The second annual DesignArt London fair touts the concept of collectible furniture and objets
In mid-October, just as the stock market was crashing (again), the who’s who of the contemporary art world converged on London to attend the mammoth Frieze fair. In their haste to discover new art from brand name and emerging talents, it’s possible they overlooked a smaller event, DesignArt London, running concurrently with the Frieze.
As a showcase for vintage and contemporary furniture and decorative arts, the five-day fair, staged in Berkeley Square, in the heart of Mayfair, featured designs that were by turns elegant and avant-garde, and went a long way in promoting the notion that design is as inherently collectible as fine art. Some 40 international exhibitors participated, including prestigious gallerists like David Gill in London, Galerie Downtown in Paris and Contrasts Gallery in Shanghai. The mood was subdued and the attendance less than stellar, but the design, in all its regal, provocative and space-age splendor, didn’t disappoint.
Paul Insect’s Skelli table
Paul Insect’s glass Skelli table, at the Rove Gallery booth, was among the exhibition’s more fascinating, if grotesque, pieces. Balanced on a bronze skeleton wearing Playboy bunny ears, it sold to a Russian collector for 50,000 pounds, according to Bloomberg. Most offerings were considerably less pointed. At the Carpenters Workshop Gallery, Wendell Castle’s graceful Abilene rocking chair in stainless steel flowed as naturally as water, while his Seneca hall table in fiberglass and gold leaf seemed to herald the next Gilded Age.
Wendell Castle’s Abilene chair
Aficionados of modernist Danish design flocked to Dansk Mobelkunst, whose collection of functional furniture epitomized that nation’s much-admired aesthetic. And fans of the design sensibility to emerge from the Cold War — practical yet simultaneously poetic furniture, such as Eero Saarinen’s cocoon-like Womb Chair — were delighted by the abundance of slick, rounded designs evoking 2001: A Space Odyssey.
In a lovely coincidence, “Cold War Modern,” a major exhibition at the nearby Victoria and Albert Museum, had just opened, making clear that today’s design stars owe much to the futuristic inventions born of the tense rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union: soaring television towers and space-trawling satellites, to be sure, but also streamlined looks and sensible products.
Rounding out the fair’s selection of objects was the Louisa Guinness Gallery’s jewelry collection, including a beguiling enamel necklace from Man Ray. Perhaps more than any other object at the fair, it affirmed that true artists are able to distill the essence of modernity using any form of media
