Design Miami/ Announces Gallery Highlights for 2022 Edition

• 50 gallery and Curio presentations 
• Materiality & Spirituality is celebrated by contemporary and one-of-a-kind designs at Sarah Myerscough Gallery (London) and Southern Guild (Cape Town)
• Historic highlights include an array of 20th century masterpieces, including custom-made designs from the 1960s Palm Springs Design Movement at CONVERSO (Chicago)
• Todd Merrill Studio (New York) places a spotlight on Craft & Tradition with Stefan Rurak’s debut Action series

October 06, 2022 - Design Miami/ is pleased to share a selection of preview highlights from the 50 gallery and Curio presentations featured in the upcoming eighteenth edition of the fair, running November 30 - December 4, 2022, with Preview Day on November 29.

Grela Orihuela, VP of Fairs says, “We are thrilled to return to Miami Beach this year for the 18th edition of Design Miami/ with a particularly vibrant lineup of gallery and Curio presentations. Each presentation addresses the overarching theme, The Golden Age: Looking to the Future, through a unique lens. We are particularly excited to see exceptional talent address our shared future in inspiring and thought-provoking ways, as Design Miami/ reconvenes once again as a global destination for creative exchange.”

The overarching theme for Design Miami/ 2022, chosen by this year’s Curatorial Director Maria Cristina Didero, is The Golden Age: Looking to the Future. Chosen out of a feeling of optimism, the concept unites our shared experiences across cultures, through time and space - whether applied to utopian futures or idealized histories. From this year’s engaging selection of works, spanning rare historical objects to one-of-a-kind contemporary designs, a number of key thematic threads emerge:

Contemporary Highlights/

R & Company (New York) will present acclaimed Philadelphia-based artist Roberto Lugo to transform his widely recognized digital platform, The Village Potter, into a physical storefront. Lugo embraces classical pottery forms, portraiture of political leaders and Hip Hop icons, with visual references from his upbringing in North Philadelphia, to create objects that celebrate communities of color and his own heritage. The Village Potter will take the form of a neighborhood bodega, stocked with quintessential objects of the brand, including small cups, subway car-styled butter dishes, and water tower coffee pour-overs. New items sit amongst Lugo’s recognised collection, including decorated putti bookends, Love & Hate knuckle rings, and vibrantly patterned umbrella stands shaped as pitbulls. The Village Potter captures Lugo’s singular aesthetic approach, and his mission to foster inclusivity and community. 

Gufram (Barolo) makes its Miami debut with a Curio booth realized in collaboration with a well-known American music artist. For Design Miami/, the Italian radical design brand will unveil a new Cactus edition alongside a selection of collectable items inspired by the iconic piece celebrating its 50th Anniversary this year.

Historic Highlights/

CONVERSO (Chicago) will offer an interior presentation highlighting mostly custom-made designs from the 1960s Palm Springs Design Movement - where designers broke free from the monochromatic, austere character of 1950s designs. Highlights include select pieces by Interior Architect Arthur Elrod, including two brutalist cocktail tables featuring two-inch thick trapezoidal tops. Custom-made 70-inch high back chairs, upholstered in Jack Lenor Larsen velvet, will be displayed in a way that offers a floating illusion, conjuring an image akin to a Rex Lotery vignette.

Galerie Patrick Seguin (Paris) will showcase the talent of twentieth-century French designers including Jean Royère’s Tour Eiffel Coffee Table (1947), created with a glass top supported by brass and metal crossed bars. Alongside Royère, the likes of Charlotte Perriand and Pierre Jeanneret will be presented; including an ash swivel office chair (1953) by Jeanneret and Perriand. 

Moderne Gallery (Philadelphia) will present a booth of vintage and contemporary Studio Craft works, spanning furniture, ceramics, sculpture and metalwork. Central to the presentation is the unique furniture of George Nakashima, a leading innovator of 20th century furniture design and a pioneer of the American Studio Craft movement. Highlight pieces are Nakashima’s Minguren II Coffee Table (1987), a piece of furniture crafted in English oak burl, with a unique form dictated by nature’s organic irregularities, and his Conoid End Table (1970), a strikingly angular piece crafted in walnut. Other highlight works include Jere Osgood’s Custom Coffee Table (1980), a disc shaped table that appears suspended by a cluster of spidery legs. Looking ahead to this year’s fair, the gallery comments: "Moderne Gallery always looks forward to Design Miami/, where the visitors truly appreciate the important vintage and contemporary Studio Crafts that we bring from accomplished artists in the USA, France, Lebanon and Japan”.

