The 2 pieces exhibiting at the gallery's space in 21 Dering Street
There are two galleries adjacent to each other in Dering Street, Mayfair - Blain Southern & Annely Juda. Their shows are not really the same dish but it's interesting to see them both together.
The Blain Southern is the offspin from Haunch of Venison's founders Rory Blain & Graham Southern, and it has been producing some cool shows with great reviews since its opening but we haven't checked it out yet in person bizarrely until now. We missed out, obviously.
In the current exhibition with Jeroen Verhoeven, the gallery is showcasing the dutch designer, whose design house Demakersvavn is famous for making use of technology in design with a playful twist (common among dutch designs). Increasingly contemporary art galleries are exploring ways to increase their pool of represented talents (and those with larger profit margins), product design is a field which was absorbed into the mainstream art world. The boundary between installation art and interior design has diminished rapidly with star designers increasingly pursue personal art projects with galleries or commercial brands. After all, what defines art is very subjective, and works with high quality should be welcome and those galleries which sources them are worth mentioning for credit.
In this show, two pieces are shown - a table and a lamp. Not your average ones, of course. Within the amazingly crafted table, two silhouette portraits of the artist’s design collaborators, Joep Verhoeven and Judith de Graauw, are subtly shaped into its undulating surfaces. The construction of the table is exposed at the back of itself, where normal design products would usually conceal these as if it is trade secrets.
panoramic view of Lectori Salutem (2010) - video link
As for the lamp, it gets its power source from the butterfly-shaped solar cells. Instead of real moths destroying themselves flying towards a bulb, these artificial butterflies actually make the lamp alive. A contradiction in its own existence (as you won't probably need a lamp when there's light to power up the solar cells), it makes a beautiful art piece even though impractical to be mass produced as a product.
Virtue of Blue (2010) - close up
Full photo set here
*****
Further Readings -
Page: Official website of Demakersvan
Review: Jeroen Verhoven's show by designws.com
Floatins Forecaster by Poietic Studio, with each foam sphere's motion individually customisable by an iphone app interface
