Celebrating its 15th annual edition, Design Miami runs to December 8. These seven collections have us convinced that the art-design movement continues in full – and fully inspired – swing.
When we first laid eyes on these chairs, we didn’t know what to make of them. But the more you look at them, the more they win you over. That might describe the effect of the entire oeuvre of Chris Wolston, who works between Brooklyn and Medellin, and who is also known for his terracotta chairs that double as planters. The artist, who notes that the anthropomorphic forms of his Nalgona Dining Chairs “riff on the iconic shape of the plastic Remax Chair, ubiquitous through Colombia,” makes the pieces with mimbre (or wicker) harvested from the Colombian Amazon. (Shown with Seungjin Yang’s whimsical balloon stools.)
Paris-based Austrian designer Robert Sadler is featured in a major way at Carpenters Workshop Gallery’s booth. Among the collections on display is his Ditto series, which includes the chair and armchair shown here. Made of Bardiglio Imperiale marble, digitally milled to create prominent seams, the pieces come in limited editions.
Also on show is Charles Trevelyan’s Fuse II (below). Introduced in 2018, the table is made of Hotavlje stone from Slovenia, its CNC-cut components fitting together like an eclectically imagined puzzle.
Fendi has its headquarters inside of Rome’s Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana, a vestige of fascist architecture – also known as Colosseo Quadrato – celebrated for its rational composition of arched colonnades in white travertine. To decorate the building’s grand loggias, the fashion label commissioned Zurich studio Kueng Caputo (Lovis Caputo and Sarah Kueng) to design a collection of 10 building blocks. In combination, these pieces could create a series of intimate “rooms for socializing, escaping and working.” To settle on the right materials and aesthetic, Kueng Caputo explored the interaction between the iconic building and Fendi’s DNA to create their so-called Roman Molds. The dreamy elements combine Fendi’s supple Selleria Roman leather and terracotta brick.
The Southern Guild is a contemporary African design gallery in Cape Town. At Design Miami, it’s showing off the wondrous works of its roster, including the Idladla (Grain Silo) sculpture by Andile Dyalvane (above) and the expressive cabinets (below) of Johannesburg outfit Dokter And Misses, led by Adriaan Hugo and Katy Taplin. Shown are the Rat Trap and Not My Problem, both made with hand-painted steel and kiaat wood.
AGO Projects, founded by Rudy F. Weissenberg and Rodman Primack, is committed to showing work by creators in Mexico City and New York. The Lamp Chair is by Fabien Cappello; he studied at the Royal College of Art in London under Martino Gamper and Jurgen Bey – and it shows. His work is a colourful representation of his adherence to both craft and industrial production.
On show at Luminaire Lab, the exhibition “Ethereal Simplicity: Piero Lissoni / Konstantin Grcic” brings together the outputs of the two prolific designers. This includes Lissoni’s Uncollected Collection for Living Divani, which includes three seemingly light-as-air chairs in steel rod and aluminum. As we wrote in our September 2019 issue, Lissoni – who has steered Living Divani as art director for 30 years now – “was given free reign to create something special to mark the occasion. Drawing inspiration from various sources, including the art of Jeff Koons, he came up with a limited-edition collection that’s a study on the contours of furniture drawn in broad and thin strokes.”
R & Company’s booth at Design Miami features the best new pieces from its idiosyncratic group of artists. This includes Rogan Gregory, who is “inspired by extraterrestrial forms as well as unknown marine life of the deep sea,” in creating his light installations and other works – all sculpted by hand.
From Fendi’s Roman-inspired furniture to the Southern Guild’s new voices in South African art-design, the 15th annual Design Miami delivers a great show.