Photo-Illustration: Curbed; Photos: Joe Kramm, Matthew Gordon, William Jess Laird/Courtesy of Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery
February is the beginning of the end (or so we hope) of winter in New York City, and the design calendar is accordingly packed. Opening on Valentine’s Day, Jacqueline Sullivan’s new show is all about cups: as cherished wedding gifts, antiques sitting in your grandmother’s curio cabinet, detritus at the garage sale, and collectibles reinvented by contemporary artists. In tandem with Fashion Week, Swiss icon USM offers a new interpretation of its modular shelving, in collaboration with a luxury-menswear designer in an ode to his native Africa. And Superhouse in Tribeca honors downtown design legend and forefather of America’s “radical modernism” movement, Dan Friedman, on the 30th anniversary of his AIDS-related death.
Armando Cabral next to the shelving system he designed in collaboration with USM.
Photo: Marco Galloway
Heritage Swiss brand USM, maker of the modular steel furniture system that feels somewhat omnipresent lately, is releasing a collection with its latest collaborator, Armando Cabral, whose eponymous clothing brand combines West African and Portuguese influences. The designer named his new USM line NKYINKIYIM, an Adrinka word used by the Akan people of Ghana to represent the intertwined, winding journey of life; the twisting-knot symbol frequently appears as a motif in furniture and pottery. There are some small, clever pieces in the collection, like a wardrobe stand, lounge chair, and side table, but an orange platform bed with built-in side tables and headboard is the most awe-inspiring for its sheer scale. A three-column bookshelf with powder-coated paneling applied to the front gives the structure a silhouette that feels more 3-D than the original. The collection is on view at the USM Soho store along with designs from Rruka, Fefo Studio, Amalia Home Collection, Nordic Knots, Alkemis Paint, and Savior Beds. Cabral joins a long line of USM collaborators including loungewear brand Comme Si, PIN-UP magazine’s Ben Ganz’s New York collection, and Symbol, which designed an audiophile-focused line that’s perfect for vinyl. On display at USM Soho from February 12 to May 1.
Armando Cabral’s custom designed platform bed will be on display at USM’s Soho showroom.
Photo: Marco Galloway
The bookshelf from the NKYINKYIM line. USM and Armando met through a good friend; “Collaboration is a very natural and normal way of being for Armando,” USM CEO Jon Thorson said.
Photo: Marco Galloway
“I create elegant mutations, radiating with intense color and complexity, in a world that has deconstructed into a goofy ritualistic playground for daily life,” Dan Friedman wrote in Radical Modernism.
Photo: Matthew Gordon
Superhouse continues its “Return to Downtown” series with a show honoring late artist, educator, and seminal graphic designer Dan Friedman on the 30th anniversary of his AIDS-related death. The author of Radical Modernism and a Yale professor, Friedman spent nights out socializing with his fellow artists (he called Keith Haring and Kenny Scharf his friends and collaborators), lived above Washington Square Park with Ed Koch as a neighbor, and had a corporate day job clocking in to Pentagram, the world’s largest independent design consultancy. “Why shouldn’t I have fun all day?” Friedman recalled asking himself, and every surface of his one-bedroom apartment seemed to be his answer to that question, eventually becoming an “extreme caricature” of the idealized cookie-cutter American home. So much of it — the zigzag patterns, the neon, and the bulging forms — feels simultaneously retro and contemporary. Superhouse worked closely with Friedman’s brother to present this show, sourcing works from individual collectors, the estate, and the family. Tabletops wear Hawaiian skirts trimmed in raffia, a folding screen has jagged teeth, and a coffee table sprayed jet black is cut in the shape of the United States. Closes March 22.
Photo: Matthew Gordon
Friedman moved to MDF panels after he maxxed out on painting his apartment surfaces, he began creating what he called “moveable walls”.
Photo: Matthew Gordon
Jacqueline Sullivan wanted to explore the vessel as a “straightforward object that attempts to signify something as expansive as ‘love.’”
