Denmark based Mater Design is unveiling several new products at Salone del Mobile.
Mater details their exhibition, stating, “The founder of Mater, Henrik Marstrand, [is] presenting the new Accent Tables by SPACE Copenhagen, a new LED pendant by the Finnish designer Maija Puoskari as well as the debut of our collaboration with Kvadrat Textiles.”

Mater also debuted a line of classic Danish designs during Salone del Mobile. Mater explains that these “re-launched” designs from the 1950s are being produced as a “tribute to the designers and architects that created the foundation upon which modern Danish design is today.”
Find Mater at Hall 10 Stand B05.

“Marcel Wanders: Portraits” opened February 25th at the Friedman Benda Gallery in New York City.
Based out of the Netherlands, Wanders is co-founder and art director of Moooi.

Although Wanders’ fine art and design work is housed in several permanent museum collections, including MoMA NY and The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, “Portraits” represents two firsts for the artist. Friedman Benda is the first gallery to host Wanders for a solo gallery exhibition and this presentation of his work will offer an unsceen glimpse at Wanders’ darker side in a variety of fine art works that are less utilitarian and more ornamental.

Wanders explains, “My design work has always been about positivity, respect, love and trust. However, this output doesn’t fully represent me as a person. For me, it is also important to produce work that explores a different sensitivity and addresses other aspects of my life and character, otherwise it would feel incomplete.”

As the name suggests, one aspect of “Portraits” depicts beautifully rendered creatures coming to life in the three part digital video installation “Athanasius,” which Wanders has composed from rose petals. The images appear as if they sprout to life and are very remeniscent of the 16th century painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo.

Other works shown in “Portraits” include a line up of quick sculptures that are composed similar to Lucio Fontana’s ceramics of the mid 20th century. Wanders describes these sculptures in the show as “free-form 3-D sketches of lost pets.” Some are gilded in gold and others are glazed.

Wanders’ has also included a digital video collage named “Virtual Interiors” which touches on the wondrous and futuristic interiors that he envisions. In an article on 1stdibs about the show, Wanders explains “I started to make interiors that traded reality for eternity,” and he continues, “[These interior spaces] will be good forever, because they will never be built.”

Wanders has also expanded on his well known ceramic collection, Delft Blue, with new pieces like Shiqule Nuhai. Standing 63 inches high and 25 inches wide, the two massive ceramic urns play towards the show’s overall arching theme of darkness, and makes the spectator wonder whether the flowers are living on water or actually drawing nutrients from the ashes within.

And lastly is Tempter, “an over-sized adult rocking unicorn cast in bronze with metal chain stirrups.” This piece perfectly completes the show as fans of Wanders will recognize this as an interpretation from his solid wood rocking chair, Arion. Once again showing that Wanders is not just about “positivity, respect, love and trust” but instead is a true visionary and artist not afraid of going deep within his own personal emotions and connecting to a side that is not as mainstream as the work we normally associate with him.

“Marcel Wanders: Portraits” runs until April 9, 2016 at Friedman Benda.

Find more details on the show at:
http://www.friedmanbenda.com/exhibitions/current/marcel-wanders-portraits

And on 1stdibs at:
http://www.1stdibs.com/introspective-magazine/marcel-wanders

Lee Broom is one of the UK's leading product and interior designers. Working closely with talented traditional British manufacturers since 2007 he has released over 75 furniture and lighting products. With a background in both theatre and fashion, The Guardian commented "Lee Broom is to furniture what Marc Jacobs or Tom Ford is to fashion."

RING LIGHT A polished brass sphere, pierced by a dimmable circular fluorescent tube to form Ring Light, a pendant of simplicity and elegance.

TODD ST. JOHN

DIVISION

August 1 - September 9, 2017

Todd St. John is a New York based designer and artist whose work crosses multiple disciplines and media. In the surfaces and forms of all St. John’s work—whether furniture, product, graphic campaign or illustration—reside the crosscurrents of his varied experiences and interests in texture, scale, light, movement, image, abstraction, and materiality. His furniture and installation works, which debuted in 2015, focus on minimal yet playful forms rendered in natural materials with an eye for fine craftsmanship and detail. The Division series of works featured in the exhibition are comprised of large scale airy geometrical structures formed from solid brass, alongside a series of experimental maquettes that expand the project with variations of form and media. 

St. John’s work has been exhibited widely and was included in the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Triennial: Design Now. He taught for nine years at the Yale School of Art’s Graduate Design Program and currently runs a multidisciplinary design studio. 

Todd St. John, Division 01, 2017, Solid brass, 69" × 72" × 18" 

For more information please contact info@thenew.gallery

Mattia Biagi: WHITE LIGHT/PITCH BLACK
March 4 – April 14, 2017

Opening Reception
Saturday, March 4, 2017. 6-8PM
RSVP: info@thenew.gallery

THE NEW 7466 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90036

Image: Mattia Biagi, White Light it Lighten Up My Eyes, 2017, 45”x 25”, Tar, brass, LED tube, electrical wiring. Photo by Daniele Albright.

 With a play on the Velvet Underground’s album White Light/White Heat, Mattia Biagi’s White Light/Pitch Black exhibition celebrates an art punk aesthetic of recontextualizing familiar objects and subverting longstanding symbols of culture and domestic life.

The dynamics of transformation is a driving concept and process behind Biagi’s work, in particular the transformative power of coating everyday objects with layers of viscous tar. In this context the decorative baroque chandelier, the ultimate symbol of domestic luxury, has its symbolic and cultural value subverted and transformed into an object of unexpected dark beauty, made all the more mysterious by the addition of a single minimal, modern light source penetrating it. The chandelier remains a light source, but not at all with the same meaning or purpose it once had. Its purpose has been undermined and yet somehow made more sublime through a mysterious rather than ostentatious beauty.

Alongside the chandeliers are a new series of round paintings. Here the transformative power of tar is explored on its own terms, as the singular materiality of painting. The black disks are reminiscent of vinyl records, an indirect reference to another type of domestic object. While on one level these minimal yet richly textured tar forms conjure dark themes like voids or black holes, they simultaneously invoke the opposite, their perfect geometric circularity referencing solid presence, totality and completion.

Mattia Biagi (b. 1974 Ravenna, Italy) lives and works in Los Angeles, CA. His work has been presented in solo exhibitions including Election Day at Le Dictateur in Milan (2013) and Fiori at Young Projects in Los Angeles (2014).
Group exhibitions include Storm of Life at Castello di Rivara in Turin, Italy in 2013; Un homme juste est quand même un homme mort at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris in 2013; and Erection at MAMA Gallery, Los Angeles in 2014. Biagi has recently collaborated with Johnny Walker for their Black Label bottle and his work is included in the permanent collections of the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina and the Louvre Museum in Dubai.

About THE NEW Gallery
Established in 2016, THE NEW presents an innovative exhibition program with an emphasis on works that cross disciplinary boundaries between art and design. The gallery was launched by Stefan Lawrence, founder of Twentieth, Los Angeles's premier contemporary design showroom. Located next door to Twentieth, THE NEW presents rotating exhibitions of unique and limited edition fine design as well as hosts cultural events related to art, design and architecture.
Gallery hours: Monday - Friday, 10am – 6pm; Saturday, noon - 5pm

MEDIA CONTACTS
Joshua Crampton media@twentieth.net

Stefan Lawrence stefan@twentieth.net