Craft & Tradition/

In approaching The Golden Age: Looking to the Future, many galleries took to celebrating the diverse histories of craft and tradition that continue to shape our shared future. Challenging traditional labels, Wexler Gallery (Philadelphia) will premiere new work from existing gallery artists, all of which are pushing the boundaries of their craft - exploring new combinations, forms, and scale. For his debut, Jomo Tariku has created limited-edition versions of four of his iconic African seating designs. Within this collection Tariku presents his Meedo Chair (2022) in black ash; the design evocative of hair combs used in Tariku’s native Ethiopia. Harry Morgan, 2019 Loewe Craft Prize finalist, celebrates his first Design Miami/ by reimagining the ancient crafts of glassblowing and concrete casting, challenging both the physical and cultural connotations of his chosen materials.

Thomsen Gallery (New York) returns to Design Miami/ to present a collection focused on Japanese ikebana bamboo baskets by the great masters of pre- and postwar eras. The bamboo works are at once complemented and contrasted by Japanese gold lacquer boxes from the 20th and 21st centuries, alongside bronze vessels and medieval pottery jars. Meanwhile a four-panel folding screen titled Sakuhin (2019) by renowned washi paper artist Kyoko Ibe anchors the exhibit. Ibe reveres ancient paper, not only as a sacred material, but also as an embodiment of the traditional Japanese sense of oneness with nature.

John Keith Russell (South Salem) explores craft and tradition through specializing in the material culture of Shakers - designs synonymous with utilitarian American craft and design. Amongst the presentation is a rare sewing stand, created in the 1840s. With only three other known examples of this form, the stand exhibits minimalist style alongside expert craft - from the mortised spiderlegs, basswood top, and a finely dovetailed yoke threaded into a turned cherrywood pedestal.

Todd Merrill Studio (New York) will debut a definitive suite of furniture, site-specific architectural elements, and lighting from artist Stefan Rurak’s Action Series. Each one presents a unique aesthetic carved out from a range of craft processes stemming from a diverse range of materials - wood, cast concrete, and steel. At the centerpiece of the booth stands Rurak’s planar steel paneled architectural fireplace. Marrying elements of minimalism and abstract expressionism, the flat planes of hand-patinated steel are patched together with visible welding points; whilst areas populated with splashes and stains are finished with oil and buffed wax. Alongside the architectural fireplace stands a new series of tables, offering dynamic surfaces of pigmented concrete; and a new suite of lighting. Each piece in the presentation is created through fine-tuned craft to seamlessly blend beauty and function.

Design gallery Ateliers Courbet (New York) is dedicated to the ongoing craftsmanship mastery and design legacies carried-on by the contemporary artisans and centuries-old manufactures it represents. Amongst this year’s presentation, French designer Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance and Maison Intègre present a series of eight sculptural wall pieces that pay homage to the expressive nature of West African ritual masks. Each sconce is hand molded and cast by Maison Intégre from recycled bronze and finished with a black patina. This collaboration continues in the form of the Y Lamp (2022). A totem to light, the Y Lamp exhibits Duchaufour-Lawrence’s sculptural and contemporary interpretation of the Lobi ladder, a traditional and prevalent object used in West Africa. Duchaufour-Lawrence and Maison Intègre merge craft with tradition to present modern-day designs. 

Materiality & Spirituality/

Presented within a domestic curation, Southern Guild (Cape Town) returns to Design Miami/ 2022 with a bold exhibition of furniture and functional sculpture, elevating the everyday towards the divine. Rich in their physicality and form, the works are bound together by the interplay of materiality and spirituality. Highlights include Andile Dyalvane’s large-scale ceramic artworks. Guided by a deep spiritual connection to his Xhosa ancestors, Dyalvane presents his new iNgqweji (2022) (Bird’s Nest) series. Inspired by the large nests of sociable weaver birds that Dyalvane spent time studying on his recent travels to the plains of the Karoo desert. Alongside Dyalvane, stands Chuma Maweni, who presents a series of small side-tables titled iGubu (2021). Each one presents Maweni’s inspiration from his rich Xhosa ancestry, and the natural symmetry of organic forms. As with every work created by Maweni, each table is unique in shape, color, and patterning.

