From the category archives:
Isn’t it romantic? Chair installation by Vedovamazzei SOLD AT £10,000
2004-2006
Chair, Crystal. 50 × 81 × 42 cm (19 3/4 × 31 7/8 × 16 1/2 in).
ESTIMATE £8,000-12,000 ♠
SOLD AT £10,000
PROVENANCE Galleria Umberto Di Marino, Naples
EXHIBITED VOLTA09, Basel 2009
via Phillips de Pury & Company.
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Sebastian Brajkovic conceived a new Lathe (X) in 2010 for this sales exhibition.
About Sebastian from the Sotheby’s Catalog:
Renowned for his Lathe Chair series, Sebastian Brajkovic’s artistic process begins with a deconstruction of antique furniture, in particular 17th and 19th century chairs. Through a combination of wood carving, bronze casting and machine embroidering, he then reconstructs an entirely new vision. There is undoubtedly a Cubist, even Mannerist element to Brajkovic’s chairs as they belie an interest in presenting all angles of an object simultaneously. Brajkovic plays with the sitters’ comfort with the familiar and the new by taking traditional forms and techniques and subverting them with a contemporary approach. He developed the original concept for the design of the Lathe. series on a computer which rotated and morphed his drawings. Brajkovic recalls ‘The designs stretched and opened up, and the colours unfolded in multihued possibilities’. His work is at once highly contemporary and yet ingrained in history with its exquisite craftsmanship and traditional techniques. They could not exist without historical precedents, or our appreciation of them. Cast in bronze or aluminium like sculptural art works, but remaining functional as furniture, the chairs are both a tribute to the past and a prelude to the future. As Gareth Williams observed, ‘These hybrids exist entirely in their own present, but are built on our recognition of the past within them.’ A lathe chair forms part of the permanent collection of the V & A, London.
Sotheby’s has teamed up with London Based carpenters workshop gallery and organized an outdoor sales exposition, featuring 25 pieces of modern design in the magnificent garden of Sudeley Castle in the Cotswolds (UK). Many chairs and benches are featured until August 1, 2010.
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Buison chair installation by Vincent Dubourg
Buisson is a unique work cast in aluminium. It is an example of Vincent Dubourg’s ability to create organic, otherworldly pieces which evoke a nostalgic fantasy. He uses traditional furniture-making techniques such as glass blowing, wood-bending and metal casting as a means of transforming simple materials and found objects. A fusion of furniture, architecture and sculpture, Dubourg’s works are known for their intertwining bronze branches which seem to grow as they search and explore the environment around them, striking a careful balance between the practical and beautiful. His latest work challenges accepted notions of contemporary furniture design by embracing a complete openness towards found and natural materials. Dubourg works between Paris, London and his atelier in the small town of Creuse. He studied Applied Arts at Corvisart, Paris, Industrial Design at Pivaut de Nantes and Furniture Design at the School of Decorative Arts in Paris.
Sotheby’s has teamed up with London Based carpenters workshop gallery and organized an outdoor sales exposition in the magnificent garden of Sudeley Castle in the Cotswolds (UK). Many chairs and benches are featured until August 1, 2010.
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The Huge Sudeley Bench by Pablo Reinoso, especially commissioned for this amazing exhibition.
From the catalog:
As impressive in scale and ambition as its name suggests, Huge Sudeley Bench was commissioned especially for the Sotheby’s at Sudeley Castle exhibition. It represents the first time that Reinoso has worked on this monumental scale, overseeing a team of foundry technicians who employed hydraulic machinery to manipulate lengths of steel girder into exuberant and free flowing forms. Reinoso refers to this process as ‘breathing sculpture’, referencing the manner in which Calder adapted his mobiles while at the same time acknowledging its architectural properties. Commenting on his early training as a sculptor, Reinoso has stated his will to go beyond prescribed boundaries, ‘boundaries you need to know but you don’t need to respect’. Huge Sudeley Bench was created in three individual sections and treated with black autobody paint, a decision made to ensure that future generations could refresh its surfaces and appreciate the work in the pristine state it first left the foundry. It also sees the introduction of Reinoso’s new artist’s monogram which he intends to apply to all his future creations.
Sotheby’s has teamed up with London Based carpenters workshop gallery and organized an outdoor sales exposition in the magnificent garden of Sudeley Castle in the Cotswolds (UK). Many chairs and benches are featured until August 1, 2010.
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What’s in a name when a Castle exhibits a concrete chair in the garden of a real castle?
American sculptor and furniture designer Wendell Castle is renowned for his remarkable level of craftsmanship and innovative use of materials, including fiberglass, wood, concrete and plastic. Concrete Chair. is a highly tactile work which has been cast in concrete, its surface articulated by the subtle brilliance of tiny mineral particles recalling ancient porphyry. With their highly biomorphic contours, these chairs invite tactile interaction and demonstrate an almost animate presence – as if emulating the fluid, graceful contours of a Manta Ray, or emanating from the cache of Science Fiction imagery. In this work a tripod base supports an organic, enshrouding seat forming a silhouette which blurs the distinctions between a high art sculpture and utilitarian design object. Indeed, the artist himself observed, ‘the significant thing about my work is not what it is made of but what it is. I would like always to be free to explore all aspects of the useful objects we refer to as ‘furniture’.’
