Wendell Castle’s ‘Molar’ series, Big Table (2007)

This Black Edition ‘Big Table’ from the ‘Molar’ series (2007) by Wendell Castle sold at $74,500, within its estimate of $60,000-80,000 in the Phillips Contemporary Art and Design Sale in New York last night.

Crafted in plastic and reinforced with gel-coated fiberglass, the biomorphic shapes in gleaming black are pared right down to the simplest of forms, enhancing Castle’s perpetual exploration of volume and monumental solidity.

His original sixties-era Molar Tables were made in vibrant Pop colors using the molds from a kit car manufacturer in Buffalo, but we think this reissue in black feels more contemporary. “It makes them more modern…there’s such clarity in black” says Castle.

3 from the edition of 8 + 2 artist’s proofs

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Richard Artschwager’s “Chair/Chair

Richard Artschwager’s “Chair/Chair sold very well yesterday at Sotheby’s 20th Century Design Including Works by Tiffany Studios from the Geyer Family Collection Sale in New York.

Estimate: 10,000 – 15,000 USD

LOT SOLD. 37,500 USD (Hammer Price with Buyer’s Premium))

The designer, who passed away last month, spent three years on the design of this chair, which was inspired by a folding chair his family owned. In Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum’s Design is Not Art catalogue, Artschwager is stated as saying, his goal was to “make art that has no boundaries”. He believed it was up to each viewer to interpret his or her relationship to the work”. “If you sit on it, it’s a chair; if you walk around it and look at it, it’s a sculpture…’. I worked on this exhibition and as I recall his wife mentioned that it was their cat that sat on this chair in their house. Hmmm… art or design? Does it matter beyond how each viewer interprets it for themselves?

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Bieke Hoet chairs and Remo & Veerhuizen ‘Zetel’ armchair, Cornette de Saint Cyr

Bieke Hoet

Bieke Hoet

Tejo Remo and Rene Veenhuizen

Tejo Remo and Rene Veenhuizen

 

Cornette de Saint Cyr are holding a 20th century and contemporary design sale in Brussels this evening (4 March 2013) and here are a few of our favourite pieces.
Lot 1:- This set of 5 chairs from a limited edition of 50 in red laquered alumnium and varnished epoxy are by Bieke Hoet. Entitled ‘Mini Puzzle’ (2004), the laser-cut aluminium plates are pieced together and then varnished. We love the vibrant red laquer and the silhouette produced by the repetitive patterns.
Estimate: €1,500-1,800.

Lot 12:- This fabulous armchair (2008) by Tejo Remo and Rene Veerhuizen (Atelier Remy/Veenhuizen) is made of sustainable bent and braided bamboo boards and is a limited edition of 6 + 2 + the prototype Zetel ‘Bamboo Chair’. Bamboo is among the world’s fastest renewable raw materials and has evolved into one of the most innovative eco-friendly of available woods. The two designers frequently work together and consider everything as material with which to explore new contexts and uses. Here the shapes are fluid and organic reflecting their material and creating a type of nestlike structure.
They collaborated on the ‘Chest of Drawers’ (1991), a version of which is in MOMA.
Estimate: €5,000-7,000

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Achille Castiglioni ‘Taraxacum’ light, Cornette de Saint Cyr

Lot 50 in tonight’s Cornette de Saint Cyr Brussels sale (4 March 2013) is this extraordinary light, ‘Taraxacum 88’ (1988) by Achille Castiglioni (1918-2002). The bulbs are placed directly onto the aluminium centre creating a ‘frothy’ effect.
Edit Flos.
Estimate: €1,000-€1,200

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Quote

Murray Moss Quote from intro to Phillips du Pury Catalogue October 2012

‘I’ve always regarded most of the non-life-saving material world as ‘souvenirs’ of more or less profound thought expressed through functional ‘things’, which, by definition, possess therefore a divine duality for which they are sometimes considered inferior to Art, rather than the other way around.’

Murray Moss, in his introduction in the Phillips du Pury catalogue for the sale he curated last fall (October 2012).

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Friso Kramer chairs

In honor of Dutch designer Friso Kramer’s 90th birthday, the Galerie Catherine Houard in Paris has mounted an important retrospective of his work. A founding partner of the Total Design Bureau and a member of the ‘Goed Wonen’ foundation in the 1950’s, whose aim it was to move away from “the lack of style, scarcity of material and the housing shortage” caused by the destruction of WWII, Kramer designed his celebrated ‘Revolt’ chair in 1953 for the company De Cirkel. It became a popular icon of the emerging Modernist Dutch style and attracted widespread acclaim at the 1954 Milan Triennale. A retrospective of Kramer’s work was held at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 1977 and an exhibition at the Boymans van Beuningen in Rotterdam in 1991.

This ‘Revolt’ Chair with writing tablet (1953), made in molded plywood with a bent sheet metal frame was inspired by the plywood chairs of Eames and Jacobsen but has industrial qualities more akin to Jean Prouve’s aesthetics. The legs are not metal tubes, as in most designs of the period, but folded sheet metal. The model has been used in schools for several decades now.

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Vincenzo de Cotiis Table and Lighting at Design Days Dubai

This ‘Modular Element Assembled Lamp’ and ‘Irregular Shaped Coffee Table’ by Vincenzo de Cotiis was presented at the second edition of Design Days Dubai, a four day fair which ends today. 

The lamp is silvered brass tubing with inserted fluorescent lights and the table is a silvered brass top, which has been manually oxidized upon a translucent resin base.

Both are unique pieces and capture so many emotions and ideas and at the same time create a unique experience for those of us lucky enough to interact with them. 

In researching Vincenzo de Cotiis, I found the description of his work on his website to be incredibly enchanting and inspiring so instead of trying to write something new I’ve summarized it here:

“Vincenzo de Cotiis marries the sense of space of an architect with the sensibility to materials of a plastic artist. He forges pure forms by following an organic process which allows the final product to retain traces of the process. Touch plays as important a role as sight in the generation of structures and solutions. Crystalline, pure lines are charged with a new energy in the counterpoint of textures and parts. Materials are precious, raw, sometimes salvaged, always with intense evocative power. Style results from the raw precision of the finishes, from the unexpected associations of parts, from a choice of faded colours that incorporate the signs and scratches of time. The De Cotiis esthetic is all about perfect imperfection.”

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Pierfrancesco Cravel for Alessi – TRay/CenterPiece/Bowl

We came across this tray/centerpiece/bowl designed by Pierfrancesco Cravel for Alessi and were intrigued by the idea of using technology to create a three-dimensional image of a natural form that, when reduced, creates a (nominally) functional form. The stainless steal used to create this piece is mined in the Mont Blanc mountain region of Switzerland where Liconi Lake is situated.

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