Carwan Gallery Shelves

For the OMG-GMO project, Robert Stadler borrows the forms of these engineered fruit and vegetables to create ten ceramic, hand-painted objects that ironically transform the organic into something structural and functional. Conceived as a series of small-scale monuments, these objects both criticise and mock human manipulation of nature: a slice of a Japanese rectangular seedless watermelon becomes a stool, zucchini bend in a perfect L shape to create a set of shelves, and wheel-like aubergines support a glass coffee table, as a reference to Gae Aulenti’s Tavolo...

Working intuitively with hands-on techniques and a wide range of materials, young Norwegian designer Sigve Knutson creates objects that question contemporary mass-produced design. Af...

Working intuitively with hands-on techniques and a wide range of materials, young Norwegian designer Sigve Knutson creates objects that question contemporary mass-produced design. Af...

Working intuitively with hands-on techniques and a wide range of materials, young Norwegian designer Sigve Knutson creates objects that question contemporary mass-produced design. After presenting the critically acclaimed solo project Drawn to Production with Carwan Gallery during Milan Design Week in 2017, Knutson presents a new solo show at the gallery with works created in the past five years — including new objects inspired by the local context of Piraeus and created specially for the exhibition. Entitled Assembly, the exhibition explores the freehand, improvisatory approach that is part of Knutson’s practice, which is often driven by the pure joy of putting things together without planning or designing anything in advance. Each object he creates is unique and results from a process led by experimentation and an intuitive use of tools, to create archetypal forms that, in the designer’s own words, display different “gradients of functionality”. Abstract wood columns thus coexist in his work with playfully stacked shelves...