From significant business changes to noteworthy product launches, there’s always something new happening in the world of design. In this biweekly roundup, AD PRO has everything you need to know.
Design Happenings
The Future Perfect celebrates contemporary Korean design at its New York gallery
Eight South Korean artists, designers, and craftspeople—Myungtaek Jung, Chungjae Kim, Junsu Kim, Jaiik Lee, Seungjin Yang, Jane Yang-D’Haene, Jinyeong Yeon, and Rahee Yoon—have come together for “정Jeong,” an exhibition at The Future Perfect’s West Village townhouse (on view through March 17). Underscoring jeong, the abstract Korean concept alluding to warmhearted feelings for people and places, the imaginative objects on display are simultaneously reverent for native craft traditions and experimental in their usage of materials. Jung’s sculptural bronze stool and Lee’s undulating hand-hammered copper vessels, for example, reinterpret ancient Korean furniture and white porcelain moon jars, while Yeon’s oversized quilt spun from goose-down jackets and Yang-D’Haene’s lounge chair and ottoman fashioned out of epoxy resin-coated balloons invite conversations revolving around sustainability and ephemerality.
Christian Haas makes New York solo debut
Porto, Portugal–based industrial designer Christian Haas seamlessly moves between such disparate materials as Japanese oak, feather grass, marble, and recycled aluminum. In “Hands On,” his first solo show at Tribeca retail and event venue 180 the Store, is on view through February 24 and includes 15 installations centered on such products as his modular leg-anchored Scout dining chair for Karimoku, pebble-shaped Enki wall hooks for Schönbuch, and delightfully rounded Fonte table lamps, all of which highlight Haas’s versatile oeuvre.
Trnk and Phillip Collins present exhibition celebrating Black artistry
Collectors peruse works from emerging Black artists around the world on Good Black Art, the platform founded by curator Phillip Collins. Now, creations from four of those talents are the subject of “Molded,” a group show that Collins developed in collaboration with Tariq Dixon, founder of the design studio and retailer Trnk. Held at Trnk’s Tribeca showroom through February 28, the show illuminates craft techniques long embedded in Black culture. Consider Nigerian-born Hamzat Raheem’s contemporary stone carvings, or Maya Beverly’s sculptures and ceramics that hint at the powers lurking within objects. These thought-provoking pieces explore identity too. Just as Yves Craft’s paintings and textiles tackle the notion of self-perception, Ambrose Rhapsody Murray’s mixed-media assemblages meditate on historical memory.
Awards
Marco Campardo honored by the Design Museum in London
Marco Campardo gravitates to unconventional materials, transforming polyurethane resin into chunky nightstands, solid curly maple into chairs, and discarded Alpi wood veneer fragments into circular coffee tables. The Italian-born, London-based designer’s inventive streak has caught the eye of many—including Tate Modern, Rome’s MACRO Museum, and the Design Museum, which recently named him the 2023 recipient of the Ralph Saltzman Prize following a nomination by the studio Barber Osgerby. The award, established by Lisa Saltzman in 2021 as a tribute to her late father, the wall-coverings innovator and cofounder of Designtex, recognizes on-the-rise product designers (last year’s inaugural accolade went to furniture designer Mac Collins) with a £5,000 honorarium and exhibition of their work at the Design Museum. Campardo’s is on view in the atrium until April 3.
Openings
MASA unveils brick-and-mortar Mexico City gallery with two shows