05.30.17

Fair Report

The Best of ICFF, and More: Part Two of Our (Massive) NYCxDesign Roundup

It's mind-boggling for us to think that just ten years ago, during our frequent business trips to Europe, we would constantly get asked if New York Design Week was worth visiting, and we would inevitably respond that no, it was not. But oh, how things have changed. In addition to OFFSITE, Sight Unseen Presents, and everything we covered in our first NYCxDesign story earlier this month, today we're posting a massive roundup of all the exhibitions and launches that happened last week. Take the full tour after the jump.
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05.26.17

Sight Unseen OFFSITE

Take a Tour of Our 2017 Sight Unseen OFFSITE Show, Part II

With our main show this year focusing on larger, more cohesive collection presentations, we knew we had to find somewhere to feature work from the more emerging designers we're known for launching. Enter OFFSITE Selects, a curated group exhibition of 25 international designers, featuring a few longtime favorites alongside pretty much everyone we've been scouting in recent months.
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05.25.17

Sight Unseen OFFSITE

Take a Tour of Our 2017 Sight Unseen OFFSITE Show, Part I

Conventional wisdom suggests that for an event to be considered truly successful, it's supposed to get bigger every year. But here at Sight Unseen, we've always put curation before commerce, and so when we began pondering back in October whether Sight Unseen OFFSITE might benefit from a tighter, smaller, more elevated edit, we had no qualms whatsoever about scaling down. Whereas in 2016 we hosted more than 70 exhibitors in 20,000 square feet, our 2017 show featured just 25 exhibitors in 13,000 square feet — and yet it was widely credited as being the best we've ever done.
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05.23.17

Sight Unseen Presents

An Office Furniture Showroom Turned Tropical Oasis in the Middle of Manhattan

The monthlong extravaganza that is NYCxDesign may be drawing to a close — and our Sight Unseen OFFSITE show officially cleared of all the beautiful pieces that made it such a success — but there's still time to catch some of the smaller exhibitions we lent our name and our curation to this week. One of our favorite projects was an installation in the showroom of the Italian furniture brand Arper, who allowed us to take over a small section of their airy Soho space in order to showcase Arper's colorful new seating collections, Arcos and Cila.
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05.22.17

Sight Unseen OFFSITE

We Paired Norwegian Studios with American Studios to Collaborate on New Works

In 2016, Sight Unseen’s editors created a cross-cultural exchange called Norway x New York, pairing 5 American studios with 5 Norwegian studios, who spent six months working together long-distance on objects that utilize an American workshop for fabrication. After a successful debut at Sight Unseen OFFSITE last year, Norway x New York has returned this week with an all-new collection of collaborative furniture, lighting, and accessories, pictured after the jump.
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09.17.14

Sight Unseen Presents

Our Fall Pop-Up at Space Ninety 8

Having branched into retail three years ago with the Sight Unseen Shop — plus a few pop-ups along the way — we can definitively say that the only thing better than buying beautiful objects for ourselves is putting them out into the world for the enjoyment of others. When Marissa Maximo, curator of Space Ninety 8 in Williamsburg, offered us 500 square feet in which to host an event for the month of September, we figured it was the perfect opportunity to bring the work of some of our favorite makers — most of it destined for our fall shop collection — to a much wider audience. Designed by Syrette Lew of Moving Mountains and on view now through October 5, the pop-up consists both of items we admire (Pat Kim's Soap on a Rope, Heddle & Needle's wall weavings) and items we've commissioned exclusively for the Sight Unseen Shop (Ian Anderson's Oden pitchers, Sandwich Shop's Shapes Vase and Two-Tone Artifact Mug). See photos of the space — and our packed opening-night party — after the jump.
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05.20.17

Saturday Selects

Week of May 22, 2017

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: We're taking a break from NYCxDesign coverage to call trends like we see ‘em, honor a collab that raises flags to raise funds, and praise the “dark horse” of It earrings.
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05.19.17

Sight Unseen OFFSITE

The Coolest Interiors You’ve Seen This Year Exist Only in Virtual Reality

For our Sight Unseen OFFSITE show — which opened this morning! — we paired artworks from Twyla with 2017's biggest interior design trends, and asked digital artist Tom Hancocks to render seven different interiors, viewable on VR headsets, ranging from a Stockholm flat done up in Scandinavian pastels to a color-blocked apartment inspired by everyone from Dimore Studio to Guillermo Santoma.
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Sight Unseen OFFSITE 2017 Eny Lee Parker
05.19.17

Sight Unseen OFFSITE

Our 2017 Show Is Open For Business!

Our fourth annual Sight Unseen OFFSITE officially opens for business today at noon! Please come by the ground floor of 100 Avenue of the Americas in Soho to check out new furniture, lighting, ceramics, and objects by 24 of our favorite independent designers and brands — from Iacoli & McAllister to Atelier de Troupe, Home Studios to Elyse Graham — plus a virtual-reality interiors experience by Tom Hancocks for the online art purveyor Twyla, an interactive installation by The Principals and Calico Wallpaper, two up-and-coming talents presented by Levi's Made and Crafted, a lounge by West Elm, and a group exhibition curated by Sight Unseen that features the work of 25 amazing international designers. Hope to see you there!
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05.18.17

Sight Unseen Presents

Angela Dimayuga on How the Design of Downtown NYC’s Favorite Restaurant Came to Be

If you’ve ever been to Mission Chinese Food on New York’s Lower East Side, chances are you’ll remember the food — the legendary kung pao pastrami, or that one dish that makes even celery taste delicious. Chances are even better, though, that you’ll remember the experience, from the cocktail topped with flaky, edible Post-Its, to the epically grand piano music, to the friends you happened to bump into late on a Wednesday.
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05.17.17

Sighted

A Designer-Made Breakfast Cafe at the Venice Biennale

For the opening of the Venice Biennale last week, the city's A plus A gallery became a three-day Breakfast Pavilion — part curatorial project, part café — where art could be discussed, produced, performed and eaten. Artists hosted and conceptualized the meals, while more than two dozen designers outfitted the space with furniture and objects.
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05.16.17

Excerpt: Exhibition

This Curator Turned Her 12th-Century Castle Into a Design Gallery

After Alice Stori Lichtenstein moved into her family's 12th-century castle, Schloss Hollenegg, she turned her sprawling, grandiose home (or a small sliver of it, anyway) into a residency program and exhibition space. Earlier this month, she opened the show Morphosis, focusing on "the manner in which an organism or any of its parts changes form or undergoes development," and featuring objects by Lex Pott, Stephanie Hornig, Sabine Marcelis, Germans Ermics, Marcin Rusak, and more. Check out the jaw-dropping images after the jump.
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05.16.17

Sight Unseen Presents

Natalie Weinberger’s Ceramic-Topped Tables at The Primary Essentials

Earlier this year, Natalie Weinberger struck up a collaboration with Peter Thorne, a woodworker in the Berkshires with whom she’s developed a series of ceramic-topped tables on turned-wood legs. Those tables are debuting this week as part of Sight Unseen Presents at The Primary Essentials, the Atlantic Avenue design shop owned by Lauren Snyder, who was one of the first to carry Weinberger’s work. We recently photographed Weinberger’s Brooklyn studio but asked Snyder, who knows her work better than anyone, to conduct the interview.
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