Collective Design Announces ‘Vanguard Series’ Partnership with OTHR

NEW YORK – Collective Design is pleased to announce two exciting programming elements for its upcoming fair. Now in its fifth year, Collective Design will be held May 3-7, 2017 at Skylight Clarkson Sq during NYCxDESIGN, running May 3-24.

In 2017, Collective Design will debut an innovative collaboration with OTHR, the first company dedicated to creating unique and functional products for the home using 3D printing. Rooted in community and collaboration, Collective Design is a platform for the latest in design thinking, presenting exceptional design from both established and under-exposed designers. OTHR collaborates with leading international designers, from Fort Standard to Philippe Malouin, to create unique, aesthetic, and useful objects that are 3D-printed.

In the spirit of furthering the dialogue around the future of creative process and output, Collective Design and OTHR are initiating a special partnership to introduce a distinct group of new design talent at the 2017 fair. The ‘Vanguard Series’ brings together five influential figures in the world of design to serve as nominators:

Annabelle Selldorf - Architect

Christian Larsen - Decorative Arts Curator, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Felix Burrichter - Editor-in-Chief, Pinup Magazine

India Mahdavi - Interior Designer

Murray Moss - Independent curator

In the coming weeks, each nominator will identify designers they consider to be the next wave of talent. Once selected, this emerging group will work closely with OTHR to create a series of objects produced with 3D printing, a sustainable, environmentally sound manufacturing process. OTHR will educate each designer on the possibilities and limitations of cutting-edge 3D-printing technologies in materials ranging from porcelain and steel to precious metals. The resulting work will be made up of both open and limited editions in various finishes. The creators will then be brought to the public eye, with their objects to debut at the fair and be available for sale both at the fair and online.

Says Collective Design founder Steven Learner, “OTHR is a great partner for us, as we share an interest in providing a new platform for designers, working with new technologies, and supporting environmentally responsible design. The collaboration will foster accessibility to great design while showcasing the potential of emerging technologies.”

From designer and OTHR co-founder Joe Doucet, "OTHR is committed to collaborating with outstanding designers at all stages of their careers, and is thrilled to partner with Collective to connect emerging designers with transformative technologies on a prominent stage."

Returning for its second year in 2017 will be Collective Concept, a program in which a curated group of designers are invited to explore new processes and directions through immersive capsule presentations in lighting, furnishing, ceramics, and textiles. Visionary 2017 designers will include returning participants lighting studio APPARATUS, wallpaper creators Calico Wallpaper and furniture designer Fernando Mastrangelo. New additions include wallcovering company Flavor Paper, presenting an interactive installation, and ceramicist Peter Lane, who will create a signature environment of ceramic wall panels and furnishings. As with the ‘Vanguard Series’, Collective Concept provides a platform for designers pushing the boundaries of creative thinking and material innovation. Presented in dialogue are those harnessing visualization software and digital and CNC production methods alongside creators using ancient handcraft techniques.

Notably, both 2017 programs lift the curtain on the creative process. Collective Design has worked to disrupt the standards of a design fair, inverting a tradeshow mentality and instead foregrounding education, exploration, and discovery as cornerstones of its platform. Collective Design inspires connoisseurs as well as the general public to experience design in all its forms, and to more deeply understand the contribution design makes to contemporary culture and everyday life.

ABOUT THE ‘NOMINATORS’

Annabelle Selldorf is the Principal of Selldorf Architects, a 65-person architectural design practice that she founded in New York City in 1988. The firm creates public and private spaces that manifest a clear and modern sensibility to enduring impact. Since its inception, the firm’s guiding principles have been deeply rooted in humanism. At every scale and for every condition, Selldorf Architects designs for the individual experience. As a result, its work is brought to life–and made complete–by those who use it. The firm’s clients include cultural institutions and universities such as the The Frick Collection, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, The Clark Art Institute, Neue Galerie New York, Pratt Institute, and Brown University. They recently completed Sunset Park Material Recovery Facility on the Brooklyn waterfront, which is the largest facility of its kind in the United States. In addition, the firm has created numerous galleries for David Zwirner, Hauser & Wirth, and Gladstone Gallery among others, and designed exhibitions for the Whitney Museum, Gagosian Gallery, Frieze Masters, and the Venice Art Biennale.

Christian Larsen, Associate Curator, Modern & Contemporary Art, joined the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2015 with a mandate to build and display the Met’s collection of 20th and 21st century decorative arts and design. Prior to the Met, Larsen was Curator at the Wolfsonian-Florida International University (2013-15), where his exhibition and catalogue Philodendron: From Pan-Latin Exotic to American Modern (2015) received an Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation Exhibition Award. As a former curator in the Architecture & Design Department, MoMA (2000-08), he organized several exhibitions including Digitally Mastered (2006-07), 50 Years of Helvetica (2007-08), and Ateliers Jean Prouvé (2008-09). He received a B.A. from Amherst College (2000), M.A. (2010) and M.Phil (2013) in Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture from the Bard Graduate Center, where he is a doctoral candidate finishing his dissertation Aquarela do Brasil: Transnational Flows of Brazilian Design and Material Culture.  Recent publications include two chapters in History of Design, Decorative Arts, and Material Culture 1400-2000 (Yale University Press).

