at this year’s fair

91 Directory All the galleries and partners featured

(Cover Image) Niamh Barry, On it goes.

Photo: Nigel Swann. Courtesy: Maison Gerard

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P E T E R L A N E MONUMENTAL CERAMIC SCULPTURE WWW.PETERLANECLAY.COM SLN2109.indd 10

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Rare Lounge Chairs Plywood, brass, fabric V. Gregotti, L. Meneghetti, G. Stoppino Exhibited at the X Triennale, Milano, 1954

Donzella Ltd & Donzella Project Space 200 Lexington Avenue, 15th Floor New York, NY 10016 info@donzella.com IG @donzella_ltd

212 965 8919

SALON – THE INTERSECTION OF ART + DESIGN

by Jill Bokor Last November we published Salon – The Intersection of Art + Design because Salon, like so many other fairs planned to take place in 2020, was cancelled. We are publishing a second edition in response to the great feedback we received last year and, more importantly, because we do plan to hold the 10th anniversary edition of Salon Art + Design from November 11–15 and want to give our audience a preview of what to expect.

As we look forward to the fair, we contemplate the past decade and imagine what the future might hold in the design world. Judd Tully has written an astute report of where the market is now. Melissa Feldman weighs in on how working designers think about materials and materiality in their projects. Dominic Lutyens assesses the use of color in design – have we graduated from the bland beige palette of the 1990s and early 2000s? Further, talented writers speak to a range of today’s makers who work in all materials and spectrums of color, offering a quick, impressionistic look at what’s being produced in 2021. Finally, you’ll find a profile of Sanford Smith, the owner of Salon, who has been the creator of niche art and design fairs since 1979.

The portfolio of material presented by both our exhibitors and partners on these pages gives just a taste of the art and design that

will be on view at the fair. We know that, as always, we will see a wide range of genres and forms from diverse periods and geographies, leading us to draw new conclusions about collectible design.

Our thanks go to the wonderful team at Cultureshock, without whom this magazine would not have been possible – Ed, Fonz, Rich, and Paddy, thanks for such an inspiring partnership. Thanks, too, to our dedicated Salon team: Jennifer Stark, Nicky Dessources, Wendy Buckley, and Nora Wimmer, who have worked diligently this past year in the hope that there would be a fair to produce and a magazine that would reflect it.

We hope you enjoy the magazine, but above all, we look forward to welcoming you back to Salon Art + Design.

See you in November.

Jill Bokor is Executive Director, Salon Art + Design

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Salon – The Intersection of Art + Design is published

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Cultureshock 27b Tradescant Road London SW8 1XD Telephone + 44 20 7735 9263 www.cultureshockmedia.co.uk

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Lebreton Lebreton was established in 1999, with locations in San Francisco and Provence.

Alain Lebreton and Karim Mehanna founded Lebreton to realize their combined ambition of promoting and preserving the works of major post-war French and European artists. Lebreton presents a distinguished and unique selection of artist-designed furniture and 20th-century ceramics, sculptures and paintings by major European Modern and post-war artists.

Alain Lebreton San Francisco, CA (by appointment) Draguignan, France (by appointment) info@lebretongallery.com +33 6 15 20 75 33 www.lebretongallery.com

Suzanne Ramié – Studio Madoura, Grande Lampe, c.1960.

Glazed ceramic lamp, stamped Madoura Plein Feu, H 27 inches

Salon Art + Design 2021

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ADRIAN SASSOON | London | www.adriansassoon.com | email@adriansassoon.com | +44 (0)20 7581 9888

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GLITHERO The London studio takes a literal approach to throwing around ideas and getting hands-on A moment of serendipity in lockdown led to the latest creation by Glithero, the London-based design partnership of Tim Simpson and Sarah van Gameren, who describes how their ‘Hold Me’ vases came to life after a moment of playful spontaneity.

“These are light-sensitive vases that capture [the impression of] hands. It happened when we were working in a dark room on our other ceramic vases, usually printed with botanical specimens,” Van Gameren recalls. “Tim threw the vase to me while light exposure was happening – consequently, our hands were captured and photographed on the vase.”

Simpson and Van Gameren founded their practice in 2008 after studying at the Royal College of Art in London, later setting up an extensive workshop space in Finsbury Park, north London (they also flit back and forth to the Netherlands, Van Gameren’s home country).

The pair bonded at college, helping each other to assemble their graduate works.

The Hold Me project made the pair think about what matters in the wake of the Covid-19 turmoil. “The main things that we missed during the pandemic were making things with the team and the sense of touch,” Van Gameren says.

“We realized these things are very important to our practice, so we pursued a project that incorporated these elements.”

The vases, part of a joint project with JamesPlumb design studio in London, are available from Gallery FUMI, which also sells the couple’s Les French furniture line (launched in 2009), a collection of tables, side tables and shelves built on bamboo frames cast in bronze.

Beyond the furniture, Glithero also makes mesmerising time-based installations such as the 2016 Green Room piece at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, a kinetic work made of silicone cords that rose and fell above visitors’ heads in a wave-like motion.

The work typifies their approach, reflecting their conceptual rigor and passion for the processes behind production. “We’re driven by the satisfaction you get from understanding the real value in the moment that something is created,” Van Gameren says. “It’s less about pure innovation. It’s about finding the essence of a product and guiding people to the one moment of making that is relevant.”

Sarah van Gameren and Tim Simpson. Photo: Theresa Marx.

Courtesy: Glithero

“IT’S LESS ABOUT PURE INNOVATION… IT’S ABOUT FINDING THE ESSENCE OF A PRODUCT”

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Glithero, Hold Me vase. Courtesy: Glithero

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Twentieth Gallery Twentieth specializes in merging the best of international contemporary design with groundbreaking avant-garde talent, creating an environment that blends design and art into an innovative aesthetic vision.

Twentieth Exhibitions is the current evolution of Twentieth’s gallery platform that began in 2016 as The New. The program of rotating exhibitions emphasizes work that crosses disciplinary boundaries between art and design. Each exhibition features unique and limited-edition works that are on view at the gallery as well as various other locations, both real and virtual.

Based in Los Angeles and housed in its landmark Neil Denari-designed building, Twentieth has been a leader in curating the evolution of contemporary design since 1999.

Twentieth Gallery 7470 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90036 sales@twentieth.net (323) 904-1200 www.twentieth.net

Salon Art + Design 2021

(Opposite) Vincent Pocsik, assorted light sculptures from the 2021 exhibition Anatomical Torsion: Abstractions In Wood (editions of 8 + 2 AP).

Carved, bleached and treated alder wood. (From left to right) Cloud Flow, 41 × 21 × 18 inches; Giving Grace, 29 × 21 × 14 inches; A Wrinkle (I Jiggle), 49 × 21 × 15 inches (Below) Erick Ifergan, Stone chair (edition of 8 + 2 AP), cast aluminum, 2020, 38 × 27 × 29 inches

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Salon Art + Design 2021

SEUNGJIN YANG This South Korean designer’s work has been blowing up over the past decade, with playful furniture designs moulded from balloons The South Korean designer Seungjin Yang is candid about the furniture he creates and whether the pieces in his Blowing Series of chairs, benches and stools are actually comfortable. These glossy products – now his trademark objects – are made from balloons crafted into solid sculptural, functional forms.

“People who have actually sat in a [Blowing Series] chair say that it is more comfortable than they thought,” he says. “However, my work is not made for the sake of convenience.”

Seungjin began making the balloon series in 2013, the year he graduated in art and design from Hongik University in Seoul. “It was well-received so I continued developing it,” he says, emphasising in an online text that “a process of producing balanced structures and rigid textures” underpins the manufacture of the quirky chairs and benches.