Photo: William Jess Laird/Courtesy Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery/
It’s not an accident that Jacqueline Sullivan is opening her eponymous gallery’s latest show, “The Loving Cup,” on Valentine’s Day. After all, what’s more loaded with domestic sentimentality than a cup? Alongside antiques dating as far back as the 17th century, artists offer up their own interpretations, some made as recently as last month. Sophie Stone, who makes tapestry a high-end art, embroiders over century-old glassware by hand: A floral-shaped work is adorned with small charms like seashells, jewel hearts, fabric clippings, buttons, and pins. Looking at the butterfly wings jutting from a cup softly grooved with thumbprints (by artist duo A History of Frogs), you can understand its title, Tithonus, honoring the lover of the Greek goddess Eos, who transformed him into a cicada for eternity. Love hurts! Ficus Interfaith, another New York–based artist duo, have multiple works in their signature cement terrazzo, including a medieval-style candle sconce etched with flying moths. Closes April 12.
Cast aluminum vessel ‘Tithonus’ by A History of Frogs.
Photo: William Jess Laird/Courtesy Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery/
Archigram (Architecture and Telegram) was a DIY magazine started by six architects fresh out of school who drew “for the sheer hell of doing it.”
Photo: Courtesy the publisher
Founded by six young British architects, Archigram, the irreverent architecture magazine with a cult following, has finally published volume ten, 50 years after the previous one. Only nine issues of the pioneering DIY-spirited publication were produced between 1961 and 1974, but its avant-garde ethos and vivid, visually chaotic graphics mixing space-age influences with pop culture and techno-utopian themes have endured. The new volume is edited by founding member Peter Cook, with contributions from three other members of the self-described “dysfunctional male family”: Dennis Crompton, David Greene, and Michael Webb. Archigram Ten also taps critics, technologists, and other creative minds to contemplate where architecture is going now, asking a new generation to approach the future of the field with its same “draw first and ask questions later” ethos. Archigram Ten can be purchased here and in store at Head Hi.
Archigram Ten revisits some of the group’s more off-the-wall ideas and explorations of modular and mobile structures.
Photo: Courtesy the publisher
Drawings of their ‘Walking City’ concept are now in MoMA’s permanent collection.
Photo: Courtesy the publisher
Layering the human and mechanical together is a defining feature for Studio S II.
Photo: Joe Kramm
New York designer Erica Sellers intended to renovate and live in the three-story Ridgewood home she bought in 2020, until friend and fellow RISD graduate Jeremy Silberberg came over. Like Sellers, Silberberg was dissatisfied with his day job, and renovating the house became their newly founded design studio’s first project, with guidance from architect Mostafa Osman. House of S II has a moody point of view; the surfaces are dark and Gothic, a bit of an otherworldly backdrop for the dramatic collectible design pieces installed in the rooms. That work, from almost 50 contemporary designers, includes a textured-steel floor lamp by Mark Malecki that has petals welded around a blazing orange light and leans off-kilter like a robotic sunflower. A classical Louis XV–style antique desk is paired with a futurist desk lamp from the founders’ own Studio S II collection, its four panels revealing light from its cubed metal head. After this round, Studio S II plans to invite other artists and designers to contribute to the shifting collection. Opens February 27.
From left: Co-founders Erica Sellers and Jeremy Silberberg. Before their collaborative venture, Silberberg worked at Charlap Hyman & Herrero and in production design of film and television. Photo: Joe KrammPhoto: Joe Kramm
From top: Co-founders Erica Sellers and Jeremy Silberberg. Before their collaborative venture, Silberberg worked at Charlap Hyman & Herrero and in pro…
From top: Co-founders Erica Sellers and Jeremy Silberberg. Before their collaborative venture, Silberberg worked at Charlap Hyman & Herrero and in production design of film and television. Photo: Joe KrammPhoto: Joe Kramm
The gallery,Sellers also calls home; House of S II plans to rotate artists and works with twice-annual exhibition.
Photo: Joe Kramm
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