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Jun 25 2020
Surface
Design Dispatch
Design Miami expands into e-commerce, Houston’s vital Black art tradition, and prickly pear vegan leather.
FIRST THIS
“People’s energy can be enhanced by design.”
HERE’S THE LATEST

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Design Miami Launches Year-Round E-Commerce Platform

Design Miami’s June edition in Basel, Switzerland, may have been canceled due to the coronavirus, but the popular design fair has found another way to bring 20th- and 21st-century collectible design objects from its extensive roster of galleries directly to collectors during times of lockdown. Today, the fair launches Design Miami Shop, an online marketplace that will offer more than 800 pieces—ranging from Jos Devriendt’s mushroom-like table lamps to a demountable house by Jean Prouvé—from international galleries such as Demisch Danant, Friedman Benda, Etage Projects, and Les Ateliers Courbet.

The e-commerce platform will serve as a year-round extension of Design Miami’s physical presence. “While we’re now looking ahead to the Miami fair in December, we wanted to find a way to support our galleries and partners in the interim,” says CEO Jennifer Roberts, whose team has been working remotely to create the marketplace for more than a month. “We believe that our new online platform will become a destination where visitors can browse and purchase the best in collectible design from the foremost experts in the field as they would at our fairs.”

To kick things off, Design Miami has partnered with Anava Projects to curate a collection of more than 100 limited-edition and one-of-a-kind drawings and illustrations by such renowned designers as David Adjaye, Germans Ermičs, and Agustina Bottoni. When purchased from the Design Miami Shop, all proceeds will benefit GlobalGiving’s Coronavirus Relief Fund, which directs resources to the evolving frontlines around the world and helps essential workers in areas that have been most devastated by Covid-19.

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What Else Is Happening?

Check-Circle_2x Andy Goldsworthy’s famed Spire sculpture has been badly damaged in a suspected arson.
Check-Circle_2x Sonos announces plans to cut 12 percent of its workforce and close its New York storefront.
Check-Circle_2x A local board nixes New York mayor Bill de Blasio’s plans to move Wall Street’s Charging Bull.
Check-Circle_2x New iOS 14 sound recognition features will let iPhones alert users when it hears fire alarms.
Check-Circle_2x The New York staple Gem Spa, birthplace of the egg cream, closes due to Covid-19.
Check-Circle_2x After five months of closure, the Metropolitan Museum of Art plans to reopen on August 29…
Check-Circle_2x ...while one of the museum’s leading curators faces criticism over a racist Instagram caption.


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SURFACE SUMMER SCHOOL

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Marion Weiss: This Is the Perfect Moment to be a Designer

The architect Marion Weiss, co-founder of Weiss/Manfredi and the Graham Professor of Practice at the University of Pennsylvania’s Stuart Weitzman School of Design, presented some of her firm’s standout projects that blend architecture, landscape, and urbanism as part of the Surface Summer School lecture series. The students are in the midst of a competition to design a mobile Covid-19 testing unit.

“Connection to outside spaces is more important in a post–Covid world,” Weiss said, encouraging students to think about how the mobile testing units can shape spaces to quell the fear factor patients typically experience during a medical appointment. “What if they [testing stations] were part of a playscape? What if there was a picnic ground right outside that made it irresistible? Can it be small and also curatorial to give you a sense that you’ve arrived to a place you want to be?”

She ended with a note of optimism, compelling students to put themselves in the shoes of people in different disciplines like the doctors and patients. “You all have gifts to bring to the world that could be small and impactful by their distribution in the millions or impactful in their singularity to change a city.” One more piece of sage advice: “Have fun and be fearless with it.”

ITINERARY

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Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power

When: June 27–Aug. 30

Where: Museum of Fine Arts, Houston

What: Exploring what it meant to be a Black artist during the tumultuous era that spanned the 1960s and the Civil Rights movement to the early 1980s and the emergence of identity politics, this landmark exhibition’s final chapter unites key works by more than 60 Black artists such as William T. Williams, Lorraine O’Grady, and Betye Saar, including an added section on Houston’s vital Black art scene with a number of works from the Museum’s collection.

THE LIST

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Member Spotlight:
ddc

At the epicenter of global design for 25 years, ddc elevates high-end contemporary furniture to an art form. Their signature rotating vignettes offer a fastidiously chosen selection with a steadfast commitment to masterful craftsmanship.

Surface Says: Helmed by brothers Danny, Siamak, and Babak Hakakian, ddc is a go-to resource for top-notch European design. Its large yet thoughtfully chosen assortment of furniture and design objects allows for a sense of discovery while pinpointing that perfect piece.

AND FINALLY

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Today’s Attractive Distractions

Rick Owens shares an iPhone-shot short film about his Italian atelier.

Two entrepreneurs create vegan leather from the prickly pear cactus.

This intrepid Pokémon Go player equipped his bike with 64 smartphones.

Creative director Marta Grossi paints vivid, ephemeral watercolors in the sink.

               


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