The furniture may look fragile but the pieces are sturdy because, as Seungjin explains, epoxy resin is poured over them – a process that is repeated eight times. “The works are also structurally strong because the pieces are cylindrical,” he elaborates. Variations on the balloon motif can be seen in the 2016 series Chairs for Cultural Factory osan, which incorporates other materials, such as wood.

Is Seungjin concerned about catering to a niche audience or conversely having mass appeal? “I don't work for anyone in particular,” he replies. “I just do what I want to do, and I don't think about how it is evaluated and who does it.”

Seungjin kept working as the pandemic unfolded and things “didn’t change much” for him other than practicalities such as the rising cost of international shipping. Now, looking ahead, finding time to develop original concepts is the priority.

“New work is constantly being conceived, but I don't have enough time to express it right now,” he says. The quest goes on nonetheless for the perfect balloon piece. The plan, according to his website, is to extend the Blowing Series by using “more playful colors and experimental forms.”

Seungjin’s work can be found at The Future Perfect.

Seungjin Yang.

Courtesy: Seungjin Yang

“I JUST DO WHAT I WANT TO DO, AND I DON'T THINK ABOUT HOW IT IS EVALUATED” Running head

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Seungjin Yang sitting in one of his armchairs.

Courtesy: Seungjin Yang

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Salon Art + Design 2021

NIAMH BARRY This Dublin-based designer fuses bronze sculptures and LED lights to create ambitious, complex and unique fixtures For a pithy summation of Niamh Barry’s aims and aesthetic, look no further than an eloquent statement posted on the website by the Dublin-based designer. In her mini-manifesto, Barry explains that she makes “three-dimensional drawings in bronze and light,” aspiring to “make work that transcends utility.”

Over a 30-year career, Barry has finetuned her vision, creating hand-welded bronze sculptures embedded with LED strips. “The first piece I made using LED was in 2003/04 [Chain].

It really wasn’t something that was universally used at the time. I was taking components that were not designed to do what I did with them. I manipulated it to express this idea of drawing with light and bronze,” she says.

Today, she makes around 30 pieces annually, creating bespoke, site-specific sculptural lighting items for clients worldwide. Recent commissions include Muscularity (2019), a gravity-defying assemblage that melds magnets and hand-formed bronze pieces. Other standout objects include Vessel Scape (2017), a vast ceiling-suspended work made for the headquarters of the Central Bank of Ireland in Dublin, inspired by the bows and sterns of the 3,000-year-old Broighter boat.

“In terms of complexity of form, that was definitely our most ambitious piece up to that

point. It has a visual gravitas and presence that other pieces don’t have. We’re now working on a slightly larger piece for a private client in the UK,” Barry says.

Barry has always been hands-on, welding, cutting and sanding materials, but having a solid 10-strong team has lightened the load. “I will experiment; I’ll have an idea and will try out a new patina perhaps and make all the prototypes.

I’ll explore and play with materials, processes and finishes,” she says. The process starts with hand-drawn sketches that transform into bronze maquettes. “Ninety percent of what I do is imagining the work, and living with it in my mind’s eye – thinking about, for instance, how a certain piece will stand up to the surrounding architecture.”

Post-pandemic, she plans to travel extensively, possibly heading to the next edition of Salon Art + Design in November (Covid restrictions permitting). Barry has shown unique works at the fair in recent years through Maison Gerard gallery of New York. “It’s the pinnacle of international design fairs, and a very important part of my year,” she says. “It’s a reference point that I always work towards.” Devotees of Barry’s work will not be disappointed this year as her latest creation, Artist Hand II, is due to go on show in the next edition.

Niamh Barry.

Courtesy: Niamh Barry

Running head

Niamh Barry, Underneath.

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I MANIPULATED THE COMPONENTS TO EXPRESS THIS IDEA OF DRAWING WITH LIGHT AND BRONZE

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Salon Art + Design 2021

ELIZABETH GAROUSTE The French designer is celebrated for her artistic expression and blurring the line between function and freedom The established, influential French designer Elizabeth Garouste says without hesitation that she likes the label given to her and the Swiss-born designer Mattia Bonetti, who she met in the late 1970s. “I really like the term New Barbarian,” she says. “Together we made our first collection inspired by the primitive world; the furniture was made of animal skin and rocks, including a chair that we called the Barbarian Chair (1981).”

The pair’s bold new vision for design – which drew upon the Venetian baroque, the Middle Ages and Neo-Classicism – radically re-thought “the forms and uses of furniture, but re-styled it for a knowing and urbane audience in a period dominated by post-modernist irony and symbolism,” says a statement on the Victoria & Albert Museum website.

Garouste studied interior design at the École Camondo in Paris; after college, she spent the 1970s designing footwear at

Tilbury, her parents’ shoe company, and also created theatre sets. Garouste and Bonetti’s partnership began in earnest when the pair jointly created the décor for the legendary Parisian club Le Privilège in 1980, adorning the walls with primitive art-inspired pieces.

“After working for 10 years in fashion, more specifically shoes, Le Privilège was my first [interior] design project that I carried out with my husband Gérard Garouste,” she says. In 2002, she stopped working with Bonetti; today, her personal artistic practice is a priority.

“I like switching from a world that is very functional to [the world of] drawings, and sculptures in metal or papier mâché, enabling me to have even more freedom,” she says.

Crucially, Garouste underwent something of a renaissance last year with a show of critically acclaimed works at Ralph Pucci Gallery in New York, including an off-the-wall wrought iron swing chair (edition of 25).

“It was a real shame because I was not able to be [there] because of Covid-19, but I think it’s been fairly successful because I received a lot of orders. The collection is made in an artisanal and fanciful style, mixing bronze, wrought iron, lacquer, ceramics, mosaic, and gold leaf,” Garouste explains. She reveals that she is also transforming a Christian Louboutin boutique in Paris and preparing a new collection for Ralph Pucci gallery in Los Angeles and Avant-Scène gallery in Paris.

Elizabeth Garouste, Lamp Zita. Photo: Antoine Bootz.

Courtesy: Ralph Pucci

I LIKE SWITCHING FROM A WORLD THAT IS VERY FUNCTIONAL TO THE WORLD OF DRAWINGS AND SCULPTURES Running head

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Elizabeth Garouste, Auguste Buffet. Photo: Antoine Bootz.

Courtesy: Ralph Pucci

A n d r e w L o r d , P a t i n a te d b r o n z e f l o o r l a m p, E n g l i s h c. 19 8 9

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Karl Kemp Antiques The preeminent gallery for fine furniture and decorative art in New York City. Presenting a focused collection of continental 19th-century antiques, Art Deco and mid-century design.

In addition, we offer an exceptional selection of luxury contemporary design of the highest quality.

Eric Barsky 36 East 10th Street New York, NY 10003 United States info@karlkemp.com (212) 254-1877 www.karlkemp.com

Martin Potsch, Blue glass surrounded with blue square prunts, Germany, 2020, 13 × 7 inches

WHEN WE STARTED OUR STUDIO, A PRIMARY OBJECTIVE WAS TO REVIVE TRADITIONAL ARTISANAL SKILLS 32

Vikram Goyal, El Dorado Console, 2020.

Courtesy: Todd Merrill Studio

Salon Art + Design 2021

By design Running head

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VIKRAM GOYAL The New Delhi-based banker-turned-designer talks switching careers and creating a modern Indian design language New Delhi-based designer Vikram Goyal was once a banker with Morgan Stanley, but the lure of design proved too much. His company Viya, co-founded with his sister Divya more than a decade ago, offers not just interior design but also luxurious furniture, sculptures and lighting in brass, melding Art Deco and Brutalist elements with aspects of Indian heritage and craftsmanship. Here, he describes his career trajectory.

Was it difficult to switch from finance to design?

