DNA: A New Perspective on Contemporary Design

DNA appeared as a collaborative project between Friedman Benda, Galerie kreo, and Salon 94 Design and attempted to provide a comprehensive approach with 28 designers, and 28 comparative essays by curator and writer Glenn Adamson. DNA provides a new online format that explores contemporary design by looking into the materials, processes, colors, and functionality of over 80 design works.

DNA is a platform that highlights the networks which exist within the world of contemporary design, showcasing how these objects exist in tandem with one another. Through providing connections a certain layered quality of the collection appears. Moreover, space also provides the opportunity to browse and shop for design objects and furniture.

This project, a collective effort between three galleries, substitutes for the missed opportunities to physically present work from designers this past year. Though nothing can replace the physical, tactile, and visual experiences of art and design, reading about these works through Glenn Adamson’s essays really do reveal a deeper understanding of objects on an elevated platform of design history.

Glenn Adamsons reflects: “This project, DNA, it is far more than the sum of its parts. Three of the world’s leading design galleries have come together, intertwining their programs into a single, generative presentation: a triple helix of creativity. It’s an impressive gathering and an instructive one. DNA provides a generous cross-section of where design is today and some of the pathways that have brought it here. What gives it the greatest value, though, is the context it provides to each of the designers, by placing them alongside their peers. Individually, the 84 included works are striking, innovative, and provocative by turns. They need no help from anyone to communicate meaning. But seen three by three, in 28 different configurations, they are seen afresh. Even the most replete and self-sufficient of them become part of something bigger, as the groupings accumulate into a single shared story about design.”

Cover image: Chris Schanck [American, b. 1975], Bloom, 2018, Steel, polystyrene, nylon fiber, resin, aluminum foil, 36 x 80 x 9 inches, 91.5 x 203 x 23 cm, Signed and dated on bottom of frame.