S AM's Woven Wall at Design Miami/ Basel 2013. All photos by Seth Browarnik / WorldRedEye.com

Three Design Satellites at the 2013 fair in Basel have exemplified Switzerland’s robust and radical commitment to design – and the initiatives that are needed to push and sustain it. These programs represent the dynamism and innovation of Swiss designers and cultural institutions, and have brought uniquely compelling programming to Design Miami/ Basel 2013.

The S AM (Swiss Architecture Museum) has presented a work titled Woven Wall by the architects and researchers Michael Hansmeyer and Benjamin Dillenburger. The Woven Wall is an entwining column made via 3D printing technology, a technique that’s gained a lot of attention (both positive and negative) as of late. 3D printing is a fully automated process whereby solid objects are created based on computer models, without the need for physical labor.

The work represents the first step towards producing large-scale structures using the additive process that underpins this highly potential new technology. Representative of Gottfried Semper’s Theory of Clothing, where he posited that architecture had its origins in textile production, the Woven Wall forces viewers to reckon with the idea that if the production of shirts, pants, and jackets can be automated – then so eventually can roofs, walls, and entire buildings.

Swiss Design Engagement at Design Miami/ Basel 2013

The Swiss Design Engagement at Design Miami/ Basel 2013 is an installation of videos showcasing the state-sponsored initiatives that herald both the country’s design heritage and its future. The Federal Design Competition, organized by the Federal Office of Culture, spotlights Swiss design talents and provides grants for continuing their work, which ranges from industrial and graphic design to scenography, and fashion, textile, photography, jewelry, and ceramics design.

The videos offer beautifully shot profiles of the wide-ranging designers and engages a discourse about their practice and what it means to work within a Swiss context.

ECAL's vending gondola

Finally, in a beautifully and bizarrely arranged series, a Swiss cultural and entrepreneurial project for charity is showing 7 altered Verbier Mountain Climbers. Celebratory of a Swiss icon of industrial design and ski tourism, the project has collected decommissioned ski gondolas from Verbier and asked the most lauded Swiss designers and artists to revisit and re-interpret their aesthetics and functionalities.

Atelier Oï's dream machine

One gondola was painted a heavenly white by Atelier Oï, which was re-conceived as a vehicle which could rise to dreamy heights by spinning the inserted central axis, which whirls the vertical rope wing. ECAL repurposed another gondola by turning it into a vending machine full of multicolored bouncy balls.

Phillipe Cramer's re-interpreted gondola

And in a very imaginative recreation, Phillipe Cramer removed a Verbier gondola’s blue glass panels and installed them in a museum-style, disembodied presentation. The blue glass still charmingly retains the etchings and scratches of riders, from a game of tic-tac-toe to a heart warming (and wrenching) “I ♥ T”. Each of the works attest to two important facets of Swiss culture: skiing, and groundbreaking design work.

- Rob Goyanes

Giacometti's console and mural on view at Design Miami/ Basel 2013. All photos by Seth Browarnik / WorldRedEye.com

Every article of design has its story. The works present at Design Miami/ Basel 2013 weave fascinating narratives; they spring from all corners of the globe and span both centuries and custodial personalities. From the 17th-century panels at the Carpenters Workshop/ Steinitz booth, to the future-facing creations made for W Hotels by the award winning Designers of the Future, it’s clear that the physical object itself represents only a portion of the tale. The provenance of the design works – who commissioned them and the lineage of ownership – imbues every work with a special quality.

Galerie Jacques Lacoste is showing a marble console/ mural by the crucial sculptor Alberto Giacometti. Nearly imposing given its scale and masterful carving, the piece is an elucidation of Giacometti’s post-impressionistic greatness. Commissioned by the French interior designer Jean-Michel Frank – known for his minimalism and plain sumptuousness – the work was created for the home of the Born family in Argentina.