Vikram Goyal: Actually, it was much easier than I had envisaged. I had lived in the US, Hong Kong and India and been exposed to the Oriental and Occidental styles that gave me a unique aesthetic perspective. In India, where materials and artisans are abundant, it was relatively easy to experiment. We sampled madly. And then the design journey took on a life of its own.

Throughout your design career, it’s clear that you have wanted to harness the skills of Indian architects and artists, focusing on indigenous techniques.

When we started our studio, a primary objective was to revive traditional artisanal skills – skills that traditionally involved little formal education but were rooted in material science and engineering and passed on from generation to generation. Over the years, we have invested substantially in elevating this knowledge, highlighting indigenous techniques.

Vikram Goyal, Kohinoor Console, 2020. Courtesy: Todd Merrill Studio

What is the best way to describe your practice?

Some commentators credit you with creating a “modern Indian design language.”

Our designs are multi-dimensional and straddle a wide spectrum encompassing India modern, Mid-Century/Modernist, Brutalist and Art Deco styles. The products are all handcrafted and celebrate the notion of man versus machine.

They represent the confluence of art and design, form and function. Yes, we consider ourselves pioneers of crafting a modern design language; our work has since evolved to [incorporate] more India-agnostic inspirations and designs.

I understand that you admire the work of the Italian architect Gio Ponti and the late British fashion designer Alexander McQueen?

Yes, I like the strong design vocabulary across materials and styles of both of these gifted designers.

Please describe your latest piece or series.

Our latest series focuses on using sheets of brass to literally carve out three-dimensional relief or repoussé sculptural artworks – a nod to the brilliant Art Deco panels we saw in the middle of the last century in France and the US. What are your future plans? Will you develop more furniture collections?

We are focusing on developing a more accessible line across product categories, including furniture.

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(Above) Stéphane Parmentier, Flexible chandelier.

Photo: Jean-Pierre Vaillancourt (Left) François Champsaur, Uto armchair. Photo: Phot’Osmose

David Wiseman, Lost Valley Wall 36 Mirror, 2019. Courtesy: Wiseman Studio. Photo: Kasmin Gallery

THE PLANET EARTH SERIES HAS INSPIRED MANY PROJECTS… NATURE IS AT THE SOURCE OF ALL OF MY WORK

Salon Art + Design 2021

By design Running head

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DAVID WISEMAN The LA-based designer talks about running an independent studio and being inspired by David Attenborough US designer David Wiseman creates sculpture, furniture and site-specific installations at his studio in Frogtown, Los Angeles, a unique space with its own foundry, ceramic studio, metal shop and viewing rooms. Encountering his nature-inspired works is “like discovering the beautiful landscape of Narnia inside an austere wardrobe,” wrote critic Carren Jao. Your practice is very much a dual operation.

How does the process work?

David Wiseman: Since 2017, I have been working in partnership with my brother Ari, who had a significant career leading museums. He’s actually been a huge influence on my life since 1981, and in many ways guided and influenced the course of my creative life, taking me to museums, sharing his passion for art history and all things refined and aesthetic. I take the creative lead on my work but am always sharing ideas and in active dialogue with Ari, on all aspects of the studio. His involvement has allowed us to be an independent studio, where we can work directly with collectors and designers, as well as with galleries.

Is everything you do and make inspired by nature? You're obviously a fan of David Attenborough.

Yes, of course. The BBC Planet Earth series is in heavy rotation and has inspired many projects, such as the Bowerbird table. Nature is at the source of all of my work. Some of the patterns that I am drawn to and have incorporated in my work may seem one step removed from nature, but at their source, I think they all come from structures and ideas rooted in nature.

Does Wilderness and Ornament sum up your aesthetic?

It could in a way, yes. That was the name of a show I had in 2015 at R & Company gallery, where my goal was to create a type of ornament that evokes more than mere fringe decoration or icing on the cake, but that demonstrates my reverence for the wilderness by creating objects and interiors totally and completely inspired by it.

How has Owen Jones’s Grammar of Ornament been a reference point for you?

Grammar of Ornament was always on my grandmother’s shelf. When I was a kid I remember gravitating toward it and admiring the colorful, metallic plates featuring patterns from cultures around the globe and throughout history.

Have you ever attended Salon Art + Design fair in New York?

Yes, I showed tabletop objects and a bronze and porcelain collage fireplace screen at the fair.

The fair is always a great opportunity to see new work alongside examples of historic decorative arts, which is always of interest to me.

David Wiseman. Courtesy: Wiseman Studio. Photo: Mark Hanauer

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The Great Design Disaster The Great Design Disaster is an ambitious project born out of a respect for the design process. It initiates and facilitates an intimate conversation between collector and artisan – a dialogue that takes the creative process to new heights. The brainchild of art and design expert Joy Herro and interior designer Gregory Gatseralia, the project challenges the understanding that a design’s success lies in its replication, and celebrates the ‘design disaster’ of making just one, only once,

The Great Design Disaster, Tetris table, plexiglass and black painted stainless steel, 60 × 60 × 55 centimetres.

Photo: Marella Bessone

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Salon Art + Design 2021

ROBERTO LUGO The art professor and ceramicist talks about blending graffiti and hip-hop culture with classical pottery Philadelphia-based Roberto Lugo has brought pottery into the 21st century, creating ceramics inspired by urban graffiti, politics and hip-hop culture. He describes himself as a “potter, social activist, spoken word poet and educator” and is an assistant professor at Tyler School of Art and Architecture.

What came first – graffiti or ceramics?

Roberto Lugo: Graffiti came first in my life because that was the only access to art I had growing up. I started working with graffiti in my teens as a way of connecting with my brother, cousins and other people my age. I didn’t start making ceramics until I took a community college class in my mid-20s.

Is your approach all about re-contextualizing the ceramic vessel?

I don’t think I’m reinventing ceramics. Honestly, what I think I’m doing is introducing new ideas and utilizing historic vessel forms as a template and a platform for people who maybe don’t understand the subject matter I’m instituting; converging hip-hop and the culture that I grew up with and classical pottery. My work becomes a bridge between those things.

Who is your work aimed at?

I’m very passionate about accessibility, and sell my own work at a range of price points, from cups to stickers and hats to 4ft vessels. You know, there are a lot of people of color who are art collectors and there’s this stigma that they should only seek out art that is representative of their identity and experiences with respect to race. Nonetheless, I believe that there are many ways to participate in art outside of owning a physical piece of it. In ceramics, for so long it has been about function or exclusivity, and I think that’s changing with social media, since people are able to view and admire art without cost barriers.

Roberto Lugo. Photo: Meghan Tranauskas. Courtesy: Wexler Gallery

Do you hand paint every piece?

Yes, my work features several decorative ceramic techniques such as slip/underglaze painting, china paint, ceramic decals and luster.

A lot of people don’t have the time to sit and hand paint a pot for 20 hours, so in my work, I’m really using whatever I feel like is the best process to achieve my goal. If the goal is to have a piece that really looks hand-painted and it shows human errors, or if there’s an area where I really want it to look like a neutral space and I don’t want anyone to pay attention to how it’s made, I might choose a more industrial process like a ceramic decal.

Will you attend the Salon Art + Design fair this November in New York?

I’ve participated in the Salon Art + Design fair several times, and I believe at least one of my pieces will be there with Wexler Gallery.

IN CERAMICS, FOR SO LONG IT HAS BEEN ABOUT FUNCTION OR EXCLUSIVITY, AND I THINK THAT’S CHANGING Running head

Roberto Lugo, Same Ol’ Crack, 2019. Photo: KeneK Photography

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Gallery Dobrinka Salzman Mid-century modern American, French and Scandinavian design, contemporary ceramics and lighting.

