New York, wentrcekzebulon.com
Back in 2016, when they last appeared on our Hot List, they were called Wintercheck Factory, and had twice shown at our Offsite shows their sophisticated, at times Judd-like furniture made from utilitarian industrial materials. These days Kristin Wentrecek and Andrew Zebulon simply go by Wentrcek Zebulon, but their interest in elevating the unglamorous hasn’t flagged a bit, as evidenced by their solo show this year at Marta gallery in L.A., where they transformed cardboard-colored coated foam into furniture that was as intriguing to see as it was to touch.

What is American design to you, and what excites you about it?

American design means being intuitive, and being too stubborn or dumb to know that something won’t work, or that it isn’t supposed to. That feels distinctly American — not listening when someone says it can’t be done. As a result, the road from the idea to the end result is generally pretty rocky, but we (usually) arrive at a place that’s probably better or more interesting than where we thought we were going to end up anyway. It’s unpredictable, and that’s exciting.

What are your plans and highlights for the upcoming year?

For 2024, we’re focusing on:
• Working in fiberglass. We’d like to produce a small set of fabricated fiberglass pieces, using this chair we showed in the spring as a jumping-off point.
• Producing a new collection of sculptural lighting works. The light experiments we included in our recent show at Marta, No Life, got us really interested in the possibilities of work focused on lighting.
• Trying out new ways of making and distributing our work. That means working faster, experimenting more, and creating more unique, one-of-one pieces.
• Going big. We’d love to find the right partner(s) that we can work with on larger scale, more immersive environmental installations.

What inspires or informs your work in general?

Our work is inspired by: industrial rubble, concrete, trash, space travel, both Cronenbergs, bathhouses, old men commenting in dead forums online, radiation, locker rooms, Francis Bacon, old cars, new cars, sanitoriums, Larry Bell, Mark Bell, surveillance, chrome, monochrome, stainless steel, caves, bunkers, thick drapes, crime scenes, linoleum.