Part of the diversified multinational corporation Bunge y Born, who’s main business was food processing but also had a hand in early 20th-century textiles in Argentina, the Born family was closely tied to Frank. The acclaimed but troubled French interior designer approached Giacometti in 1939 regarding the creation of the console/mural,  a time just before the famed Swiss artist had to stow away his work as the German army entered his then-home city of Paris.

The abstract, bas-relieved free-flying figure of the mural personifies this dire time; just two years later, the iconic commissioner of the work, Jean-Michel Frank, leapt to his death from a building in Manhattan as all his possessions remained back in his Buenos Aires apartment.

Egyptian Table, Mogens Lassen, 1940

An Egyptian-inspired table created by Modernist designer and architect Mogens Lassen sits in Galerie Eric Phillipe. The Egyptian Table, made in 1940, combines the coloration and simplicity of Danish design,  its palatable honey-browns a testament to the Elmwood, tulipwood, and brass materials used.

The table was commissioned by Christel Marrot, a Danish cartoonist, sculptor, and illustrator who made her debut in 1939 for the weekly magazine Søndags-B.T. Marrot illustrated for various local and international publications and was known for her erotically sweet style, contributing for a range of genres and mediums including novels, short stories, newspapers, and astrology vignettes. She also designed figurines for the acclaimed Royal Porcelain Factory, which was founded in Copenhagen in 1775.

Mogens Lassen’s Egyptian Table is emblematic of his various educational backgrounds, including masonry at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and his architectural fascination with Le Corbusier. The folding legs and uncomplicated, naturally grained top illustrate the designers adherence to an International Style, which was  indebted to his diverse yet convergent interests.

The legendary Sheila Hicks has several tapestries from the early part of her career on view at Demisch Danant. Hicks, who studied fine art at Yale under Joseph Albers, approaches her textile practice with a painterly approach and created tapestries that more resemble entire environments that explode with lush, literal metaphor.

Hicks tapestries have a presence like few other works of design

The two creamy tapestries at Demisch Danant were commissioned by the Rothschild family – the German banking dynasty that became one of the most powerful pedigrees all the world over in the 1800s. The two hanging tapestries, like much of Hicks’ oeuvre, have a heavily magnetic presence whilst remaining silken and satiny. Symbolic of the provenance of much of the works at Design Miami/ Basel 2013, they contain a mysterious and unexpected energy.

- Rob Goyanes

Jewelry by Pablo Picasso, presented by Didier Ltd. All photos by Seth Browarnik

Didier Ltd is showing a number of pieces by artists known mostly for their painting, sculpture and illustration. With works ranging from gold necklaces and bracelets to brooches and earrings, the jewelry is representative of post-war work by artists such as painter Pablo Picasso, mobile-originator Alexander Calder (who in fact made thousands of jewelry works), and Cubist master Georges Braque.

While some of the pieces on display contain aesthetic features that can lead the viewer to identify the artist, others show the experimentalism and branching-out that these virtuosos were conducting by crafting the wearable work. The booth also contains a specially demarcated section for jewelry created by women artists, including the enigmatic Louise Nevelson.

Manfred Bischoff's unique jewelry work

Manfred Bischoff is a German artist and jeweler with work being shown at the Antonella Villanova booth. Renowned for his eye for elegance and the reservoir of far-reaching references employed in his practice, Villanova is showing a series of signature pieces that integrate his gold jewelry mounted on small, scrawled canvases that are replete with mythological figures and poetic phrases.

One of Castellani's architectural necklaces at Elisabetta Cipriani

Known for paintings that addressed space and principles of architecture, the Italian artist Enrico Castellani is showing a number of works at the On/Site booth of Elisabetta Cipriani – Jewelry by Contemporary Artists. A unique series of necklaces and bracelets are being displayed, which were crafted by Castellani using the method he used for his influential, chiseled paintings. They illustrate his architectural methodology and the back-and-forth plays with positive and negative space.