Dobrinka Salzman 532 W 25th St, New York, NY 10001 gallery@dobrinkasalzman.com (917) 572-9476 www.dobrinkasalzman.com

Jean Prouvé, S.A.M. table and standard chairs, c.1950s; Gao Aulenti, Patroclo table lamp, c.1975; Josef Albers, Homage to the Square, c.1970s.

Photo: Riccardo Vecchio

AN OPEN MARKET

Jean Prouvé, Temporary school of Villejuif, 1957, photographed in October 2018. Photo: Galerie Patrick Seguin

Faced with a huge shift in behaviours during the pandemic, in 2020 the design world had to switch through the gears and find a new way forward. One year on, Judd Tully finds out whether it’s been for better or worse

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The 18-month-long-and-counting Covid-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on the globe and forced any number of industries, large and small, to scramble for survival. Many have had to come up with fresh ways of transacting business in a fast-changing and socially distanced economy. The design world of galleries, fairs and auction houses is certainly no different, and one can already see significant changes brewing.

“The pandemic caught everyone completely off guard,” says Evan Snyderman of the Tribeca-based R & Company, co-founded with his partner Zesty Meyers in 1997, “and we essentially stopped all fairs, stopped all exhibitions and battened down the hatches.

Then, after the first five months with nothing going on, we said, ‘OK, if we can’t engage with our clients directly, we have to engage them in some other way.’”

In short order, according to the dealer, “we went on a massive campaign of trying to create virtual events, Zoom calls – I had never done a Zoom call in my life! – and all of a sudden, we’re giving really interesting talks with artists and designers and people all over the world. It was a way to do our outreach which we couldn’t do in the gallery, and kept our clients engaged.”

Snyderman and Meyers, already survivors of the economic fallout of 9/11 and the 2008 mega-recession, are moving ahead; in Snyderman’s words, “we’ve always tried to be putting out new material, new objects and using social media as best we can.”

In that shaken-not-stirred cocktail mixture, the dealers also opened a pop-up shop in Aspen, Colorado, in partnership with contemporary gallery Lehmann Maupin last summer, as a proactive way to engage with their upscale clientele safe-harboring in the mountains. They also staged a collaboration with Jeff Lincoln Art + Design in Southampton. “At the end of the day,” says Snyderman, “you’ve got to make a personal connection.”

R & Company will also return to the Park Avenue Armory this November for the 10th iteration of the Salon Art + Design fair.

(Right) Installation view at Galerie Patrick Seguin featuring Jean Prouvé, Présidence no. 201 desk, c.1955. Photo: Galerie Patrick Seguin. (Opposite) Unique Galaxy Cluster illuminated sculpture with blue hand-blown glass plates, designed and made by Jeff Zimmerman, USA, 2020. Photo: Joe Kramm. Courtesy: R & Company

Salon Art + Design 2021

An open market

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“WITH THE SITUATION, WITH LESS OPPORTUNITY TO BUY, PEOPLE GO FOR THIS IMMEDIACY OF PLEASURE, MEANING YOUR HOUSE, THE ART ON THE WALL AND THE FURNITURE”

“To be honest,” says Patrick Seguin of the eponymous Paris gallery he founded in 1989, “we already had the confirmation before Covid: the art world is often disconnected from the reality of the economy, of the planet, and so we’ve had a great year.”

As Seguin explains, “with the situation, with less opportunity to buy, people go for this immediacy of pleasure, meaning your house, the art on the wall and the furniture. The market is solid for private. I don’t know about auctions. Most of the business has been for Prouvé and Royère. In my field, my market is very strong.”

Mostly residing in his newly constructed Jean Nouvel house in the south of France, Seguin – whose gallery is laser-focused on five French architect-designers, Jean Prouvé, Charlotte Perriand, Pierre Jeanneret, Le Corbusier and Jean Royère – says he sold a Prouvé ‘President’s Desk’ for €600,000 (around $709,000) during the height of the pandemic, as well as two Prouvé “demountable” houses in the past 10 months, at prices starting at €1.4 million (around $1.65 million). “Ninety-five percent of my collectors are great contemporary art collectors and I don’t know of a typology of work that would dialogue better with contemporary art than Prouvé,” Seguin says.

“There’s a great synergy there.”

Though leagues apart, both in distance and artist rosters, R & Company and Seguin are active publishers in the design field.

This was marked most recently by R’s Objects: USA 2020, a part reprise publication and exhibition curated by Glenn Adamson from the storied Smithsonian Institution show of 1969 – the first of its kind championing the American craft medium – while adding on 50 works by contemporary artist/designers (on view through July), and Seguin’s third volume of a five-volume set, Jean Prouvé Architecture.

Objects: USA 2020 also produced a number of pending museum acquisitions, including historical works by Doyle Lane, Marilyn Pappas, Art Smith and Maija Grotell and, according to R & Company’s head

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Salon Art + Design 2021

An open market

of museum relations, James Zemaitis, “illustrated the current institutional focus on acquiring works by women and artists of color.”

Research has proved essential in the design field, and no better a time to mine that historical lode than during the current pandemic, especially with art and design fairs on hold or limited to virtual participation and the relative anonymity of digitized viewing rooms.

Suzanne Demisch, the co-founder with Stephane Danant in 2005 of New York’s Demisch Danant, is thoroughly immersed in the history of French post-war design and the gallery’s website has launched a “made in France” online program with the intent “to be inspired to learn more, and have the opportunity to acquire pieces with which you connect.”

“We are interested,” she says, “in the historical background of our works, and like to discover and highlight connections.”

As Demisch – who in 2011 co-authored with Danant the book Maria Pergay: Complete Works 1957-2010 – further observes, and striking a tone clearly heard from other design colleagues, “yes, we noticed an increase in interest and in sales.

People do seem to focus on elevating their home environment and experience.”

Asked if the gallery’s clientele were coming in to see works or viewing remotely, the dealer says, “it’s a mix – clients and designers seem to be thirsty for inspiration and beauty more than ever. The pandemic has also given us the opportunity to experiment more, to do more simple collaborations, and to highlight other local, creative designers and colleagues.

It has proved to be very successful.”

“Before Covid,” says Loic Gaillard, the co-founder in 2006 with Julien Lombrail of the London/New York/Paris/San Francisco-based Carpenters Workshop Gallery, “we were running around like headless chickens all the time.”

But, he says, the extra time afforded by the lockdowns allowed the gallery to “make the digital shift and revolution that our business model should take, to sharpen the way we do business without paying a million dollars in rent for expensive premises in New York,

(Opposite) Vincenzo de Cotiis, DC1919 / 2019 (Armchair). Courtesy: Carpenters Workshop Gallery.

Right: Vincenzo de Cotiis, DC1909B / 2019 (Chandelier) displayed over DC1901 / 2019 (Coffee Table). Courtesy: Carpenters Workshop Gallery

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Jean 50 Prouvé, 6x6 Demountable house, 1944 reassembled in South of France, 2020. Photo: Galerie Patrick Seguin

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An open market

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“THE MARKET IS ALMOST COUNTERINTUITIVELY STRONG”

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London, or you name it. You cannot justify this money anymore. By using digital techniques, you have a far better reach to the market and I don’t mean just sending out a few sexy posts on Instagram or Facebook.”

Even with his Cassandra-like warnings about the ebbing lifespan of the current gallery model, Gaillard is gung-ho on the resilience of the collectable design market, noting, “so you’re not going to buy, say, a $50 million painting, but you won’t compromise on your dining chairs, table and chandelier.”

Carpenters Workshop and R & Company have profited and even expanded by capitalizing on opportunities during the pandemic through artist commissions. These have included multiple large-scale Galaxy Cluster illuminated sculptures by Jeff Zimmerman, through R & Company, for a private New York residence and priced “well into the six figures,” according to Snyderman. Meanwhile, sculpted bronze furniture by Vincenzo de Cotiis, including an almost 7 meter-long dining table, was commissioned for a private super-yacht through Carpenters Workshop. “This alone is a very big ticket,” says Gaillard.

