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Room 57 Gallery.
Within Fall’s packed fair season, Salon Art + Design in Manhattan holds a special place for offering a one-stop-shop for collectors from all walks of design, as well as art. Whether you are eyeing an antique chair, browsing the aisles in search of the next big designer of lamps, or hunting for a piece of timeless jewelry, the tightly-organized affair is your place to visit. Running from November 7-11, the most significant trait of Salon’s 13th edition is the introduction of its new executive director Nicky Dessources. Taking the torch from Jill Bokor, who has pushed the fair’s profile to an anticipated sector event in her leadership, Dessources brings in a blend of established exhibitors and newcomers for the five-day long show at—as always—the Park Avenue Armory.
Dessources tells Interior Design that she is honored to “introduce her expertise in this new role after working with Sanford L. Smith + Associates for 10 years, most recently as the director of operations.” She adds that she is excited to “bring into the fair the aspects of my own journey in terms of falling in love with collectible design.” Dessources, who comes form a photography background, forged an understanding in the field through years of engaging with Salon exhibitors through her role. “I learned about the materials and the creation process through many conversations,” she adds. “I want to share with the public this sense of discovery and curiosity through a welcoming environment where they can approach experts with questions.”
Boosting around 50 exhibitors, this year’s show features global heavy hitters such as Nilufar from Milan, Galerie Gmurzynska from Zurich, Londoner Galerie FUMI, Galerie Chastel-Maréchal from Paris as well as New York’s own Twenty First Gallery, Todd Merrill Studio, Bossa, and Tuleste Factory. In every iteration, a true gem is a group of special projects peppered around the venue’s historic interior. This year, Female Design Council, New York-based interiors studio Thornton Projects, global design office frenchCALIFORNIA, and Black Folks in Design (BFiD)’s display with furniture gallery VERSO are among the section’s exhibitors with discovery-laden displays.
Top Design Picks From Salon Art + Design
Nilufar
The Nilufar booth. Photography by Osman Can Yerebakan.
Thursday’s VIP preview saw flocks of collectors and industry leaders that benefitted Dia Art Foundation with ticket sales. Among the well-attended bash’s frequented booths was Nilufar. A local fixture and global force from Milan, the gallery boasted pieces in bright colors and rich textures, reflecting the singular style of the gallery’s founder Nina Yashar. Analogia Project’s different furniture pieces dressed in ceramic bits as well as fiberglass, wood, and steel are among the scene-stealers. Shiny and playful, a mirror, a lamp, and a glass dinner table allure the visitors, similar to a 1970s brass, rattan, and pine frog table lamp by the late prolific Italian designer Gabriella Crespi. Another true Italian statement comes from Christian Pellizzari whose Murano glass chandeliers and lamps have a global follower base. Here, he exhibited a ruby-hued floor lamp from his Brugmansia collection, presenting a biomorphic silhouette with strikingly drooping limps.
Victoria Yakusha Gallery
Tiara vase. Photography courtesy Victoria Yakusha Gallery.
The Brussels-based Ukrainian designer and architect Victoria Yakusha made her Salon debut with a neatly-organized booth of her own work in addition to other Ukrainian designers, such as Julia and Yevhen Melnychenko and Andrii Mykhailiak. Titled “DZHERELO”, which means “source” in Ukrainian, the presentation features earthy and sleek furniture pieces that assume mystery and an everyday ease all at once. History is imbued in some of the works as a way to explore curious forms, such as Yakusha’s fireclay bulbous totemic vases with encrusted topaz. The Tiara series, which consists of twelve pieces in total, is inspired by the tiara of the Huns who lived in the territory of current Ukraine between 4th and 5th centuries.
Female Design Council
Female Design Council showcase. Photography by Osman Can Yerebakan.
Among the exhibitors who benefit from the Park Avenue Armory’s soaring interior is Female Design Council, who presented an elegant display of works from their members, including Megan Sommerville of design studio MATERIA, Natasha Sultan and Helena Sultan from Konekt, Lisa Sacco, and Cuff Studio’s Kristi Bender and Wendy Schwartz. A standout is Urvi Sharma’s Purdah mirror, which puts a curtain between the onlooker and their reflection through a veil of brass beads. The designer of INDO- studio alludes to the titular tradition of secluding women’s social presence with a curtain or drapery in Muslim and Southeast Asian cultures. Sommerville’s Plateau floor lamp celebrates MATERIA’s 15th anniversary with lampshades made out goatskin parchment pailette. The shades in various sizes feature hundreds of hand-sewn sequins, affixed onto a hand-built bronze mesh fixture.
