A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: the best of Design Miami in what seemed like a quiet year, a New York cannabis store that looks almost residential, and a PoMo glass-blowing exhibition in The Netherlands.

Design Miami

In a collaboration with Fendi, London-based designer Lewis Kemmenoe steeped himself in Rome’s museums, botanical gardens, and the fashion brand’s headquarters at a Tuscan factory and the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana. The result is the Ænigma collection, in which Kemmenoe applies his patchwork technique to chairs, a cabinet, wall panels, lamps, a coffee table, vessels and his own take on Fendi’s Peekaboo bag.

London’s Gallery Fumi, previous winners of the Design Miami/Best Gallery Presentation award, featured a stunning range of work, including Tuomas Markunpoika’s cobalt blue Contra Naturam bookshelf, smudged checkerboard Max Lamb tables, a sculptural wood cabinet by Casey McCafferty, and gorgeous textile pieces from Kustaa Saksi.

Olivia Cognet wall relief, Chen & Kai credenza, Lindsey Adelman pendant

Laurids Gallée

Chris Wolston

KVB

Over twenty artists and designers had nearly 100 works in The Future Perfect’s booth, most of which were crafted especially for Design Miami. Talents like Anina Major, Laurids Gallée, Olivia Cognet, Sophie Lou Jacobsen, and Thompson Street Studio made their first Miami appearances while New Delhi-based engineer-turned artist Vikram Goyal made his United States debut.

The Blunk Space gallery aims to put the work of living artists in conversation with that of Northern California artist JB Blunk – best-known for the Blunk House (1959–62), which he built by hand from locally salvaged materials. In Miami, the gallery gathered patchwork floor cushions from LA-based Adam Pogue, shell-and-metal jewelry and serving spoons from Mexico City-based Alana Burns, and salvaged redwood shelves from London-based Rio Kobayashi.

All Design Is Contemporary, If It’s Alive, from Objective Gallery presented works that pulse with life and humanity from Sam Klemick, Charlotte Kingsnorth, Jeff Martin, Luke Malaney, James Shaw, Justin Cao, Jack Simonds, Michael Oates, Liu Xi, and Tor Rothschild Neria. Klemick’s carved wood masterpiece, above, was a highlight.

Invento — Elizabeth Lenny

Invento — Jean Lee

Studio TOOJ

Rest Energy

Something Last 

Something Last

This year’s Alcova Miami highlights included the Invento Spirit exhibition, curated by Cuban designer Danni Friedman and Ladies & Gentlemen Studio’s Jean Lee, which showcased the results of 2018’s Havana Design Workshop along with works by 20 international and Cuban designers and artists. An “invento” – an object made from found or scavenged material and repurposed into a functional item – is a testament to Cuban resourcefulness and improvisation: like Chris Wolston’s flatware, Elizabeth Lenny’s candleholder, and Ladies & Gentlemen Studio’s Totally Wired brick light. Meditative and calming, Something Last featured works from Cindy Hsu Zell, Devin Wilde, Jialun Xiong, Mary Ratcliffe Studio, Vy Voi Studio, and Xiaoyan Wei. In tones of black and white, these pieces pare design back to its elements: shape, dot, line, light, and shadow. The DUK wall-mounted side table is a collaboration between Sweden’s Studio TOOJ and biotech firm MycoWorks, whose sustainable mycelium-grown biomaterial Reishi takes on a draped form. And in the Bottom of the Bucket installation, Rest Energy debuted a series of handmade porcelain plates and serving trays cast from the textured bottoms of mixing buckets and trashcans at the studio — another kind of invento.

Interiors

For Mouthwash Studio’s new headquarters in LA’s Chinatown, Aunt Studio designed a space that feels less like an office and more like a Wunderkammer or different chapters in the story of an eccentric collector. It’s an inspired celebration of community and connection, incorporating personal objects of Mouthwash’s founders and pieces from some supremely skilled friends. Glass block partitions mix with soft textiles like floral curtains and sink skirts, and a three-layer curtain designed by Iko Iko, while Ombia’s Mare coffee table and 5-legged side table anchor different areas. And Aunt teamed up with WakaWaka on a large walnut curio with oversized steps, a platform, and a phonebooth. The steps are home to objects like Lily Clark’s Badwater fountain, a lamp by Mambo Jambo, Aunt’s Louie table, Minjae Kim’s Fold sconce, and on the wall above, John Zabawa’s Red painting.

Home Studios’ first retail project, a flagship for high-end cannabis dispensary Charlie Fox, is located right in Times Square. But step inside and you’re transported into a serene environment that balances strength and softness: confident proportions and floor-to-ceiling custom millwork pair with delicate details and warm tones. An upstairs lounge area, for events, has the air of an elegant apartment, in keeping with Home Studios’ approach: infusing hospitality and residential touches into a shopping space, where customers are treated more like guests.

Exhibitions

At Melbourne’s C.Gallery, 10 artists explore the form and function of mirrors, reflection as an act and concept, and notions of surface and connection in the Mirror and Metaphor group show. The interplay between public display and privacy is embodied in works like Pasquale Cook’s “Fold Mirrors,” in which hinged walnut frames house facing panels, one of polished stainless steel and the other of handwoven silk. “Third Anniversary,” by In Addition in collaboration with Fools Glass, forms cast glass, liquid chrome, and bronzed brass into a piece that contrasts organicism and abstraction with precision. On view through February 7.

At Museum JAN in Amstelveen, Netherlands, which focuses on visual arts, especially glass art, Boris de Beijer’s first solo exhibition reinterprets classical Roman forms, kaleidoscoping time. De Beijer puts the emphasis on craft with his material-driven works. He began experimenting with glass and created new pieces specifically for this show, Artefactum 3000, partly in collaboration with glass blowers from  Amsterdam’s Van Tetterode Glass Studio. On view through May 11.