Asked if the gallery would resume its peripatetic schedule of participating in art fairs across the globe as the pandemic eases and travel resumes, Gaillard says “it might be a good thing for everybody to slow down the pace a bit.”

The auction side of the design market is also going through some sea changes brought on by the pandemic, according to Richard Wright, the founder in 2000 of the eponymous Chicago-based Wright, which merged with the Lambertville, New Jersey-based Rago Auctions in 2019, where Wright serves as chief executive to both.

“The market is almost counter-intuitively strong,” says Wright, whose combined enterprise brought in $55 million in 2020. “With the stock market reaching record heights and people at home, they’re working on their nests, they’re more attuned to their interiors.”

As Wright observes, “we’re famous for our catalogues but we’ve been moving away from our dependency on print and moving to digital for a good long while, and the pandemic just accelerated that and pushed us completely to digital. We stopped printing catalogues and now half of our sales have also gone to digital and I believe it will be a permanent shift in the industry. I don’t think anyone is looking to go back.”

Salon Art + Design 2021

Haptic Narrative - The Aspen Edition, on view at the Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO from August 1 to September 15, 2020.

Courtesy: R & Company

ROSA ROSAE ROSAE ™ I “FIORITURE” COLLECTION

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Foto: De Rossi Studio - Design: UNICA & ARCADESTUDIO

www.unicaluxury.com | EXPORT@UNICALUXURY.COM | PH. +39 0510930634

| VIA BONAZZI, 4 CASTEL MAGGIORE (BO) 40013

ITALY

Handmade Collectable Design

Gallery FUMI 2-3 Hay Hill, Mayfair, London W1J 6AS, United Kingdom +44 (0)20 7490 2366 | galleryfumi.com | @gallery_fumi

DEFINING A DECADE 55

Ten years strong, Salon Art + Design is back this November.

To mark the occasion, we asked exhibitors what the boundarybreaking show means to them

Colin Reid, Colour Saturation; Open Eye, 2021, featured at Adrian Sassoon at Parham House. Photo: Sylvain Deleu Parham 21

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Moderne Gallery’s Robert Aibel was among the first dealers to participate in Modernism, the fair established by Sanford Smith in November 1985 and from which Salon Art + Design emerged 25 years later. “That show was the breakthrough in the recognition of the role of Modernism in design in America, as a marketplace,” Aibel says. And it didn’t only change the collecting landscape. “Doing the Modernism show shortly after we opened the gallery made my business,” he says. Today, he is the foremost dealer in Nakashima and studio furniture in the United States.

Primed for access to a New York audience close to Park Avenue Armory, Modernism covered objects spanning 1860 to 1960. Smith (aka ‘Sandy’) brought Jill Bokor in as director in 2011 to launch Salon, opening it out to include international design from every decade since 1890.

Aibel remains a regular. “Thirty-five years later, there’s still a level of excitement and interest in the show to see what’s happening in modern design,” he says. “From my perspective, that’s what we want.”

Todd Merrill, who specializes in postwar American work from vintage designers, such as Paul Evans, to international contemporary work by emerging designers, also shares a long history with Salon. He values its “highly focused” audience comprising international curators, interior designers and collectors. “It’s worth it every time,” Merrill says.

After a break, the contemporary Asian and Western art specialist Michael Goedhuis, from London, is returning as an exhibitor in 2021. He describes Salon as “a reservoir of aesthetic versatility,” and its diversity is another key point for participants.

“We normally have to choose between a contemporary art or a design fair,” says Miriam van Dijk-Trebels, whose gallery, Priveekollektie in The Netherlands, is based on a personal approach to combining disciplines. “With Salon, we can create the ideal combination.”

“THE FAIRS WIND UP GENERATING INVALUABLE GRASSROOTS MARKETING”

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Misha Kahn, Brûle River, 2020.

Photo: Daniel Kukla. Courtesy: Friedman Benda and Misha Kahn.

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Francois Thevenin, Sculptural Screen, c.1970.

Courtesy: Magen H Gallery

Salon Art + Design 2021

“SALON IS A RESERVOIR OF AESTHETIC VERSATILITY”

The fair has, in its first decade, reflected the zeitgeist on this point, as boundaries between art, craft and design have become ever more indistinct. The fair’s life has also coincided with a seismic shift in consumption and communication – the rise of social media.

For Merrill, this is a good thing. “The fairs wind up generating invaluable grassroots marketing,” he says. “Knowledgeable tastemakers [are] frequently as influential as traditional press.”

There’s something special, too, about a show in November, says Marc Benda of Friedman Benda, known for supporting innovative young interdisciplinary artists such as Misha Kahn, Faye Toogood and Adam Silverman. “It’s just before Thanksgiving and Christmas, so it’s a moment you can take in and share work with the public before we all slow down,” he says.

Defining a decade

Benda adds a tribute to the fair organizers. “Jill is quite a special person,” he says. “She thinks like a collector, she understands galleries, and she’s interested in our actual work.”

Salon’s 10th anniversary comes after a break from the physical fair due to the pandemic. But for newcomer Laurence Bonnel, who established Galerie Scene Ouverte in Paris in 2016, this provided some welcome latitude. “I’ve always known I wanted to exhibit at Salon,” she says, “but we had to grow with our artists. During this exceptional year, we had the opportunity to take time to think about special, specific works with them, and to collaborate with new, young, amazing creators.”

First-timer Benjamin Macklowe of Macklowe Gallery also feels now is the time to join. “The re-emergence of New York City establishments like Salon after such a trying year is something we could not pass up the opportunity to participate in,” he says. It helps that Salon chimes with the beliefs represented by his roster of Art Nouveau masters, “that art is object, that materials matter… We aim to display our remarkable works in environments that celebrate the totality of art. That’s what Salon can do for us.”

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Vikram Goyal, El Dorado Console, 2020. Courtesy: Todd Merrill Studio

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Salon Art + Design 2021

Designers are getting more experimental with the materials they are using, driven by a focus on sustainability and a desire to break free from established rules, finds Melissa Feldman

C U LT

ERIAL 63

Pia Maria Raeder, Stardust mirror, 2019. Photo: Galerie BSL

TURE

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Salon Art + Design 2021

(Left) Jie Wu, An Unexpected Journey, 2021. Courtesy: Thomas Joseph Wright Penguins egg for Gallery FUMI. (Above) Tuomas Markunpoika, Contra Naturam Floor Light, 2020.

Courtesy: Gallery FUMI.

“There’s a lot going on with this new generation and what’s fascinating is how they’re plugged into historical ways of making things while generating materials that re-factor into new narratives,” says Marc Benda, owner of Friedman Benda, an art gallery in New York. “The materials you chose along with the mode of fabrication determine the outcome of the piece,” he adds. There is a shift to a more experimental approach, as makers fuse industrial with natural materials while leaning into craft. “It’s rare to find an architect-led practice.

There’s a shift back to the studio, to direct authorship,” Benda says.

Since 2007, Friedman Benda has exhibited art and design by a range of talent including Italian design maestros Ettore Sottsass, Gaetano Pesce and Andrea Branzi, as well as international, next-gen creators such as Misha Khan, Nendo, Ini Archibong and Chris Schanck.

Schanck, who lives and works in Detroit, creates one-of-kind and limited-edition pieces from everyday and found materials including aluminum foil. “I collect the ordinary and ubiquitous,” says the 46-year old about his stockpile of objects such as fallen branches, broken chair legs and a cracked tail light incorporated into his furniture. “The process of transforming the objects into form is driven by intuition and practical constraints,” he says about his method illustrated with his Stuffed Shell Chair, an amalgamation of steel, polystyrene, polyurea, aluminum foil, resin, and mohair velvet.