Sarah Myerscough Gallery (London) presents a curated collection of museum-quality functional design and art objects, capturing the interconnectedness of all living and natural things. Distinguished by a deep connection to the natural, each designer prioritizes the inherent qualities of the materials they work with - retaining the meaningful and essential as they transform their raw material into cutting-edge design. Highlights include Angela Damman’s commanding new chandelier. Combining opulence and luscious materiality with a touch of absurdity, Damman’s chandelier is an eco-contemporary reimagining of a traditionally ornate object, hand-crafted from raw henequén fiber. Fiber artist Lin Fanglu, winner of the 2021 Loewe Craft Prize, presents two fabric sculptural landscapes. Fanglu meticulously hand-knots, stitches, and pleats the fabric into a landscape that is at once geometric and organic. With each knot, she ties an ever-stronger connection between ancestors, the generations living today, and the future generation of women to come - connecting materiality with spirituality. 

Within this year’s Curio program, Tuleste Factory (New York) presents an exploration of the color blue, abstracting history’s philosophies surrounding the emotive color into one avant-garde space, immersing viewers into all the color's continuum complexities. Highlights include multidisciplinary design studio, Facture’s Halo Wall Sculpture (2022) - a large circular wall installation featuring a soothing hue transition; alongside Ian Alisatir Cochran’s Plump Side Table (2021) - a blue resin table assembled in a manner that plays upon the effect resin has as light is refracted through the solid parts. Within the presentation each design explores the spirituality behind the vast character of blue, addressing the significant impact one color has had on art, design, and its wider power over our shared human experience. 

Galerie BSL (Paris) explores The Golden Age through the lens of materiality and spirituality by presenting an invitation to a new fictional dimension - one that appeals to our abilities to question and dream. Ayala Serfaty brings her renowned SOMA series. A set of fascinating and intangible light sculptures, each piece is entirely unique and handmade in Serfaty’s workshop in Tel Aviv. Created from thin glass rods that grow and build into a cobweb-like structure. The glass veins that remain visible present the incarnation of the power and fragility of human beings.

Committed to creating shared, empathetic experiences through Japanese art and culture, Ippodo Gallery (New York) presents Shigeru Uchida’s Ji’An, Teahouse (1993). Built to be disassembled and conjoined, Uchida’s Ji’An is meticulously designed with bamboo panels cut into unconventional shapes and organic forms, separating the teahouse from the surrounding environment. Although the walls are designed with small slats that allow views into the outside world, within one feels removed - as if transported to a serene refuge. Uchida’s Ji’An plays with the concept of liminal space and spirituality. 

The Golden Age & Natural World/

At the crux of The Golden Age is an aspiration and direct invitation for all to collectively consider how to live more harmoniously with each other and with the natural world. This key theme, of the Golden Age and Natural World, is apparent in many of the presentations at this year’s fair. Within Wexler Gallery’s presentation is Aleksandra Pollner’s Gleaning collection, which emerged from Pollner’s ritual morning walks during lockdown, where she began collecting discarded Styrofoam. The result - a collection of elevated, striking pieces that merge historical methods of papier-mâché with newer ideas of circular design, to explore our shifting relationship with objects and the environment. 

For this year’s fair, The Future Perfect (New York) prompted each artist to push their boundaries in scale and material, whilst questioning “What is a wonderful world?” A question The Golden Age encapsulates. The final presentation offers a number of new and exclusive works exhibiting a sense of peace, optimism, and harmony - like a garden, the presentation encourages imaginative blossoming, considering our shared future with the natural world. Participating artists include the likes of Dee Clements; Bradley Bowers; Seungjin Yang; Cody Hoy; and Chen Chen and Kai Williams, amongst others. 

Defining a New Scale/

Returning for the 11th consecutive year, Jason Jacques (New York) will stage a presentation of Kim Simonsson’s famed Moss People, now re-imagined as towering, monumental Moss Giants (2022). The Moss People were originally conceived as wanderers from the Nordic forests, weaving a narrative that oscillates between the real world and the supernatural. Now standing at 5 meters tall, Simonsson’s Moss Giants push the boundaries of fabrication to create monumental versions of these iconic designs. 

At the other end of the scale spectrum, Ippodo Gallery presents Jiehei Murase’s Akoda Melon (2022). The Tokyo-based lacquer and tea master, forges by hand wrought-iron tools which he then uses, along with a lathe, to craft the flawless silhouette of a Japanese-native akoda melon. Fashioned from the prized Zelkova Elm, a Japanese-native tree, each individual pore is chiseled into the surface of the lacquer coating with a delicate precision, creating a realistic skin. Standing just shy of three inches tall, Murase’s Akoda Melon form appears as if plucked from the natural source; skillfully crafted to such precision that one might mistake the tea caddy for the fruit itself. 

