01.25.19

Current Obsession

Wright’s Important Italian Glass Auction Just Confirmed a Major Trend

Earlier this week a Current Obsession of ours, Italian glass — which has been at the top of our eBay saved searches list for a year now — had a featured auction at Wright whose key lots pretty much smoked their estimates. The takeaway? Get your Murano on, people, before it's too late.

More

01.24.19

Current Obsession

Why is This Early 1900s Swedish Minimalist Suddenly All Over Instagram?

We’re not sure when it was that we first started noticing the late Swedish designer Axel Einar Hjorth popping up everywhere we looked. But whenever it was, you can now consider us full converts to the church of Hjorth, whose work remains disarmingly fresh 60 years after his death, mixing as it does both Art Deco and Modernist influences, and a sense of sophistication with something more primitive.

More

01.23.19

Excerpt: Exhibition

These New Pieter Vermeersch Gradients are the Perfect Antidote to Winter

At long last, we can bask in the beautiful gradients of Pieter Vermeersch without hopping on a plane to Paris. New and recent work by the Turin-based painter and sculptor — currently on display at Perrotin New York gallery on the Lower East Side — includes a range of marble canvases and some of the most ethereal gradient works we've ever seen

More

01.22.19

Fair Report

The 40+ Best Things We Saw at IMM Cologne and Maison & Objet 2019

Our trend-spotting needle hasn't exactly gone haywire in the first few weeks of this year — and we, for one, think that might be a good thing, considering how frenetic the pace of trends has been of late. IMM Cologne and Maison & Objet, the first two big furniture fairs of the year, have also traditionally not been the first places you might go to scout for said trends, whether owing to their spot on the design calendar (just before Milan) or the regional peculiarities of each host country (Cologne, to this day, always has a preponderance of Bauhaus-inspired pieces). And yet, scrolling through our picks this year, you'll see a few things that look just different enough that they might be harbingers of things to come.

More

01.19.19

Saturday Selects

Week of January 14, 2019

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: Studio Swine showcased the results of their NYC immersion, Kinder Modern shacked up with Design Within Reach, and we fell in love with a lamp that looks like a potato chip.

More

04.11.16

Sighted

A Design Legend in the Making Breaks Out On His Own

When we first heard rumblings that RO/LU — the epically talented, intellectually formidable Minneapolis-based studio that we've been covering and collaborating with since its move into furniture design five years ago — was ending, we were sad but also a little excited. After all, what would its multi-disciplinary founders get up to next? This week, we got our first glimpse into RO/LU co-founder and creative director Matt Olson's new studio, called OOIEE.

More

01.18.19

Up and Coming

This Toronto Designer Makes Furniture You Can’t Keep Your Hands Off Of

Studio Paolo Ferrari approaches individual designs as components of a unified whole, connected not only by tangible similarities (layered upholstery echoed in both a sofa and a chair, say), but also by the desire to achieve that elusive balance between exhibit-worthy sophistication and everyday functionality.

More

01.17.19

Excerpt: Exhibition

Dancing Cradles and Ceramic Chickens: A Life-Sized Dollhouse Exhibition at Friedman Benda is Surrealist Fun

Guest curator Felix Burrichter and his collaborators, the New York/LA-based architects Charlap Hyman & Herrero, have transformed the gallery into a life-sized dollhouse, with each designer asked to create a piece in miniature that is then blown up to human scale in a way that leaves it a bit uncanny.

More

01.15.19

Sighted

A New Ceramics Collection Wants to Sand Down the Edges of Brutalism

Founded by Orion Janeczek, a graphic designer and stylist from Portland, Oregon, New Material's first collection is called Brutalism for Lovers — i.e. thick slabs made cuddly in the form of footed trays and planters, tubetop vases, and a dinnerware set that are all sorts of chunky, cute, and slightly absurd.

More

01.14.19

Excerpt: Exhibition

From a 19th-Century French Metalworking Atelier, New Work by Four Exciting Designers

Curated by Léa Padovani and Sébastien Kieffer of POOL, the exhibition highlights a collection of eight pieces created by POOL, Fabien Cappello, Paul Loebach, and Fredrik Paulsen in collaboration with Atelier François Pouenat, a 130-year-old metalworking atelier in the north of France.

More

01.12.19

Saturday Selects

Week of January 7, 2019

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: A Danish design studio combining flowers with furniture, an Italian artist making neo-classical baskets, and a mystery interior with the perfect 60s-meets-80s vibe (above).

More

01.11.19

American Design Hot List

The 2018 American Design Hot List, Part V

Today, get to know the fifth and final group of honorees in our sixth annual American Design Hot List, an unapologetically subjective editorial award for the 20 names to know now in American design. The list acts as Sight Unseen’s guide to those influencing the design landscape in any given year — whether through standout launches, must-see exhibitions, or just our innate sense that they’re ones to watch — and in exciting news, it's now shoppable on Moda Operandi!

More

01.10.19

American Design Hot List

The 2018 American Design Hot List, Part IV

Today, get to know the fourth group of honorees in our sixth annual American Design Hot List, an unapologetically subjective editorial award for the 20 names to know now in American design. The list acts as Sight Unseen’s guide to those influencing the design landscape in any given year — whether through standout launches, must-see exhibitions, or just our innate sense that they’re ones to watch — and in exciting news, it's now shoppable on Moda Operandi!

More