“Designers will always be inspired by what surrounds them,” says Nina Yashar who shows a highly curated selection of contemporary and vintage design at her galleries Nilufar and Nilufar Depot in Milan, including works by Italians Gio Ponti and Lina Bo Bardi, as well as recent work by Londoner Bethan Laura Wood and Lebanese designer Khaled el Mays. “It also really changes based on their geographical

Material culture

position and what the territory offers. Now we are all seeing that designers are more and more keen on using sustainable materials or things that would otherwise go to waste.

I embrace this approach as well,” she adds.

A designer such as Pia Maria Raeder has been known to repurpose leftover wood fragments into new work. Raeder, who lives in Munich, began her career as a political reporter and TV journalist before deciding to embark on a new endeavor, to build something that lasts. When she took a much-needed break from reporting she studied woodworking, learning the necessary craft and skills to produce a range of furniture, mirrors and lights produced from hundreds of rods and pearl pieces mechanically generated from beech wood. “All of my works are an abstract interpretation of nature,” she says. The wood is sourced from German forests, with the rods for the Sea Anemone Collection individually cut, sanded, arranged by hand and coated with layers of lacquer sprayed by hand. The pearls for her seating and mirrors for the Stardust Collection are coated in liquid silver. “It doesn’t distract you,” she says about the wood. “It has its own character, plain and simple,” she adds.

While international galleries are showcasing cutting-edge work in a variety of finishes, forms and materials, the production of avant-garde ceramics has become revelatory. According to New York dealer Cristina Grajales, “Since the pandemic, I have noticed a movement towards more basic materials such as wood, clay and metals. I think that it has to do with getting back to our essence, to our roots. Materials that make us think of belonging and earth. I think that this is why so many people now are interested in ceramics. It’s the sense of time and almost a spiritual moment when you lose yourself in the clay. It’s earthy,” she says.

Artist Linda Lopez, who lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas, studied printmaking and sculpture before starting a practice emphasizing clay. The California native was deeply influenced by the Los Angeles clay scene including work by Richard Shaw, Ken Price and the California Funk movement. “Clay became a huge challenge,” says the 40-year old now recognized for her textured biomorphic ceramic sculptures inspired by microfiber dusters. Lopez’s Furry series, which first debuted in 2009 in mixed media, was later produced in ceramics. “I love the technical challenge, to pull and manipulate it to be what you want it to be,” she says. “I control the clay, it doesn’t control me.” Her pursuit in understanding this earthy substance and learning about its quirky chemistry continues even today.

Sam Pratt, co-founder with Valerio Capo of the London-based Gallery FUMI, acknowledges the use of the words “materials” and “materiality” often. “That’s at the core of what we do,” Pratt says. “No

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Casey McCafferty, Sawdust Side Table, 2021. Courtesy: Joe Kramm for Gallery FUMI

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(Above) Study O Portable, Fuzz Coffee Table (Blue). Courtesy: Gallery FUMI. (Below) Carmen D'Apollonio, I’d do anything for love, 2021. Courtesy: Friedman Benda and Carmen D’Apollonio.

Photo: Schaub Stierli Fotografie

matter how much we like the work, we have to like them as people,” he explains, referring to a group of thirtysomethings they exhibit, including Tuomas Makunpolka, Study O’Portable, Casey McCafferty and newcomer Jui Wei. Pratt describes the current trend toward more colorful palettes and offbeat materials used in creating the new visual vernacular. “They push the envelope,” he says when discussing the designers who FUMI exhibits – including Finnish-born, Berlin-based designer Tuomas Makunpolka, who is working with Tadelakt, a lime plaster finish used on Moroccan hammams, floors and walls. The husband-and-wife design duo behind Study O’Portable, Bernadette Deddens and Tetsuo Mukai, use Jesmonite, a water-based composite applied in layers to create their collection of tables, benches and bowls, while Casey McCafferty’s medium is hand-carved wood – he recently began mixing his waste with resin to create a series of sawdust side tables.

This fall, FUMI debuted new work at their expanded Mayfair space with an exhibition titled Together. “We champion the new. We didn’t want to sell the masters,” Pratt explains about the decision made years ago to focus on new talent.

That talent is no longer hemmed in by materials. “Anything goes is really a material culture that is permissive,” says Benda when discussing the philosophy of today’s maker scene. “There are no ideologies, no manifesto that groups of artists now follow. It’s too much for young makers to limit themselves. It goes in tandem with the art world.”

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TRUE COLORS

Long undervalued in favor of minimalist interiors, bold colors in design have made a comeback in recent years, and it looks like they’re here to stay, finds Dominic Lutyens

Running head

An irrepressible playfulness is erupting in the design world, giving free rein to color and its joyous cohorts, ornamentation and pattern. Polychrome design – from large-scale urban landmarks to homeware – is becoming the norm, not a fad.

This represents a turning point, given that color in design has traditionally been undervalued, if not frowned upon. After pondering this for a while, it occurred to me that this problematic relationship is partly down to a long-established focus in the West on functionalism. While color has credence in fine art because it is expressive and is embraced by fashion – well, part of the point of it is body decoration – many deem functionality the main attraction of design and color not relevant to that.

That said, color has rarely been absent from design, although there was scant evidence of it in the mid-1980s. The 1950s black and white homeware of Piero Fornasetti, stocked by cult London shops Oggetti and Themes and Variations, and the fabrics of design duo Timney Fowler, were the apogee of chic then, although I hasten to add that they were both decorative and functional.

In the you-can-have-any-color-you-like-so-long-as-it’s-taupe 1990s – a decade overshadowed interiors-wise by Kelly Hoppen’s home-decorating bible East Meets West – mimimalist, monochrome homes boasted wooden floorboards and white muslin curtains.

Color crept back into interiors in the noughties, due partly to the resurgence of wallpaper, notably the opulent designs of Cole & Son. In the 2010s, Memphis, the early 1980s collective spearheaded by Italian designer Ettore Sottsass, enjoyed a revival. As the curator of the Victoria & Albert Museum’s 2011/2012 exhibition Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970-1990, Jane Pavitt, pointed out, Memphis’s candy-bright laminate surfaces had long been maligned as vacuous, a case of style over substance. “Since the 1980s, Memphis and Postmodern styles have been regarded as tasteless and superficial.

The fact that we’re now seeing these patterns revisited is partly due to designers and companies opening up their archives and finding that clashing colors and geometric forms look sharp today.”

I remember quizzing Rhonda Drakeford, co-founder of London design store Darkroom, soon after about why Memphis was greeted with such enthusiasm. One reason she gave was a backlash against a surfeit of watered-down Scandinavian modernism that had dominated interiors for some time.

French designer Camille Walala was at the vanguard of the Memphis comeback, and acknowledged its huge influence on her. In 2015, she created a homeware line called In Da House and covered the facades of buildings with her Memphis-esque murals. She is still channeling Memphis’s graphic oomph – typified by shrill pastels, shades such as cobalt blue, black stripes, dashes and amoeboid squiggles – with such recent projects as Les Jumeaux, comprising typically vibrant pedestrian crossings and murals in White City, West London.

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(Above) Adam Nathaniel Furman's Mediterraneaninspired rug for Floor Story. Courtesy: Floor Story and the artist.

(Opposite) Installation of Postmodernism: Style and Subversion 1970–1990 at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Photo: Victoria and Albert Museum

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“DESIGNERS AND COMPANIES ARE OPENING UP THEIR ARCHIVES AND FINDING THAT CLASHING COLORS LOOK SHARP”

Memphis continues to grip the public imagination internationally – it was celebrated this year by the exhibition Memphis: Plastic Field at MK Gallery in Milton Keynes in the UK – “a reinterpretation,” states the venue, of shows previously held at The Museum of Decorative Arts and Design in Bordeaux and Fondazione Berengo in Venice.

