A new program of galleries, exhibitions and events to celebrate the fair's 10th edition; names Peter Marino the recipient of the first Design Visionary award, and commissions Jonathan Muecke to create the Design Miami/ 2014 Pavilion.
Ten years ago,
a small
fair for collectible design named
design.05 Miami
launched
concurrently with
Art Basel Miami Beach
. Located
in
the Moore Building in the
Miami
D
esign
D
istrict
, it offered
a selection of
fifteen
invited
exhibitors, with the stated aim of bringing museum
-
qu
ality
galleries together with the best collectors, connoisseurs, and designers from
around the world in one of the premier destinations for art and design.
Remaining true to that aim
, t
h
e intervening decade has seen the blossoming
and expansion
of the fair alongside
the
market for
collectible
design
,
evidenc
ed by
the
number of
participating
galleries
, which ha
s
almost tripled
in
that period.
As it has matured,
Design Miami/ has
lead the field in
establish
ing
new global standards for creative and
inspiring exhibition
s
,
turning
the fair into
a
n essential
destination for
the
design
press and
enthusiasts
as well as
collectors.
Rodman Primack, Execu
tive Director of Design Miami/
stated, “
T
he fair
grew
out of the need for a consolidated marketplace that would act as a platform to
showcase the range and strength of wha
t was then a fledgling market.”
Adding, “Since then, the collectible design market has really changed in scale;
it’s internationalize
d and diversified, and this is reflected very clearly in the fair.
Design Miami
/
has changed the way galleries engage with their audiences. I
am
excited to see this ecosystem bringing so many distinct viewpoints and
aesthetics together.”
The
burgeoning interest in c
ontemporary design
from around the US
is
particularly evident
this year
, with
the invitation of first
-
time participants
Edward Cella Art+Architecture
of
LA and
Gallery Diet
of
Miami
. These two
newcomers to the fair are joined by ret
urning participants
Volume Gallery,
Chicago and Johnson Trading Gallery from New York. Design Miami/ 2014
also welcomes
regular participants of the Basel fair, Galleria O
.
, Rome,
specializing in
Italian twentieth century and international contemporary design,
Galerie Pascal Cuisinier from Paris
,
with their focus on
French design from the
1950s
, Carwan Gallery, Beirut, emphasizing work from Western designers
interpreting Middle Eastern craf
t
and Nilufar
Gallery
, Milan,
known for
Italian
postwar design.
The Miami fair and its Basel sibling
have
maintained strong bonds with the
founding galleries
that participated in th
at
first design.05 Miami.
Eleven
founding
galleries of the original
fifteen
–
including
the previously mentioned
Nilufar
Gallery
,
Casati
Gallery
, Cristina Grajales
Gallery
, Demisch Danant,
Galerie
k
reo, Galerie Patrick Seguin, Jousse Entreprise,
LAFFANOUR
-
Galerie
Downtown, Magen H
Gallery
, R & Co
mpany
and Hostler Burrows
–
will be
participating in
Design Miami/
2014.
Zesty Meyers,
Principal
of R & Company, New York commented,
“I think what
we’ve accomplished in ten years is amazing. Design Miami
/
and Design
Miami
/
Basel have brought a global audience to us: because of them, I don’t
know what languages will be spoken in my gallery today. The power of acting
under the Design Miami
/
umbrella
as a group of galleries
attracts
buyers that
we’d never attract individually
–
we keep
on
getting first time buyers.
Because
of the clients we have through Design Miami
/
, we can invest in scholarship and
research; we can publish major books and hold museum shows. At a certain
point, these pieces we are selling from the twentieth ce
ntury will be gone
–
we’re saving history with these works, and creating future history with the
contemporary.”
NEW INITIATIVES
Equally
excited by the future as it is inspired by the past
, Design Miami/
is
launching
two new
forward
-
looking
initiatives
this year:
the
exhibition strand
Design Curio
, and the Design Visionary award.
Conceived as contemporary cabinets of curiosity, the
four
independently
curated
Design Curio booths scattered throughout the fair will take
the widest
possible view of
design
practice
. They will
go beyond the scope of collectible
design to
embrace
diverse fields
from science and technology
,
to
handcraft
,
and from
unrealized prototypes
to
esoteric collections.
DESIGN VISIONARY
The new Design Visionary
a
ward from Design Miami/ celebrates individuals
who have significantly
contributed to
the field of design
, such as
collectors,
curators, architects and
luminaries
who
influence and
are engaged in design in
the broadest sense.
T
he laureate of the Design Visi
onary
a
ward is recognized
as having a continued, tangible
and lasting i
mpact.
The
inaugural
Design Visionary
a
ward
will
be presented
to Peter Marino
in
December 2014
. With this award,
Design Miami/ recogniz
es
Marino for
his
achievements as an architect, fo
r his knowledge and status as a collector of
design, art and the decorative arts, and for the impact he has had as an
advisor on contemporary and twentieth century design
to his numerous clients.
At Design Miami/ 2014, Marino will be the
subject
of an exhibition celebrating
his multiple roles within the world of design.
In
a stand
-
alone display space
designed by the architect, the exhibition will
feature
antique and contemporary
chairs from his collection, architectural maquettes and images
, and his series
of cast bronze boxes.
PAVILION COMMISSION
Minneapolis
-
based designe
r Jonathan Muecke has been commissioned to
create the Pavilion for the tenth anniversary of Design Miami/.
The Design Miami/ Pavilion
C
ommission has become an important feature of
the fair. An ephemeral extension of the fair space itself, the pavilion is
at once
an exhibit and a piece of functional temporary architecture. While the
commission is traditionally given to an early career architect or studio, for its
tenth anniversary Design Miami/ has selected a designer whose practice
reflects the multifacete
d nature of the fair itself.
Jonathan Muecke studied architecture at Iowa State, interning at the
architectural office of Herzog & de Meuron
in Basel, Switzerland before
studying design at the Cranbrook Academy of Art. Muecke has evolved a
design practice that resists standard divisions between design, art and
architecture, instead focusing on refined forms that investigate notions of
positive
and negative space, positional relationships to structures and the
innate desire to read notions of functionality into objects that relate to human
scale.
Centered around a double
-
layered circular structure with apertures at both
poles, Jonathan Muecke’
s
Design Miami Pavilion (
DMP
)
is designed on a
human scale, rejecting monumentality in favor of lightness and variability.
Filtered through a translucent canopy that shelters the whole structure, light
will bounce off the curved and colored surfaces of the
pavilion
–
complementary tones of red and green within, primary blue and yellow without
–
creating a shifting topography of reflected color. Seamlessly shaped seating
units made from composite will allow visitors a moment of quiet reflection in a
space co
nceived in part as a refuge from the hyper
-
stimulating environment of
the fair itself.
For press enquiries, please contact:
Farris Bukhari-Communications Manager, Design Miami tel +1 786 8714872 farris@designmiami.com
Preview Day (by invitation only) Tuesday December 2
Press Conference 2:30pm
Collectors Preview 12-6pm
Vernissage 6-8pm
Miami Beach Convention Center
Meridian Avenue and 19th Street Miami Beach
Public Hours of Admission
December 3-4, 10am-8pm
December 5, 11am-8pm
December 6, 12-8pm
December 7, 12-6pm
Tickets
General Admission: USD 25
Students & Senior Citizens: USD 20
Combination ticket to Design Miami/ and Art Basel: USD 55