Strange Days
Last month, New York lighting designer Bec Brittain invited fellow craft-led designers Material Lust and Alex P. White to showcase as part of Strange Days, a sensuous deco-eques interior staging.
How can design respond to increasingly difficult times? Lately, it seems that talents are taking their own initiative to present new work. These clever showcases demonstrate the dynamic power of creative communities and shared objectives. They no longer have to only follow the traditional formats of brand sponsored collaborations or fair platform exhibits; though both remain important.
Taking a playful yet prompt approach, celebrated designer Bec Brittain opened her Midtown Manhattan studio to curate a unique showroom staging. Strange Days (on view from 13 September to 13 October) brought together singular furniture and accessory pieces by fellow New York-based craft-led practices Material Lust and Alex P. White to compliment the lighting talent’s latest Mercury fixture; a large curtain-like spatial installation comprising 35 beaded strands.
Striking a careful balance between a dark gothic yet comfortably luxurious atmosphere, the interior mise-en-scene juxtaposed hard metallic forms with lacquered surfaces and plush textures. The deco-eques setting revealed a series of provocative craft-led works that could not succumb to standard categorisations. In one case, Material Lust’s ‘pointed-arch’ Peak sofa meshed perfectly with one of Brittain’s iridescent chandeliers, that championed the potential of open geometry. Such a cunning interplay established the perfect sultry backdrop for an opening night live-tableau in which a performer continuously tattooed oranges.
Articles you also might like
A complete monograph of the French sculptor Pierre Sabatier will be released on April 24th 2024. A passion project initiated by Sabatier’s children and wife, the book features an extensive range of archival photography as well as texts by experts in the field.
Carpenters Workshop Gallery presents “Reverse Fireworks in Slow Motion”, the first stateside solo exhibition by Greek artist, Kostas Lambridis.
Unding: Restoration of Existence, on view at Carpenters Workshop Gallery: New York City, is Wonmin Park’s first exhibition in the United States. The show is on view from May 9-July 27, 2023.
Adi Toch explores the world of mirrors in a compelling new series of work which is on view in an exhibition titled, Between Presence and Absence, at Galerie Marzee in The Netherlands, until April 22.