Felix Burrichter is a German-born New York-based creative director and writer. He studied architecture at the Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris and Columbia University in New York before founding PIN–UP magazine in 2006, of which he is the editor and creative director. PIN–UP is a biannual architecture and design magazine (“Magazine for Architectural Entertainment”) that regularly features interviews with renowned architects (SANAA, Rem Koolhaas, Richard Rogers, Tatiana Bilbao, Mos Architects, Sou Fujimoto, Ricardo Bofill, Odile Decq, David Adjaye) as well as critical essays and contemporary architecture and design photography. In 2011 the Art Director’s Club America awarded PIN–UP the Gold Medal for Editorial Design. In 2013 PIN–UP published its first book, Interviews. In addition to curating exhibitions (Haus der Kunst, Swiss Institute) Felix Burrichter consults on artists’ projects and books and is a regular contributor to a variety of publications, including W Magazine, Fantastic Man, Girls Like Us, and Departures.

Architect and designer, India Mahdavi is based in Paris. Born to Anglo-Persian parents, India Mahdavi spent her childhood between Massachussetts, New York City, Heidelberg, the South of France and Paris. Her style suits her character: polyglot and polychrome. She graduated in architecture (DPLG - Paris), industrial design (Copper Union, NYC), graphic design (School of Visual Arts, NYC) and furniture design (Parson’s NYC), before becoming Christian Liaigre’s artistic director for 7 years. Her studio, created in 1999, is known for the diversity of its international projects which explore the fields of architecture and scenography, interior, furniture and object design.

Murray Moss is Co-founder and Principal of Moss Bureau, a design consultancy providing services to museums, corporations and private collectors, and founder of the internationally renowned design gallery, MOSS. During its eighteen years in Soho, MOSS was called “the best design store in the world”, and he was described as "America's most closely watched purveyor of industrial design.” He conceived and curated over a hundred influential exhibitions, at MOSS in New York and Los Angeles, as well as other venues, including the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, the Museum fur Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt, and the Warhol Foundation in Pittsburgh. The author of several books, including Georg Jensen Reflections, (Rizzoli, 2014) and Baccarat: Two Hundred and Fifty Years (Rizzoli, 2013), Moss is a frequent speaker at museums, universities and other cultural institutions. He has been honored with numerous awards, including the Chrysler Design Award, Russel Wright Award, House Beautiful’s Giants of Design Award, Metropolitan Home’s Modernism Award and election to Interior Design Magazine’s Hall of Fame. He has served on the Boards of the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum and the Design Industries Foundation Fighting Aids (DIFFA), and is on the Graduate Staff of the School of Visual Arts. 

About OTHR

Founded by three designers — Joe Doucet, Dean DiSimone, and Evan Clabots — OTHR is the first company dedicated to creating functional products for the home using 3D printing. OTHR transitions 3D printing from novelty to mainstream by partnering with the world’s leading designers to develop unique, beautiful, and useful products in high-quality materials, produced using transformative technologies and sold on-demand via OTHR’s online platform. Each OTHR product is individually numbered and accompanied by a certificate of authenticity, reflecting the participation of the customer in the process of creation.

About Collective Design

Based in New York City and active in the creative community throughout the year, Collective Design presents engaging conversations and educational programs to foster dialogue, encourage the exchange of ideas, and build a growing audience for collectible design and art. Programming culminates each May in the annual Collective Design fair, which showcases masterworks of the 20th and 21st centuries alongside experimental works from the next generation of global talent. The fair, celebrating its fifth anniversary in 2017, illuminates both the design process and the diversity of our material culture, promoting a spirit of discovery that resonates with new and seasoned collectors alike.

About Skylight Clarkson Sq

Once the southernmost terminal of the High Line, Skylight Clarkson Sq is among the few yet-to-be-explored interiors in the city. Skylight is in the business of pairing premier brands with historic and significant properties, creating inspirational venues in unusual places. Train tracks still run through a portion of the building in West SoHo, but Skylight's facilitation of adaptive reuse has made Clarkson Sq a versatile space in which creators are limited only by their imagination. The scale and scope of this "horizontal skyscraper," which spans three city blocks, give designers the opportunity to create an all-new experience that engages audiences and encapsulates the sensibility of a fair developed by those at the forefront of the field.

About NYCxDESIGN

Since its inception, Collective Design has been an active supporter of and participant in NYCxDESIGN, New York City’s official citywide celebration of design, which will run from May 3-24, 2017. Spanning all disciplines of design, NYCxDESIGN creates a collaborative platform for cultural and commercial opportunities, elevates established and emerging design practices and increases awareness of and appreciation for design by all audiences. Hosted in New York City, NYCxDESIGN brings together all the disciplines of design, commerce, culture, education, and entertainment with a full, varied program, including exhibitions, installations, trade shows, talks, launches and open studios. The program is overseen by NYCEDC together with a Steering Committee comprised of leaders and leading institutions across most design disciplines.