"Atlas Ring," created by Anish Kapoor. On view at Louis Guinness Gallery

Louisa Guinness Gallery has been collaborating with artists to make jewelry for ten years. For Design Miami/ Basel 2013, they brought a number of rings, bracelets, and necklaces made by the influential, Indian-born sculptor Anish Kapoor. Internationally praised, Kapoor is known for large-scale work that renders the space of surrounding terrain, and the jewelry on view at the Louisa Guinness booth are wearable, architectonic works.

- Rob Goyanes

Design Talk/ Choreography of Collaboration

Daniel Arsham and Judith Seng are two artists who live between worlds. Though their practices differ in key respects, Arsham and Seng have overarching theoretical preoccupations with materials, production, and the social mores that define and constrain their presentation on and off a stage. On Thursday, June 12, they had a conversation at Design Miami/ Basel 2013 moderated by design journalist Tamar Shafrir. 

Arsham's visual work stretches material possibilities

Arsham, Miami-raised but now living and working in Brooklyn, was the first to present an overview of his practice. ”The work in my own visual art is very involved in the manipulation of architectural surfaces… I’m thinking of different processes where I can integrate movement languages.” This thinking shines through in his personal work and in his firm Snarkitecture. Arsham is known for sculptures that appear to be undergoing various stages of destruction and reconstruction, and Snarkitecture for its collaborative, large-scaled interventions created by artists, designers and architects.

The Drift Pavilion and Bend entrance pavilion at Design Miami/ 2012, designed by Snarkitecture. Photograph by Markus Haugg

Drift, the entrance tent at Design Miami/ 2012, was explicative of this material-mindedness with its bobbing, topographical landscape. Arsham went on to describe the collaborative work he did with Merce Cunningham – the epitome of avant-garde dance productions who throughout his career worked with various designers, architects, and others to create choreographed works of astounding poetry. Cunningham brought Arsham in and asked him to design the set for performances, and told him that he would need to design without knowing the dance. “I can’t believe he let me do some of the things I did.”

A video still from "Why Patterns," by Daniel Arsham and Jonah Baeker

In a work with Jonah Bokaer, a member of Cunningham’s dance company, Arsham’s design involved the gradual raining down of over 10,000 ping pong balls during a group dance, which he showed a video of during the talk as the audience watched contemplatively. “A lot of the work involves how materials can provoke movement. It’s very game-based and about play.”

A view of ACTING THINGS IV - MATERIAL FLOW at Design Miami/ Basel 2013

Judith Seng is a Berlin-based artist who comes from a product and process-design background, different in many ways from Arsham’s visual arts training. Her recent work has been heavily focused on time-based performance, as seen in the Design Performance  she’s been presenting throughout the week here at the fair, titled ACTING THINGS IV - Material Flow.

The combination of dance and production negotiates the process of manufacturing, the purposes of choreographed movement, and the end-product itself. ”We’re processing the material in a way that softens it so that dancers can interact with it, and then the dancers interact with it through dance  - which then produces the object itself.”

This performance is the fourth in a series that deals with issues of the stage and how both things and environments are created, and in turn how an audience and performers are constituted. While in Bavaria, she observed a 1st of May celebration and found herself asking “What if we look at production processes as social rituals, rather than through an economic model as we normally perceive them? And how would they look or be if they came from a different process?”

A video still from ACTING THINGS I by Judith Seng

In her first ACTING THINGS experiment, she held a dinner where instead of paying an entrance fee, the attendees were asked for 45 minutes of labor to build the tables they would eat off. Through these sorts of projects, Seng breaks down the walls between audience and performer, and radically questions the lines drawn between stage and the viewer. ”With this experiment, I was interested in how we control the material, and how it controls us.”

One of the tables designed by an audience member for the first ACTING THINGS

The rest of the talk focused on this aspect of design and performance. Arsham commented on how his visual work – sculptures that literally seem to be undergoing processes of de- and reconstruction – attracts people to touch them, unlike with paintings. ”People touch my work, and I think it’s because the work is architectural, and you’re allowed to touch buildings and walls.” This sort of collaboration, not only the ones between the creators of art and design, is where both Arsham and Seng converge.