Time has shown that it is facile to dismiss Memphis’s appeal as skin-deep or kitsch – in fact, it knowingly explored the boundaries of “good” and “bad” taste. And its eclecticism partly rested on its authentically multicultural make-up: before it disbanded in 1985, its members included Nathalie du Pasquier, Shiro Kuramata, George Sowden, Michael Graves and Javier Mariscal – from France, Japan, the UK, US and Spain respectively. Sottsass himself was highly cultured, his own maverick, sensual aesthetic heavily informed by a trip to India in 1961 that predated the hippie trail.

A major difference between then and now is that, along with multiculturalism, we are witnessing the greater prominence of women and the LGTQ+ community in the design world, who deploy color with even greater panache, argues half-Argentinian, half-Japanese artist and designer Adam Nathaniel Furman.

Furman, who trained as an architect and is co co-director of Saturated Space, a research group on color in urbanism and architecture, is outspoken on the subject. He believes that color has long been marginalized or suppressed by Modernism, still regarded as sacrosanct by the design education establishment.

“Homophobia, misogyny and sexism are mixed up in aesthetic judgments that have their origins in Modernism,” he tells me over a glass of red wine during a Zoom call one weekend. “This tradition has a strong idea that simplicity, clarity and structure are masculine, intellectual, serious and have depth and that anything colorful, ornamental or decorative, which is gendered or queered, is superficial or effeminate. Color has been traditionally exoticized – something that exists in other cultures – as happened with 19th-century Orientalism.”

His unapologetically bold work spans public structures, such as Proud Little Pyramid in King’s Cross, London, an “anti-monument monument,” whose pomposity-pricking aim is to spread joy to onlookers, an apartment in Tokyo awash with pastel surfaces, and Mediterranean rugs for the company Floor Story, with geometric motifs in shades like canary yellow and turquoise, inspired by ancient Greek and Roman architecture.

Incidentally, Floor Story commissions other designers on this wavelength, among them Indian-born, London-based textile designer Kangan Arora and 2 Lovely Gays, co-founded by Jordan Cluroe and Russell Whitehead.

Salon Art + Design 2021

The Colour Palace at Dulwich Running head Picture Gallery, London, created

by Pricegore architects and designer Yinka Ilori.

Photo: Dulwich Picture Gallery

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Furman dubs this uninhibited aesthetic widely adopted by London creatives as “New London Fabulous.” Other key players celebrating color include the trailblazing Morag Myerscough, who has favored fluoro-bright color and gargantuan text on her installations for decades. Last April, she created her See Through pavilion in Grosvenor Square, London, intended to offer people a safe, uplifting outdoor space during the pandemic. Another major figure is Yinka Ilori, of British-Nigerian heritage, feted for his extravagantly colorful pavilions and upcycled furniture in singing hues – jade green, fuchsia, tomato red or cooler greys and lilac. Ilori’s palette is unique, partly because it’s personal. Memories of his parents and friends dressed in gloriously polychrome outfits instilled in him a love of unabashed color. “If my parents ever saw anyone in my family wearing black, they didn’t like it,” he once told me. In May, Ilori designed a basketball court in Canary Wharf in East London with vibrant patterns in sherbet yellow and bubblegum pink.

Coinciding with a greater diversity in the design community, adds Furman, was “a new design economy” in London that triumphed circa 2014, propelled partly by the rise of Instagram: “I’d never have had a career without social media and London’s many design fairs that led to public commissions that really boosted our confidence.

People in marketing, often women and gay men, rather than design curators from upper-middle-class backgrounds, were suddenly commissioning pop-up events that proved hugely popular. Effectively, the industry expanded and the traditional gatekeepers of design lost their hold.”

Color is also in demand at Pinch, whose Joyce cabinet in wood can be lacquered in a variety of colors, including punchy emerald green.

“People have been ordering more colored pieces in the past 18 months or asking for old pieces to be resprayed,” says co-founder Russell Pinch. “We’ve just received an order for our Harper wooden dining table, stained bright green, from interior designer Waldo Works. Part of me wonders if people hanker after a change of energy in their homes due to Covid-19. We’re normally inspired by interiors of hotels and restaurants, so during lockdowns people have been looking at their immediate environments in a different way.”

Even designer Sebastian Cox, purveyor of furniture made of wood harvested using renewable coppicing, who favors a natural aesthetic, produces the colorful Barker collection, designed by his partner, Brogan Cox. Its tables, sideboards and cabinets in ash are stained yellow, blue, green or red using water-based dyes.

Color-drenched murals are a major manifestation of this snowballing trend – not surprisingly since their scale gives color greater impact.

Notable muralists partial to strong color include Italian-born, Berlin-based artist Agostino Iacurci and British-born, Denmark-based artist Daniel van der Noon. Iacurci’s piece, Eight Rooms, lined one side of Principal Square in London last year, while

Salon Art + Design 2021

Cabinet by FreelingWaters.

Photo: Scheltens Abbenes

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van der Noon enlivened a mini precinct in Paris’s Marais neighbourhood with graphic images of 50 iconic urban LGBTQ+ landmarks and legendary venues around the world, including Paris’s Queen nightclub and New York’s Stonewall Inn. Meanwhile, Amsterdam-based designers Job Wouters and Gijs Frieling, the former a graphic designer and calligrapher, the latter a muralist, joined forces some years ago to co-create furniture. Their latest venture – their FreelingWaters collection of cabinets made of 19th-century pine pieces – was commissioned by The Wrong Shop, designer Sebastian Wrong’s online platform selling limited-edition furniture and prints by artists and designers from around the world.

The outlandishly patterned FreelingWaters pieces are adorned with landscapes, flowers, animals, faux-marble and wood patterns and words, and reflect the duo’s fascination with folk art, Renaissance wall art and pop art. Their materials include hand-mixed pigments and caseine glue, the latter used by Giotto when painting the brilliant blue heavens in his frescoes at the Scrovegni chapel in Padua, Italy. The collection was unveiled at the London Design Festival and will be shown at the Shanghai Podium at the fair Design Miami in November.

Let it not be said that these pieces aren’t functional as well as decorative. According to Wrong, “I've got behind this because it's an interesting up-cycling/recycling concept realized by two creatives who really know what they’re doing, repurposing antiques with little cultural or design interest and reworking them into unique objects of desire by adding layers of color and text. The pieces are highly crafted and quirky yet contemporary, making way for something new and functional.”

Joyce Cabinet by Russell Pinch for Pinch Design. Photo: James Merrell/Pinch

Sanford Smith and French architect and designer Charlotte Perriand at Modernism in 1997

Salon Art + Design 2021

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN Sanford Smith has been at the forefront of American art fairs for over 40 years. We look back at how his influential journey led to the creation of Salon Art + Design Having recently celebrated his 82nd birthday, fair impresario Sanford Smith has been in the business of creating niche fairs for 43 years. Although the term “influencer” didn’t exist in 1979 when Smith started his first fair, in the ensuing decades, he has certainly become one.

His first fair, The Fall Antiques Show held at the Park Avenue Armory, opened Americana collecting to the wider public. Cigar store Indians, weathervanes, samplers, textiles, American furniture and folk art were shown together in a wholly new way, becoming a strong and popular collecting category. The fair moved to the pier at 12th Avenue and 52nd Street in its second year, the first event ever to make use of the pier. People scoffed at the idea that anyone would travel that far west for an antiques show, but Smith proved them wrong – the fair ran for over 20 years, and dozens of fairs later followed suit.

