Fernando Mastrangelo Escape Series
04.19.17

Excerpt: Exhibition

Outfit Your Whole House With These Magical Desert Sand Sculptures

For Escape, a collection that debuted over the course of two weeks in Milan at Rossana Orlandi Gallery and in New York at Maison Gerard, Fernando Mastrangelo takes a leap forward in terms of color and his experimental approach to materials, layering hand-dyed granules — including sand, coffee, powdered glass, and silica — to create an ethereal suite of furniture, inspired by his trips to the American Southwest.
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04.18.17

Sighted

In This Designer’s Hands, Recycled Leather Becomes Something Undeniably Cool

Continuing with a self-produced material he calls Structural Skin, Madrid-based designer Jorge Penadés has turned his exploration of recycled leather waste into a sleek collection of mirrors and table lamps, on display earlier this month at the Rossana Orlandi gallery in Milan. Penadés gets the leather offcuts for his pieces from Hermès, which means the color palettes become a kind of artistic constraint — and yet, the shredded leather, combined with resin to create a reconstituted material, is undeniably cool, resembling marble or a particularly colorful particleboard.
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04.17.17

Sight Unseen OFFSITE

Join Us for our 2017 Sight Unseen OFFSITE Show!

Today we're excited to share the details of our fourth annual Sight Unseen OFFSITE show, taking place May 19–22 on the ground floor of 100 Avenue of the Americas in Soho. The 2017 event will be even more focused than in past years on individual presentations: Pared back to just 25 participants, each will have a larger exhibition space in which to show a collection of more elevated work. Sight Unseen’s editors have also chosen a select number of up-and-coming talents for a standalone group exhibition.
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Sally Breer up-and-coming interior designer
04.17.17

At Home With

At Home With Sally Breer, LA’s Coolest Up-and-Coming Interior Designer

For someone who spends her working hours designing the interiors for many of Hollywood’s “successful young hustlers,” Sally Breer needed her own home to provide a neutral palette and be ideal for “clean head space.” But beige and softness — aka comfort — can still be stunning for a designer like Breer, who describes herself with words like absurd, ballsy, and passionate.
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04.15.17

Saturday Selects

Week of April 10, 2017

A weekly Saturday recap to share with you our favorite links, discoveries, exhibitions, and more from the past seven days. This week: more good things from Milan (including our picks for MVP), artist- and architect-designed carpets, and a chill-out zone for reading and record-listening (so analog!) in the middle of Manhattan.
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Gyrecraft by Studio Swine
07.28.15

The Making of

Gyrecraft by Studio Swine

At a material level, Gyrecraft is a collection of high-end objects made with plastic debris reclaimed from the ocean. But the significance of the project lies in the complex historic and cultural references woven into its narrative and assembled into a compelling critique of the modern concept of luxury.
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Emerging Dutch designers Truly Truly
04.14.17

Up and Coming

This Dutch-Based Studio Was the Best Thing We Saw at Salone Satellite

The Dutch-based studio Truly Truly finds a comfortable niche oscillating between product design and experience, creating artful and engaging moments for the viewer that fall between familiarity and curiosity. Their latest work, presented at last week’s Salone Satellite, features projects that combine technical ingenuity with new aesthetics — their morphing Touch glass lights are cast using a dynamic mold that allows for more expressive surface qualities, while the Wove chair plays on the graphic interplay of two differently colored bent-wire frames. And of course we were instantly magnetized by the Daze table – folded, aluminum volumes with subtle corner slits, which allow flashes of hazy, powder-coated color to burst through.
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04.14.17

Up and Coming

A Studio Aiming to Bring More Curves and Coziness to Finnish Design

In the U.S., we look at the rich, enduring design history of Scandinavian countries like Finland and feel nothing but blind envy. But those who have grown up amidst it often have a more nuanced view, like Anni Pitkäjärvi and Hanna-Kaarina Heikkilä of the emerging Helsinki outfit Studio Finna: "The Finnish design world is very much masculine," they say. "The key aspect is functionality. The design language is edgy and square. The colors used are black, white, and grey." They're trying to take a different tack.
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04.13.17

Excerpt: Exhibition

ECAL Students, Playing With the Distinction Between Object and Art

An exhibition curated by an artist closely affiliated with the Fluxus movement — John M Armleder, to be exact — is sure to be liberated from traditional constraints. “More Rules for a Modern Life,” a selection of pieces by ECAL students in industrial design and fine arts that debuted last week in Milan, turns out to be just the case.
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De Allegri and Fogale
04.12.17

Sighted

A Mystical Marble Interior in the Heart of Milan

The last time we saw a site-specific installation by London-based duo De Allegri and Fogale, you literally couldn't miss it — their tinted acrylic tunnel stretched across a bridge at the V&A, smack in the middle of the London Design Festival. But last week, the duo launched a project in Milan so small and so hidden that you had to know exactly what you were looking for in order to find it. But perhaps that was the point: Called Mystical Solace, the installation was meant as a commentary on the quiet, contemplative spaces that have become so popular during events like these.
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04.10.17

Fair Report

The Best of the 2017 Milan Furniture Fair, Part I

When you're on the ground at the Milan Furniture Fair, things can seem like a total blur — you're walking miles a day, eating on the go, drinking too much wine, and seeing more new things than your brain can actually process at once. Which is why we love doing round-ups like these — organizing all of our favorite things into one (or two or three) places makes us realize just how great last week was, what trends are emerging (we're looking at you fringe, rust, lilac, and fiberglass) and what an interesting place design is at right now.
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