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Sotheby’s has teamed up with London Based carpenters workshop gallery and organized an outdoor sales exposition in the magnificent garden of Sudeley Castle in the Cotswolds (UK). Many chairs and benches are featured until August 1, 2010.
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Sotheby’s has teamed up with London Based carpenters workshop gallery and organized an outdoor sales exposition in the magnificent garden of Sudeley Castle in the Cotswolds (UK). Many chairs and benches are featured until August 1, 2010. Stay tuned!
Pablo Reinoso’s Spaghetti Corten is used for one of the exhibition’s banners.
Born in 1955 in Buenos Aires, Pablo Reinoso has lived and worked in Paris since the late 1970s, establishing a successful career as a Product Designer with a broad repertoire that includes furniture, lighting and jewellery design. His portfolio features numerous design projects for the packaging of luxury consumer goods, including perfume, cosmetics, wines and spirits. Reinoso’s commercial practice has developed in harmony with his artistic œuvre;. he began producing innovative and playful furniture designs in the 90s and has since become renowned for his dramatic re-interpretations of ubiquitous and often overlooked objects. The breathtakingly eloquent Spaghetti series focuses on the humble public bench, transforming its rigidly parallel wooden slats into a network of meandering tendrils. Spaghetti Corten., exhibited for the first time at Sudeley, is a new variation on this iconic theme with adjoining sections of teak and Cor-Ten steel. In this work organic and fabricated materials exist in a symbiotic relationship, inviting contrasts between their variable textures and surface patination.
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Orgone Stretch Lounge (1993) by Marc Newson on auction May 14, 2010 with a whopping Estimate of $400,000-$600,000:
Polished aluminum, enameled aluminum. 24 3/8 x 70 1/2 x 32 5/8 in. (61.9 x 179.1 x 82.9 cm). Produced by POD Edition, UK. Artist’s proof number one of two for the edition of six. Underside impressed with Pod logo and “MARC NEWSON/POD EDITION/AP 1.” This is the only example produced with black interior.
PROVENANCE The Gallery Mourmans, The Netherlands; Private Collection
LITERATURE Phil Starling, “An Australian in Paris,” Blueprint, February 1994, front cover and p. 29; Volker Albus and Volker Fischer, 13 Nach Memphis: Design Zwichen Askese und Sinnlichkeit, Munich, 1995, p. 127; Alexander von Vegesack, et al., eds., 100 Masterpieces from the Vitra Design Museum Collection, exh. cat., Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, 1996, p. 172; Alice Rawsthorn, “Marc Newson,” I.D. Magazine, January/February 1996, p. 70; Alice Rawsthorn, Marc Newson, London, 1999, pp. 90-93; Museu do Design: Luxo, Pop, Cool, De 1937 Até Hoje, exh. cat., Museu do Design, Lisbon, 1999, fig. 224; Conway Lloyd Morgan, Marc Newson, London, 2002, pp. 144-145; Louise Neri, ed., Marc Newson, exh. cat., Gagosian Gallery, New York, 2007, p. 64
Via Phillips de Pury & Company.
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10 foldable Desk Chairs by Armin Wirth
Estimate £5,000 – £7,000 ($7,670 – $10,738)
Sale 7838 20th Century Decorative Art & Design 21 April 2010 London, King Street
ARMIN WIRTH (B. 1903)
SET OF TEN ALU-FLEX CHAIRS, DESIGNED 1951
produced 1951-1953 by Hans Zollinger Söhne, Zurich, with plywood backs and hinged seats, on turned, cast and machined aluminium frames
32½ in. (82.5 cm.) high; 17¼ in. (43.5 cm.) wide; 19¾ in. (50.5 cm.) deep
impressed numerals to undersides of some seats (10)
Literature
A. Rüegg, Swiss Furniture and Interiors in the 20th Century, Basel, 2002, p. 364 (examples illustrated)
Lot Notes
Originally designed for a Rudolf Steiner School, this design was presented with Die Gute Form award in 1953.
Artist/Maker/Author Information
* Wirth, Ignaz Sebastian
via Christie’s.
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Estimate £2,000 – £3,000 ($3,002 – $4,503)
Sale 5533
20th Century Decorative Art & Design
24 March 2010 London, South Kensington
MARK BRAZIER-JONES (B. 1956)
cast and wrought iron, lyre and book back, artist palette seat on wrench, sword and axe head supports, signed inside of book Mark Brazier Jones 1992
39 in. (99 cm.) high (2)
via Christie’s.
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Meet Kenneth Smyte, although you may know him already as a prolific commenter to this blog [added: See for instance here, here and here].
This Synergistic Synthesis XVII Sub b 1 Chair was sold at Wright for $ 3,125 which is higher than the estimated $ 2,000 – $ 3,000. Congratulations Ken!
For one reason or another Ken refuses to maintain his own web presence (I mean other than as a commenter here and there). I wonder if his attitude towards the internet is the same as this guy’s….hope he will explain his position sometimes.
USA, 2003
Linn birch Laminate, formica colorcore, latigo leather, Sunbrella acrylic, top grain leather, foam rubber, steel, maple dowels
32 w x 32 d x 32 h inches
San Francisco based designer, artist and scientist, Kenneth Smythe creates work originating from evolutionary models of nature. His furniture designs are essential forms derived from complex theories; the nature of Smythe’s process renders each work unique.
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