Design Miami/ Returns to Miami Beach with a Curated Gallery Program, New Areas of Collectible Design, and its Largest Offering of Groundbreaking Design Curio Installations to Date

Miami, FL, October 9, 2017/ Design Miami/ returns to Miami Beach December 6–10 for its thirteenth edition as the global forum for design, bringing together the most influential collectors, gallerists, designers, curators, and critics. This year, the fair presents thirty-one galleries and eleven Design Curio installations––its largest selection of Design Curios to date––and a robust offering of Satellites, Collaborations, Design Talks, and exclusive events, all located steps away from Art Basel Miami Beach, the premier art show in the Americas.

Gallery Debuts, Founding Galleries, and Standout Solo Shows/ Thirty-one of the world’s leading design galleries will present exhibitions, including three galleries that are making their Design Miami/ debut: Converso (New York), which presents modern furnishings and objects, including furniture by architects, rare prototypes, and limited editions, and will highlight California modernist architect Albert Frey; Lebreton (San Francisco), with a special feature on Jacques Quinet along with works by Magdalena Abakanowicz, and François Raty; and Maison Gerard (New York), known since 1974 for their extensive collection of French Art Deco as well as, more recently, their contemporary lighting, sculpture, and ceramics, and will show a monumental Isolation Sphere by Maurice-Claude Vidili.

Seven galleries that have exhibited at Design Miami/ since its founding will again present reliably outstanding displays of historic and contemporary collectible design: Cristina Grajales Gallery (New York); Demisch Danant (New York); Galerie kreo (Paris and London); Galerie Patrick Sequin (Paris); LAFFANOUR – Galerie Downtown (Paris); Magen H Gallery (New York); and R & Company (New York).

Notable presentations include solo shows at Galerie kreo, featuring limited-edition design work from Paris-based brothers Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec whose designs span from small objects and furniture to expansive spatial installations and architecture, from the handcrafted to the industrial; and Magen H Gallery, which is featuring furniture by French designer and master wood craftsman Pierre Chapo, who counted among his influences Le Corbusier, Charlotte Perriand, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Another highlighted presentation is at the Future Perfect (New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles), whose exhibition is centered on the work of Eric Roinestad’s singular handcrafted ceramic objects, which are inspired by the spirit of California folk modernism and his Scandinavian heritage.

American Design, Shaker Furniture, and Global Modernism/
A strong presence of historic and contemporary American designers will be felt throughout the fair, including work by George Nakashima, a woodworker, architect, and furniture maker who is considered a father of the American studio craft movement at Moderne Gallery (Philadelphia); Katie Stout and the Haas Brothers at R & Company; artists and identical twins Doug and Mike Starn’s first furniture collection at Cristina Grajales Gallery; and Chicago-based Volume Gallery with architects Krueck + Sexton complemented by other American designers and architects in their program.

The fair includes for the first time outstanding examples of Shaker furniture, a movement whose focus is on form and proportions, asymmetry, and multipurpose elements that add visual interest without being classified as pure decoration.

The Design Curio presentation from John Keith Russell Antiques (South Salem, New York) is created in the Shaker tradition and features outstanding examples from their extensive inventory includes tables, chairs, desks, and stoves along with smaller items, such as baskets and boxes.

Global variations on modernism will also be on view, notably the Brazilian modernists Sérgio Rodrigues, Joaquim Tenreiro, and José Zanine Caldas at Mercado Moderno (Rio de Janeiro); and architect Albert Frey, who is considered the founder of Palm Springs’ “desert modernism” in California, at the gallery Converso.

New Design Curios/
The Design Curio program is returning to Miami for the fourth time since it began in 2014 with eleven inventive presentations, its largest program to date.

CROSBY STUDIOS presents STAVROPOL/
For its first participation in Design Miami/, Crosby Studios (Moscow and New York) founder Harry Nuriev is teaming up with Russian tinsmiths and artisanal metalworkers to create an installation and furniture collection inspired by the izba, a traditional log house found on Russian farmsteads.

MANIERA presents BIJOY JAIN / STUDIO MUMBAI/
MANIERA (Brussels) presents an installation by Bijoy Jain’s Studio Mumbai that showcases the studio’s methods of finding contemporary ways to use local traditions in their projects; objects on view will include an Indian daybed (charpai), marble and rosewood bookshelf, bronze Tazia lamp, and a dyed-silk enclosure called the Net Room.

NORWEGIAN CRAFTS presents INSUBORDINATE CREATURES BY ELLEN GRIEG AND ELISABETH VON KROGH/
Norwegian Crafts (Oslo) is collaborating with Galleri Format Oslo to present an installation by textile artist Ellen Grieg, ceramic artist Elisabeth von Krogh, and Sean Griffiths of Modern Architects (London) that plays with ambiguous dimensions––seemingly random stripes on the walls, floor, and ceiling, that when viewed from specific positions, coalesce into three-dimensional illusions that “frame” Von Krogh and Grieg’s artworks.