Spiky Trinkets, Cloud Lamps, and Hundreds of Max Lamb Chairs

Photo-Illustration: Curbed; Photos: Max Lamb, Paola Pansini, Summer Moore, Aleiette

In a 2021 interview with Pin–Up magazine, the late Italian designer Gaetano Pesce said, “I don’t make things so they appear nice or elegant. I make objects to communicate different stories to people.” Since learning of Pesce’s passing, I’ve been thinking about how his constant drive to experiment made his work feel so alive. Nothing was too precious (later in the interview, Pesce admits to destroying objects that don’t feel right). That spirit shows up in some of this month’s shows and openings: an experimental lamp show in Tivoli, a Milan designer’s ceramics paired with 19th-century folk furniture, and a survey of Max Lamb that tells the story of his constantly evolving practice.

Drew Seskunas’s Metallurgical Experiments at Nomia

From left: Saw.earth’s dining chair from the Tectonics Collection and the Prism Chiminea from 2020. Photo: Alyona KuzminaSAW.EARTH’s sconces made out of anodyzed aluminum. Photo: Alyona Kuzmina

From top: Saw.earth’s dining chair from the Tectonics Collection and the Prism Chiminea from 2020. Photo: Alyona KuzminaSAW.EARTH’s sconces made out o... more From top: Saw.earth’s dining chair from the Tectonics Collection and the Prism Chiminea from 2020. Photo: Alyona KuzminaSAW.EARTH’s sconces made out of anodyzed aluminum. Photo: Alyona Kuzmina

When I used to live off Metropolitan Avenue, the minimalist interior of Yara Flinn’s Nomia boutique always caught my eye on my walk to and from the G train. Once, I complimented the furniture, specifically the squiggly blue table that held the accessories, and Flinn told me that most of the boutique’s furniture was made by her husband, architect Drew Seskunas. (If you’ve caught a show at Elsewhere’s loft space in Bushwick, you might have seen the moving ceiling he designed.)

This month, Seskunas’s new Tectonics Collection is on display in Nomia’s showroom alongside Flinn’s utilitarian and sultry womenswear. Fashioned from metals, Seskunas’s blocky, geometric furniture can be displayed both indoors and outdoors. My favorite are the lighting fixtures made from perforated aluminum, which remind me of Gerrit Thomas Rietveld’s aluminum chairs. Through April 28.

Valentina Cameranesi Sgroi’s Delicate Trinkets at Jacqueline Sullivan

Valentina Cameranesi Sgroi’s Marionetta II series of enameled copper vessels at Jacqueline Sullivan. Photo: Paola Pansini

The Milan-based designer Valentina Cameranesi Sgroi has filled Sullivan’s gallery with functional, delicate trinkets for her debut U.S. show. Titled “I Racconti (The Tales),” Cameranesi Sgroi calls the exhibition a “dialogue show” — every item references objects from the past.

The designer’s hand-painted birch-plywood boxes (Modello I and IV), streaked with pastel watercolors, are a nod to fashion designer Ken Scott’s efflorescent florals. Then there are the subtly Gothic pieces in the Marionetta series, made of enameled copper: Marionetta I is a circular black pan topped with a conical pale-pink “hat,” while Marionetta II presents a more menacing, spikier silhouette, resembling a jester’s hat with a spiky, protruding “nose” in the lid’s center. In contrast, her eye-catching glassware, including her Fasciated cups, are iridescent in the sunlight. The pieces are even more striking in their setting, displayed alongside (and atop) a selection of 19th-century folk furniture from Olde Hope Antiques: chests, benches, chairs, and a six-arm chandelier with a crystal globe at its center. Through April 13. 

Cameranesi Sgroi’s Fasciated cups. Photo: Paola Pansini

“Silence of the Lamps” in the Hudson Valley

Jed Heuer’s balustrade-based lamp. Photo: Summer Moore

On the third floor of the Whitney Biennial, there’s a memo by the artist Pippa Garner that declares, “YOU CAN MAKE A LAMP OUT OF ANYTHING.” While Garner does admit there are a “few exceptions [to her proposal], such as ice cream sundaes, freeways, and parts of speech,” we’ve definitely seen this theory tested over the past several years of lamp surveys. McDonald’s-bag lamps, anyone?