- Rob Goyanes

Maison des Jours Meilluers, Jean Prouvé, 1956. Aluminum & wood, 9 x 6.5 x 3m. Galerie Patrick Seguin

“Emblematic of Jean Prouvé’s implementation of constructive thinking, the Maison des Jours Meilleurs is above all a true manifesto for the industrialisation of the construction process and the possibility of housing for all. Tour de force in both its technicality (mountable in a few hours), but also in what it continues to represent symbolically: a solution for emergency housing which remains one of today’s true topical concerns. Praised by Le Corbusier in the winter of 1956, and thereby the image of art as an experience but also as a means to raise awareness.”

Jérôme Sans/ Creative Director, L’Officiel Art Magazine. Artistic Director of the urban development “Rives de Saône – River Movie” in France

]]> http://www.designmiami.com/designlog/columns-listing/top-picks/jerome-sans-favorite-work-at-design-miami-basel-2013/feed/ 0 http://www.designmiami.com/designlog/columns-listing/top-picks/jerome-sans-favorite-work-at-design-miami-basel-2013/ http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/designmiami/basel/~3/beiEuWmQw8U/ http://www.designmiami.com/designlog/basel-shows/basel-show-information/historical-recreations-at-design-miami-basel/#comments Sat, 15 Jun 2013 13:37:12 +0000 Rob Goyanes http://www.designmiami.com/designlog/?p=9660

Alvar Aalto's original work, on view at Jacksons booth at Design Miami/ Basel 2013. All photos by Seth Browarnik / WorldRedEye.com

The pieces on display at Design Miami/ Basel 2013 have included groundbreaking new work – but a robust dialogue about global design culture would be incomplete without a discussion regarding historic innovation. Three booths in particular at this year’s fair have built powerful displays of highly significant interior designers.

Aalto's original bed, bedside table, and shelf in the background, designed for the Paimio Sanatorium

Jacksons gallery partnered with Gonzalez Haase AAS and Lee Mindel to develop a representational version of a patient’s room at the Paimio Sanatorium, both of which were designed by Alvar Aalto. Located in Paimio, Finland, the original sanatorium was commissioned as one of a number of sanatoria for the many people that became afflicted with tuberculosis between World War I and II. Jacksons is displaying an original bed and bedside table, as well as a washbasin, lamps, spittoon, and door, which were present at the Sanatorium until the 1960s.

Alvar Aalto's washbasin, designed with a curve that quieted the rush of water

Officially inaugurated in June 1933, Aalto was commissioned to design not only the building, but nearly everything inside – including the lighting, sinks, bathroom shelves, and door handles. Aalto’s priority in designing the Sanatorium had been to promote the physiological and psychological recovery of the individual patient.

The spittoon designed for the Paimio Sanatorium

Aalto advocated the well-being of those who were the most infirm and sick – those who spent the majority of their time lying in the hospital bed. The recreation of this room at Jacksons offers an unsettling yet profound glimpse into this space.

Sebastian + Barquet, showing the work of George Nakashima

George Nakashima, the acclaimed Japanese-American carpenter who created iconic, architectural works of furniture, was part of one of the darker periods in American history: interned during World War II, it was here that he learned from a man named Gentaro Hikogawa about using traditional Japanese hand tools, joinery techniques, and the use of found materials.

Sebastian + Barquet, founded in New York in 2005, specializes in American and European post-war design. At this year’s Basel fair the gallery is showing a wide selection of Nakashima’s oeuvre, presented in a landscape modeled on his Bucks County, Pennsylvania studio. The works range from tables, to chairs, to lamps – all indicative of Nakahsima’s trajectory as a woodworker.

Nakashima's Conoid chairs and an English Oak burl dining table

Nakashima’s Conoid chairs – named after the studio that’s part of the larger property that he lived on and worked at – contain spindles of hickory on the backs and cantilevered floor runners. The design draws the eye and provides sturdiness, a combination of woodsy aesthetics and functional intent that Nakashima was known for. The dining table is made from a rejected log and is defined by his signature, freeform edges.

