Design Miami is the global forum for design. Each fair brings together the most influential collectors, gallerists, designers, curators and critics from around the world in celebration of design culture and commerce. Occurring alongside the Art Basel fairs in Miami, USA each December and Basel, Switzerland each June, Design Miami has become the premier venue for collecting, exhibiting, discussing and creating collectible design.
This year, Design Miami (Dec 2th - 8th) returns with its largest and most international gallery program to date. Featuring 37 galleries overall - 31 in the main exhibition program and six in the On/Site program for solo exhibitions of new work – this year‘s participants have been invited from ten different countries, including first time exhibitors from Russia and Lebanon. Design Miami‘s gallery selection represents a broad range of specialist areas, from late 19th century art pottery, through masterworks of the mid 20th century to the most exciting developments at the cutting edge of contemporary design.
Design collective and series Inventory presents their fourth exhibition, TIME, as part of Art Basel Miami Beach 2013. TIME will debut in the Design District on November 26th, 2013, with events lasting through the entirety of Basel until its duration on December 8th.
As a multidisciplinary exhibit combining a broad range of mediums, TIME explores the concept of time and the different ways in which it can be formatted and understood. Though time is ultimately a man-made idea—useful to define might actually be movement—it is this very fact that renders it special and worth exploring through design: it speaks not only to its own fragility, but to humanity’s. The disparate designers in TIME are inspired by a range of materials and ideology, but find themselves connected through their awareness of objects’ functions as signifiers of particular, emotional spaces in time.
The collective representation of Berlin‘s design companies will provide the Miami exhibition with a variety of design products that are supposed to inspire the overseas design market. Whether clean minimalism, sustainability concepts or simple elegance – the pieces selected by a jury bear the potential to establish Berlin‘s design as a distinct category and to expand its presense overseas.
Among others, the following products will be shown within the scope of Design Miami:
45 kilo shows Hang Jack, a hand soldered and polished multiple socket that can be hung up to fit into your working or living surroundings will turn electricity and wiring into something you no longer want to hide. With Summer Bowls, the studio presents a series of aluminium/corian storage containers that were inspired by the colors and tastes of ice cream. Hallo Work, another piece by 45 kilo, is a wall mounted light for working situations and is a redesign of the ‚potency‘ lamp by Jean Prouvé. Hallo Work is adjustable in height and direction but maintains the simplicity of its predecessor.
Berlinord‘s Tools You Light is a collection of table lamps created in collaboration with two manufacturers in Berlin and Brandenburg. The idea was to visualize two traditional crafts techniques, woodturning and metal spinning by a simple formal transformation. The lampshade is shaped by spinning an aluminum sheet over a tool in the negative form turned in beech wood.
Geisterfaust by BIEST is a minimalist solution for a mobile chamber. This living box is built up of prefabricated modules so that you can assemble it everywhere without much effort. This architectural mantle wants to be part of something. It wants to be a chamber on its own, but a chamber that is flexible in any situation and that can be implemented in a larger room.
Birgit Severin presents Ashes, vases with a 3D printed surface. Flowers and fruit are symbols of youth, beauty and enjoyment. At the same time due to their short life cycle, they are subject of decay and thus metaphorically represent ephemerality. The process of withering and vanishing has often been addressed in 17th century Flemic Vanitas paintings. Ashes reinterprets this subject in the context of modern home equipment by using modern technologies like 3D printing.
Coordination is exhibiting Higher Desk, a minimalist elevated working desk for reading, putting down notes or working on mobile electronic devices. Alternating sitting and standing during workflow is widely recommended. Higher Desk is perfectly suitable for confined environments: with its short, adjustable leg it‘s designed to extend any existing desk or table. Optionally, it can be leaned against walls or shelves.
Hybrids by Fons Hickmann m23 are 3D objects. Hybrid intensities are created through the fusion of seemingly contradictory objects. Through superficial dialectic this provokes a confrontation with stereotypes and aesthetics of today’s cultures. The cultural background of the beholder plays an essential role in decoding and evaluation of what is seen. The series of sculptures are an ironic play on the perceptions and expressions of the definition of home.
hettler.tüllmann‘s Cork Tables are made of pressed smoked cork. Cork is won from the outer bark of the cork oak tree which renews itself every ten years. These trees prefer dry and unfertile ground and help protect hot dry countries from expanding deserts. The Cork Tables are available in three sizes; they are hollow on the inside with storage space once the metal tabletop is lifted.
Joa Herrenknecht‘s Kogi are lamps created out of very light paper modules (Tyvek) and formed in reduced shapes, thus seemingly hanging down from the ceiling like crystals. In the dark, the paper structure changes from abstract geometrical paper sculptures, to luminous, warm shapes of light. Each lamp has been silk screened by hand and shows a gradient. All lamps can be folded flat by using a magnetic system. The Nest lamp, also by Joa Herrenknecht, is made from a milled steel cylinder, which has been precisely laser cut with a timeless graphical pattern resembling a branching grid structure. Glowing through this structure from inside out, the soft dimmable light creates a floating light carpet around the object.
Maria Volokhova‘s Still Life Stories is a series of multipurpose porcelain food containers, that interpret classical Vanitas paintings in a contemporary manner. Still Life Stories straddles the border between art and design, pure aesthetics and functionality. It is intended to facilitate an experimental dinner party, by opening new ways of experiencing the meal.
VDI-2860 The Worker by Pascal Howe is s the first part of the collection VDI 2860. VDI is the official abbreviation of the German Engineers‘ Association and 2860 refers to the guideline, which describes the prerequisites a machine needs to fulfil to be classed as a robot. The Worker a fusion between an object and a lamp and shows the visual point of view of Howe‘s space philosophy.
Information on the exhibition
93 NE 40th Street
Miami FL 33137
Local contact
Dynamo Design Berlin e.V.
Blücherstr. 23 10961 Berlin
Tel.: 030/ 9145 - 7643
www.dynamo-design-berlin.org
Press contact
Ms. Tanja Mühlhans
Senate for Economics, Technology and Women‘s Issues
Berlin Government
Martin Luther Str. 105
10825 Berlin
Tel. 030/ 9013- 8335
http://www.berlin.de/sen/wtf
