Go with the Flow at Design Miami: Six Not-to-Miss Exhibitors

R 20th Century Gallery

Among the Design Miami offerings of this noted New York–based gallery is a collection of sumptuously crumpled sculptural vessels by artist Jeff Zimmerman. The Chicago-based glass artist has previously explored the crinkled aesthetic in his paintings, but now captures the strange quality of fluid motion in hand-blown glass. The vessels feature a gradient color scheme of muted pastels and reflective silvers. R 20th Century Gallery’s exhibition space will feature a higher-than-normal ceiling to accommodate a dramatic glass chandelier by Zimmerman.

Galerie Maria Wettergren

This Paris-based gallery specializing in contemporary Scandinavian design brings an eclectic collection of furniture and artworks stateside this year, featuring a beautifully simple wooden chair, Clips III, by Rasmus Fenhann and an otherworldly light painting by Astrid Krogh called Meadow, 2013. According to Design Miami, the “main interest of the gallery is the interdisciplinary dialogue between design, art, and architecture. New ideas, technologies and materials are combined with the Scandinavian tradition of excellent craftsmanship, giving rise to sculptural and poetic objects and installations.” Embodying this spirit, artist Mathias Bengtsson’s Cellular Chair, 2011, and Growth Chair, 2012, are shaped by amorphous cells or strings of silver and gold metal that hint at the shape of a traditional seat.

Gallery SEOMI

With outposts in Seoul and Los Angeles, Gallery SEOMI brings an international perspective to Design Miami with an emphasis on new construction methods shaping furniture design in Korea. In a dramatic fashion that conjures images of the architecture of Zaha Hadid, artist Kim Sang Hoon has crafted a series of fluid metal tables and stools called Phenomena. The pieces of layered metal appear to pull apart and respond to one another in a rippling language of flowing water or with the gesture of a three-dimensional topographic map.

Galerie Patrick Seguin

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A Passion for Jean Prouvé Jean Prouvé

Paris Galerie Patrick Seguin brings a distinct architectural flavor to Design Miami with an exhibition of works by Jean Prouvé. A variety of clean-lined chairs, shelves, and tables by the famous designer are upstaged by the architecturally scaled Demountable House 8x8 (1945), reassembled in Miami as part of the show. The small house of steel and wood features a dramatic wishbone-shaped column on its interior supporting a slightly pitched roof. This isn’t the gallery’s first foray into rebuilding the houses of the French master. In 2012, it assembled Prouvé’s Maison des Jours, 1956, inside its Paris quarters. The gallery specializes in mid-century French masters of design including Le Corbusier and Charlotte Perriand.

Elisabetta Cipriani

At the opposite end of the scale spectrum, London-based gallery Elisabetta Cipriani, is showcasing a selection of brightly colored, geometrically inspired jewelry by artist Carlos Cruz-Diez. The so-called “wearable sculptures” use parallel bands of color to visually mix in novel ways. Diez is well regarded for his contributions to our understanding of color theory, and was the creator of an architectural installation at Miami’s Marlins ballpark in 2012 that placedcolorful bands across a major pedestrian entry point to the venue. For his presentation of 12 rings, cuffs, and necklaces, Diez shaped fins of color to create dynamically curving gradients that play games with the eye depending on the angle from which the piece is viewed.

Moderne Gallery

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The Soul of a Tree George Nakashima

Philadelphia’s Moderne Gallery specializes in the American Craft movement of the 20th century and the decorative arts it produced. Chief among the craftsmen in this era was George Nakashima who created refined yet rustic pieces of furniture from knotted and gnarled pieces of wood. His Conoid Bench, 1987, for example, fastens a traditionally crafted seatback onto a large rough-edged plank cut from what was once a massive tree. His Weatherbee End Table, 1968, shows a similar rough-hewn quality as a spiky wooden gnarl is inverted and polished to create a sculptural table.

View a full listing of this year’s galleries here.