One of Nakashima's coffee tables, made with the burl of a redwood tree

A burl is a deformed outgrowth of a tree root, usually caused by injury or virus, and this coffee table is made from the burl of a redwood. Nakashima started working with these rare formations in the 1970s, and though he worked almost exclusively with hard wood, he decided to use this piece due to its dramatic figure and rouge hue. Nakashima, who set up his Foundation for Peace, was highly impacted by his experience and his work often reflected his desire to help those in need.

Paulin's parabolic seating and totemic lighting

Pierre Paulin was an influential interior and furniture designer from France. Jousse Entreprise is showing an impressive array of his work, representative of both the earlier and later decades of his career. From the seating, to the lighting, to the tables, all of the works display Paulin’s geometrically captivating style.

The pieces on display illustrate the forms Paulin was most interested in – his signature, curvaceous furniture formations and hypermodern, explicitly vertical lighting.

Paulin cemented his place in the history of interior design by creating experimental seating, starting with the principles of applied design rather than first focusing on comfort. The result was seating that was more rounded and surreal, while remaining pleasant and cozy. The pieces on display at Jousse Entreprise by Pierre Paulin showcase the movement from a strict adherence to functionalism as a point of departure, to the post-war focus on conjectural and avant-garde design.

All photos by Seth Browarnik / WorldRedEye.com

- Rob Goyanes

Acting Things IV - Material Flow at Design Miami/ Basel 2013

Entering the ground floor of Design Miami/ Basel 2013, one sees a long, low-lying stage topped with an assembly line of equipment, dancers, and organically-shaped blue and green objects sitting on shelves. A plaintive, sparse melody rings out like clockwork as the audience watches in quiet reflection.

For this year’s Basel fair, Studio Judith Seng was invited to produce the fourth in a performance series that Seng has yielded to wide acclaim. Titled ACTING THINGS IV – Material Flow, the work brings together the worlds of material production and modern dance, and combines the spectacle of a runway with the 8-hour, tedious realities of industrial manufacturing and the visceral, aesthetic labor of sculptors.

Lead dancer Barbara Berti mixing the mold, with a "melting machine" in the background

A Material Flow work table

For every day of the fair – and all day – Seng’s plainly blue-garbed dancers have mixed wax powder with water, creating a blue or green mass and then worked it with their hands and assorted tools on the surface of a work table. The workers have produced these molds in an almost robotic fashion, only to then sculpt them through a series of soft, poetic dances as a randomly generated tone chimed throughout the hall. The result is a durational piece, which Seng says “is a challenge for all the dancers in keeping full concentration.”

Dancers in a production-duet

A dance-production solo

Rhythmically interlocking arms and legs, sometimes alone and other times as a duet, the dancer-producers create organic effigies – which have left colored traces throughout the stage – and are then displayed as curated objects. The following day, these objects are placed under humming melting machines (structures designed by Seng which look like the skeleton of a teepee) and are melted down with pumping hot air. The process is then hypnotically repeated.

The final product - only to be melted and remade

A compelling component of Design Miami/ Basel’s cultural programming, these Design Commissions engage an exceptional studio in the creation of a large scale and experimental work. This year’s undertaking by Seng and her dancers is a free flowing assembly line that blurs the zones of performance and production, and exposes mass manufacturing as a sort of dance; a social ritual constrained by traditional techniques and management. Thought-provoking for both its figurative and literal constituents, ACTING THINGS IV – Material Flow is a mesmerizing work of choreographed fabrication.