Mid-Century Icons/

Amongst the highlights from this year’s edition, includes a wealth of Brazilian Mid-Century icons. Dedicated to Brazilian design, Mercado Moderno (Rio de Janeiro) presents original pieces by designers such as Joaquim Tenreiro (1906-1992), Sergio Rodrigues (1927-2014) and José Zanina Caldas (1919-2001). Amongst the collection includes Jorge Zalszupin’s 1960s Andorinha Coffee Table. Inspired by origami, the Andorinha coffee table is named after the swallow bird, with its sides resembling the wings pointed down in flight. 

Making its debut at Design Miami/, Diletante42 (São Paulo) is committed to supporting Brazilian designers. Within its presentation is Sergio Rodrigues’ 1965 Tonico Armchair. Designed at the height of Rogrigues’ career, the Tonico Armchair represents a synthesis of his creativity. José Zanina Caldas’s Namoradeira Chairs represents the artist’s effortless blend of heaviness with balance. Made from solid pieces of wood acquired from forest waste, Namoradeira’s silhouette seems to elicit an effortless lightness.

Digital vs. Physical/ 

The Golden Age: Looking to the Future sparks a consideration for innovation and technology. Nilufar (Milan) returns to Design Miami/ to present two contemporary designers, Audrey Large, and Khaled El Mays. Large will present her collection Afterglow, which looks to define the liminal space between present and future. Through an exploration of the potential opportunities presented by digital image manipulations, and applying these to our physical surroundings, Large creates designs that question the dialogue between form and technique. Initially drawn freehand, then 3D printed, each design in Afterglow offers a fluid silhouette, with iridescent surfaces that feel simultaneously digital and physical. Meanwhile, Harry Nuriev (New York, Paris) joins this dual reality by exhibiting a Curio presentation featuring a world of interior and collectible furniture designs that co-exist within the physical world, and the Meta world.

Design Miami/ 2022 Galleries/ ​ ​ ​ ​

AGO Projects/ Mexico City
​Ateliers Courbet/ New York
​Bernard Goldberg Fine Arts/ New York
​Carpenters Workshop Gallery/ Paris, New York, Los Angeles, London
​CONVERSO/ Chicago
​Cristina Grajales/ New York
​Diletante42/ São Paulo
​Friedman Benda/ New York
​Gallery ALL/ Beverly Hills
​Galerie BSL/ Paris
​Galleria Antonella Villanova/ Foiano Della
​Galerie Maria Wettergren/ Paris
​Galerie Negropontes/ Paris
​Galerie Patrick Seguin/ Paris
​Galerie SCENE OUVERTE/ Paris
​Gallery FUMI/ London
​Hostler Burrows/ New York
​Ippodo Gallery/ New York
​Jason Jacques/ New York
​John Keith Russell/ South Salem
​Lebreton/ Monaco
​Magen H Gallery/ New York
​Mercado Moderno/ Rio de Janeiro
​Mindy Solomon Gallery/ Miami
​Moderne Gallery/ Philadelphia
​Nilufar/ Milan
​Objective Gallery/ New York
​Ornamentum/ Hudson
​R & Company/ New York
​Sarah Myerscough Gallery/ London
​Southern Guild/ Cape Town
​The Future Perfect/ New York
​Thomsen Gallery/ New York
​Todd Merrill Studio/ New York
​Twenty First Gallery/ New York
​Wexler Gallery/ Philadelphia ​ ​ ​ ​ ​

Design Miami/ 2022 Curios/

Aqua Creations/ Englewood
​Elisabetta Cipriani/ London
​Emma Scully Gallery/ New York
​GUFRAM/ Barolo
​Harry Nuriev/ New York, Paris
​J. Lohmann Gallery/ New York
​MONIOMI Design/ Miami
​Objects of Common Interest/ New York
​R & Company/ New York
​Rademakers Gallery/ Amsterdam
​Room 57/ New York
​Stroll Garden/ Los Angeles
​Superhouse/ New York
​Tuleste Factory/ New York

Schedule of Events/

Tuesday, November 29, 2022
​Members Preview/ 11am–12pm
​Collectors Preview/ 12pm–7pm
​Press Preview/ 2pm-7pm

Wednesday November 30, 2022
​VIP Preview/ 11am–1pm

Public Show Days/

Wednesday November 30/ 1pm–7pm
​Thursday December 1/ 11am–7pm
​Friday December 2/ 12pm–7pm
​Saturday December 3/ 12pm–7pm
​Sunday December 4/ 12pm–6pm

Visiting the Fair/

Tickets are now available to purchase, please click here.

To learn more about the 18th edition of Design Miami/, please visit www.designmiami.com. 

To register for a press pass, please visit https://shop.designmiami.com/pages/press-dm22.