Black Folks in Design x VERSO
Black Folks in Design x VERSO presentation. Photography by Osman Can Yerebakan.
Black Folks in Design collective joined forces with design platform VERSO for a group presentation that celebrated various Black practitioners of contemporary furniture-making and art. Micheal Bennett of Studio Kër presented a long wooden bench with a demure form, while Jessica Fisher’s glazed black stoneware clay vessels hold traces of her wheel-thrown and hand-built methods with their sculptural finishes. Lagos-based designer Nifemi Marcus-Bello’s recycled sand-cast aluminum Oriki bench transforms into a bowl on one corner, suggesting an alternative medley of functions and aesthetics through the blending of a flat seating surface and a globular hollow sink.
Galerie Gmurzynska
Open Mouth at Galerie Gmurzynska’s booth. Photography by Osman Can Yerebakan.
Art comes in a bountiful offering in Galerie Gmurzynska’s large booth, featuring a medley of 20th century painting icons, such as Roberto Matta, Wifredo Lam, László Moholy–Nagy, and Marjorie Strider. Fresh from the opening of Fondation Louis Vuitton’s highly celebrated exhibition, “Pop Forever, Tom Wesselmann &…”, the Swiss gallery exhibits the artist’s immediately recognizable wall enamel on laser-cut steel wall work of a female nude, titled Rosemary Lying on One Elbow (Gray) N34 (1989). Adjacent to Wesselmann’s take on the male gaze at the female body, Strider takes the bodily autonomy into her own hands with an acrylic on board wall relief of massive female lips painted in red, titled Open Mouth (2013).
Twenty First Gallery
Twenty First Gallery booth. Photography by Osman Can Yerebakan.
Among the booths that tackled and elegant curation of various designers in a domestic settingwass Tribeca’s Twenty First Gallery. In powdery tones and crips materials, the gallery juxtaposes consoles, sculptures, mirrors, vases, and lighting fixtures in an intriguing harmony. Italian artist Guiseppe Ducrot, who is known for his signature pieces in Positano’s beloved blue-washed Franco’s Bar, joined the potpourri with two sets of glazed ceramic sconces, both combining baroque accents with a contemporary boldness in loose forms. Self-taught French sculptor and furniture maker François Corbeau’s catchy mirror polished bronze and oak console grasped any fairgoers attention with its malleable surface, framed within a geometric sharpness. In contrast, Vincent Corbiére’s humorous-shaped oxidized wild pear wood mirror has an energetic charm with four of its corners splashing out of their angles.
Room 57 Gallery
Room 57 Gallery showcase. Photography by Osman Can Yerebakan.
Midtown’s Room 57 Gallery joined the show with furniture pieces by Brecht Wright Gander and Leo Orta, in addition to paintings by Gena Milanesi and Melissa Rios. Orta’s polyester reinforced fiber, acrylic paint, and PU lacquer chairs combine fluidity and rigidness with their oozing presence. In candy shades of pink, blue, and brown, they seem to melt, suggesting a half-way retransformation. Gander’s large table, titled Directions of Knowing all Dark Things Coffee Table (2022), is made out of maple, abalone, black walnut, as well as various types of shells. The mysterious images embedded into the table’s surface are inspired by the teachings of a 14th Century Greek philosopher.
Maison Rapin
Maison Rapin. Photography by Osman Can Yerebakan.
Parisian gallery Maison Rapin boasted a boldly-orchestrated stand where different eras and materials swiftly unite. A standout is a duo of Dancers table by Vittorio Dassi from 1930s. The late Italian designer elaborated the wooden tables’ surfaces with the pietra duo marble technique to create two different joyous dance scenes. Flamboyance is also celebrated in the heart-shaped gilded brass, gilded bronze, and Mediterranean corals mirrors by the French designer Robert Goossens. With their fiery motifs around their frames and red accents, the mirrors in various sizes embody their shapes’ homage to love. Gabriella Crespi and love are also commemorated here with a 1979-dated Ying Yang bar that takes its core design principal from a harmonious duality. The bar’s two different parts are designed in lacquered wood and brass, creating a visual and textural difference whether they remained attached or separated to reveal the bar shelves tucked inside.