A view of Material Flow from the escalator leading to the show room of Design Miami/ Basel 2013. All photos by Seth Browarnik / WorldRedEye.com

- Rob Goyanes

The panel gave an in-depth look into Prouvé and their passions for his thinking and designs

The Pinacoteca Agnelli, designed by Renzo Piano. Image courtesy of Pinacoteca Agnelli

“The Pinacoteca Agnelli was designed, by the will of my grandparents Giovanni and Marella Agnelli, by Renzo Piano in a suspended structure, inside the historic industrial complex of the Lingotto in Turin. Opened on September 20th, 2002, the gallery marks the final step in the twenty-year-long restructuring process of the whole Lingotto site and it permanently houses 25 masterpieces from my grandparents collection.”

Prouvé's Maison Métropole, installed on the roof of the Pinacoteca Agnelli. Image courtesy of Pinacoteca Agnelli

A Passion for Jean Prouvé. An inside view of the exhibition. Image courtesy of Pinacoteca Agnelli

The idea behind the show A passion for Jean Prouvé was to investigate the theme of collecting in its many facets, and in a way that deeply involves the collectors and reveals their passions to the general public. The main focus of the talk was, specifically, the passion for Prouvé that courses through Patrick Seguin.

Seguin, who is showing a Prouvé house at Design Miami/ Basel 2013, illustrated not only his comprehensive knowledge of Prouvé as a man, architect, and thinker, but also the work that Seguin himself has done to extend and secure the legacy of the self-taught, multidisciplinary designer. In collecting and showing Prouvé’s work, Seguin has also studied and documented Prouvé’s works and processes, and thus the knowledge and discourse surrounding Prouvé’ is expanded.

The catalogue that Patrick Seguin assembled for the exhibition

During the Design Talk, Seguin spoke about Prouvé’s inauspicious start, attempting (and failing) to secure funds from the French government for his “nomadic architecture” following World War II. Still, Prouvé persevered, and was engaged in a “…regime of architecture that left no trace on the landscape, and Prouvé was a visionary in that sense. A ladder, a screwdriver, a few workers – this was all needed to build a house in just a couple days.” Indeed, the house on display here at Design Miami/ Basel, was a model that required only two days of work.

Horacio Silva adeptly moderated the discussion and probed for intimate information, revealing the exceptional importance not only of Prouvé, but of collecting and patronage in broadening the impact of forward-thinking designers. The role that Seguin and Elkann have as collectors and curators is pressing, especially in today’s world.

As Elkann mentioned, “The Prouvé blend of avant-garde spirit and humanist concerns has not lost any relevance.” Silva also attempted to find out some future plans that Seguin might have, asking if he planned to open a Prouvé museum. But this was less easy to pry out, as Seguin responded, “Maybe one day.”

- Rob Goyanes

Design Miami/ Basel 2013 on Artsy

Throughout the week, Artsy – the exclusive online platform for Design Miami/ Basel 2013 – has provided a wealth of information and coverage of the fair. Besides offering visitors a look at over 400 works that are present at the global forum for design, interested buyers can also browse works for sale, either directly from Artsy or via a simple contact form for galleries.

Artsy features original content on their Design Miami/ page, as well as the posts from Design Log

Artsy is a web platform for discovering the world’s art and design, and they’ve provided a closeup look at the furniture, lighting and objets d’art being shown here. Not only does Artsy provide an option to browse the individual works and designers, they have also supplied a series of informatively compelling editorials detailing the unique cultural programming (and unexpected events) at Design Miami/ Basel.

Visitors may contact the gallery directly, or speak to an Artsy specialist (right-hand column)

Those who are not able to make it to the fair may still purchase certain works directly from Artsy. Using a clean, intuitive design, Artsy also makes it easy to contact galleries directly to inquire about the availability and prices of specific pieces if they’re not listed. They also have an option to chat live with an Artsy specialist to find out more.

Visitors may also purchase select works directly from Artsy ("Buy" option viewable on the right-hand column)

Through June 21st, enthusiasts from all over the world may explore the fair, access top picks from nearly 50 international galleries, tour the show with elite tastemakers and remotely purchase select works of 20th and 21st century collectible design found on-site in Basel. Even if you aren’t here at Design Miami/ Basel, Artsy has made it possible to transport you here to experience it and collect your favorite works.