In Tivoli, design shop and gallery Available Items has put on a delightful show of experimental lamps from 19 artists and designers. In “Silence of the Lamps,” all of the objects consist of a base, a shade, and a light source, three requirements set out by Chad Phillips and Kristin Coleman, the gallery owners. Otherwise, the objects vastly differ: Ori Carlin and Bridget Gettys’s lamp has a remarkable step-stool-style base made from clay that, from afar, resembles woven straw. Jed Heuer converted a white baluster into a glowing base and attached it to a deconstructed lampshade, which is positioned aslant like an unfurling scroll, and Brett Miller’s Memphis-style floor lamp plays with anthropomorphism. Garner, I think, would be pleased. Through April 14.

Lamps at Available Items gallery and shop in Tivoli. Photo: Summer Moore

Haricot Vert’s New Store and Workshop Space

A cloud light covered with charms at Haricot Vert’s new store. Photo: Alexandria Mallonee

Haricot Vert, the jewelry brand known for its whimsical, DIY-style charms, has outgrown two spaces in just three years. After founder Kelsey Armstrong moved production from her Ridgewood apartment to a studio in Greenpoint, a successful pop-up in Soho paved the way for the brand’s first brick-and-mortar store in Williamsburg. Opened on April 6, the shop offers much more than just retail. The two-story “Dreamworld,” as Armstrong calls it, is spacious enough for a production studio, a jewelry-customization area, a workshop space for crafting classes, and a café.

Since the beginning, Armstrong’s chief source of inspiration for the brand has been I Spy, the children’s-book series of photographed objects created by Walter Wick, and her charms similarly collage together an eclectic range of vintage and personal images, from body parts to food to everyday objects like a moka pot or a bottle cap. The store’s aesthetic isn’t as maximalist as the jewelry. “It was kind of inspired by mid-century retrofuturism,” says Armstrong, “but we took our own approach with hand-drawing the counters out to fit the feng shui of the space.” The resulting look is globular and organic, and the cloud-shaped tables and lights, with their bright LED frames and scalloped edges, look like variations on Ettore Sottsass’s lamps and mirrors. All of the shop furniture is custom-made by local designer John the Painter and fabricated by Studio Practice and Brooklyn Fabrication. Now open at 119 N. 1st St.

Catch It Before It Closes: Salon 94’s Max Lamb Show

From left: Max Lamb’s Poly Rainbow Economy Chair, made of polystyrene and rubber polymer (2021). Photo: Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94 Design © Max LambLamb’s 360 Boulder Chair, made in 2021 out of tonalite granite and a steel bearing. Photo: Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94 Design © Max Lamb

From top: Max Lamb’s Poly Rainbow Economy Chair, made of polystyrene and rubber polymer (2021). Photo: Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94 Design © Ma... more From top: Max Lamb’s Poly Rainbow Economy Chair, made of polystyrene and rubber polymer (2021). Photo: Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94 Design © Max LambLamb’s 360 Boulder Chair, made in 2021 out of tonalite granite and a steel bearing. Photo: Courtesy of the artist and Salon 94 Design © Max Lamb

I’ve been looking forward to catching Max Lamb’s “Inventory” for a month after hearing that it would mainly show some previously unfinished works and pieces made of discarded materials. Set in Salon 94’s opulent Beaux Arts–style building uptown, this survey of the British designer’s 17-year career is expansive with 282 pieces from 31 different series, including some one-off experiments that had spent years in storage, partly unfinished. There’s a lot of material experimentation on display — with pieces made of polystyrene, polymer, textiles, stone, bronze, and clay — and Lamb’s textural whimsy reminds me of Pesce himself. It’s obvious that chairs are Lamb’s preferred form for exploration, and he excels at subverting our expectations of what a chair should look and feel like. Regardless of whether he’s using organic materials (like in his Boulder series) or manufactured ones, the idiosyncrasies and imperfections of his chairs underscore the pleasures of handcraft in a world where seating is typically mass-produced for maximum comfort. Through April 20.