The Fall Show, as it came to be known, was followed in quick succession by Modernism, Works

on Paper, The Outsider Art Fair, Art of the 20th Century, The Great American Quilt Festival, and the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair – all of which took place in New York. At the high point, Smith ran 11 fairs a year, including events in New York, Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago.

The fairs were born out of a funeral home on the Lower East Side. Smith had inherited his family’s business, but he never liked it. His greatest pleasure at that time was working the booth he and his wife, Patricia, inhabited at the 26th Street Flea Market. On Saturdays, they would go on the hunt; on Sunday, they sold their wares. As a participant in his first antiques fair, Smith thought he could do it better – and so the Fall Show was born.

His second fair, Modernism: A Century of Style and Design, founded in 1983, is the true precursor to Salon Art + Design. Prior to Modernism, the word “design” had not been part of the fair vocabulary. It is, of course, ubiquitous today. At that time, though, fairs were known as antiques shows, a parlance

Where it all began

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“SALON BOTH PREDICTS AND REFLECTS CHANGING TASTES” that started to become musty as collectors looked for pieces made in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Hence the design fair was born – and Smith became a visionary in the world of decorative arts.

Modernism began with material made in the 1860s through to the 1960s, including Greek and Egyptian revival furniture and decorative arts, Aesthetic Movement, Arts and Crafts, Wiener Werkstätte, Art Nouveau, Bauhaus, and Deco through to mid-century Modern. Over its 25-year lifespan, the timeline extended to material made in the 1990s, the contemporary work of the decade.

A surprising number of dealers have participated in both shows; Robert Abel of Moderne Gallery showed Art Deco before turning to American Studio work. Nilufar and Galleria Rossella Colombari, both of whom have exhibited at Salon, brought mid-century Italian material to the fair. Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts presented the same high-quality American paintings and design that he shows today. Dealers – then just starting out, now seasoned – such as R & Company, Patrick Parrish Gallery, Todd Merrill Studio, Donzella, and Lost City Arts also exhibited.

What is the difference between the two fairs?

Modernism, although it had excellent European galleries, was far more American than Salon. The bigger difference, however, is that as Salon has progressed, contemporary material has become the mainstay of the fair. Dealers from 11 countries participate, showing the best of international contemporary design works by world-class masters of design, along with up-and-coming talents. And while 20th-century French, German, Italian and Scandinavian work is presented at Salon, the Revival, Aesthetic Movement and Arts and Crafts

Sanford Smith with Italian architect and designer Ettore Sottsass at Modernism in 1996

movements are less represented. “Salon both predicts and reflects changing tastes,” says Smith.

Asked what his best and worst moments in the past 40 years have been, Smith replies that the great thrill is seeing crowds lined up around the block to attend the fair. The worst moments, he says, are when the construction doesn’t go fast enough and booths are still being installed as the preview is about to begin.

And what about the funniest moment? “At the Great American Quilt Festival, a sponsor of the fair came running up to me and said, ‘Sandy, Sandy, there’s a dead body on the next pier. Do something about it.’” Smith’s reply? “That’s not in my contract.”

A SALON PORTFOLIO Highlights from this year’s fair

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Ariadne Ancient Greek attic red figure lekythos, dating to circa 450 BC

Les Ateliers Courbet Pieter Maes, Axis bench, 2021

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Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts Alexei Hay, Poppies, 2021. Resin coated silver negative

Carole Davenport Japanese Art Ohi Ware Mizusashi, Water jar for tea ceremony, Japan Edo period, late 17th century

Salon Art + Design 2021

Running head

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Gallery Dobrinka Salzman George Nakashima, Long chair.

Photo: Frank Burton

Donzella Carlo Mollino, Rare pair of chairs, Italy, 1953

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J. Lohmann Gallery Toni Losey, Sculpture, 2020

Salon Art + Design 2021

Running head

Lobel Modern Philip & Kelvin LaVerne, Floor lamps Grace and Harmony, ca. 1970

FPO 81

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Maison Rapin (Top) Serkan Cura, Pheasant triptych (detail), 2021 (Bottom) KAM TIN, Pair of tiger-eye side tables, 2015

Salon Art + Design 2021

Running head

Michael Goedhuis Yao Jui-chung, Good Times: Lion Leopard Lake, 2020

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Moderne Gallery George Nakashima, Unique custom bench, 1962

R & Company Jeff Zimmerman, Unique crumpled sculptural vessels in mirrorized silver and teal glass with white pearl applications, 2021

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Priveekollektie Contemporary Art | Design Amarist Studio, Aqua Fossil Mirror I, 2021

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Shoshana Wayne Gallery Ashwini Bhat, Assembling California: Sky Trail, 2019

Salon Art + Design 2021

Running head

Tambaran Sung Hee Cho, Red Blossom on Red with Lilac, 2017

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Todd Merrill Studio Zaventem Ateliers, Spin Love

Wexler Gallery Judy Kensley McKie, Swan Sconce (Pair), 1994

PARTNERS

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Avoirdupois John Belardo and Avoirdupois, Nº247 Grand Maraud Wall Sconce (detail), from the collection Maleficence of Man / Collection Nº2

Didier Louise Nevelson, Unique pendant and torque formed from four separate pieces of wood glued onto a tall elaborately shaped back plate, painted matte black, highlighted in 14ct gold, circa 1976-77

Nathan Litera Altana Pendant Light, 2021. White alabaster and patinated brass

Peter Lane Studio Monumental five-part table in bronze and glazed with mood gold details

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Salon Art + Design 2021

Silvia Furmanovich Marquetry box with floral pattern, brass and agate

Studio Greytak Luna, 2020. Aragonite, porcelain, iron

Trove Anthropos wallpaper

Unica Rosa Rosae Rosae table, Fioriture collection. Design: Carola Fumarola by Arcade Studio and Unica

DIRECTORY

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Adrian Sassoon

Lebreton

www.adriansassoon.com

www.lebretongallery.com

Artistic Tile

Liz O’Brien

www.artistictile.com

www.lizobrien.com

Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts, LLC

Lobel Modern

www.bgfa.com

www.lobelmodern.com

Carole Davenport

Maison Gerard

www.caroledavenport.com

www.maisongerard.com

David Gill Gallery

Maison Pouenat

www.davidgillgallery.com

www.pouenat.com

Didier Ltd

Morentz

www.didierltd.com

www.morentz.com

Donzella

Peter Lane Studio

www.donzella.com

www.peterlaneclay.com

Friedman Benda

Studio Greytak

www.friedmanbenda.com

www.studiogreytak.com

The Gallery at 200 Lex

Tambaran

www.nydc.com

www.tambaran.com

Gallery Dobrinka Salzman

Twentieth Gallery

www.dobrinkasalzman.com

www.twentieth.net

Gallery FUMI

Twenty First Gallery

www.galleryfumi.com

www.21stgallery.com

The Great Design Disaster

Unica

www.thegreatdesigndisaster.com

www.unicaluxury.com

Karl Kemp Antiques

Vallois

www.karlkemp.com

www.vallois.com

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Salon Art + Design 2021

TO BENEFIT

HENRY STREET SETTLEMENT ORGANIZED BY

ART DEALERS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

NOVEMBER 4–7, 2021 THEARTSHOW.ORG ONLINE AND AT THE PARK AVENUE ARMORY

BENEFIT PREVIEW WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 3

Larry Bell, Deconstructed Cube SS C (Capri Blue / Periwinkle) (detail), 2021. Laminated glass.

Courtesy the artist and Anthony Meier Fine Arts

C A R O L E DAV E N P O R T

131 EAST 83 STREET NEW YORK CITY 646 249 8500 212 734 4859 BY APPOINTMENT ONLY CAROLE@CAROLE DAVENPORT.COM

Hineno Taizan 1813-1869 Ink and pigment on gold 67 by 146 inches wide Dated: Winter 1861 Day collection 1990

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