The Wallpaper* guide to New York Design Week 2024: from ICFF to the independent shows and launches to catch in town, from 16-23 May
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Crepe sconce by Little Wing Lee for RBW, on view at the lighting manufacturer's SoHo space during New York Design Week 2024
(Image credit: RBW and Little Wing Lee)
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By Dan Howarth published 9 May 2024
Hot on the heels of Milan’s Salone del Mobile comes New York Design Week 2024, which takes over the city under the formal umbrella of NYCxDesign. This year’s celebration includes myriad presentations of new work from local and international designers and brands alike across Manhattan and Brooklyn, as well as talks, panels, tours, and parties. There’ll be so much to see and do over the course of the festival, which officially runs from 16-23 May, so we’ve compiled our highlights of the fairs, exhibitions, showroom presentations, and pop-ups to check out if you’re in the Big Apple this month.
Anchoring New York City’s annual design celebration, the International Contemporary Furniture Fair, ICFF 2024, and the Wanted platform for emerging talent combine again under the huge roof of the Javits Center, together presenting a curated selection of brands exhibiting the world’s most creative and design-driven furniture, lighting, kitchen and bath products, textiles, flooring. ICFF’s 35th edition will also feature a talks program spread over the course of the three-day fair, while Odile Hainaut and Claire Pijoulat, founders of Wanted (formerly Wanted Design), have once again organised programs including the Schools Showcase and Workshop, Launch Pad and Look Book, and a new Bespoke area spotlighting craft.
19-21 May, Javits Center
icff.com
Independent design show Jonalddudd is taking over the former high-end sex shop, Contact Sports, to present a collection of 'outlandish pieces that capture the most complete picture of dialogues happening in and around the field of design.'
Co-founder Chris Held, of furniture company Nice Condo, has teamed up with guest curator Charles Constantine of Bestcase to select a varied group of designers and artists following an open call. Thirty pieces were chosen, including works by Alexis and Ginger, Estelle Bourdet, Astraeus Clarke, Sophie Colle, Susan for Susan, and more.
18-20 May, 2024, 43 Mercer Street
jonalddudd.com
Mixed-media artist Malkia Williams will make her New York City debut with Traces, an exhibition at design showroom Materia. This will be the inaugural show in the gallery’s Materi(a)rt Series, which aims to potentiate the work of an evolving roster of as-yet unrepresented artists and craftspeople. Malkia Williams: Traces comprises over 20 sculptures rendered in cast ceramic, sewn and formed leather, needle-felted wool, brass, sterling, and pewter—some of which are interactive pieces meant to be worn on the body.
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15 May 15 - 14 June 14, 305 Canal Street, PH 5
materiadesigns.com
Female-led studio Egg Collective is returning with the fourth iteration of its Designing Women show, the first of which took place in 2017. This time around, the team has imagined the completion of Eileen Gray's unbuilt House for Two Sculptors—one of many of the modernist architect’s projects that never made it off the drawing board. Egg Collective’s three co-founders—Stephanie Beamer, Crystal Ellis and Hillary Petrie—are each trained architects, and have chosen to spotlight Gray as an example of how architecture was and still remains a male-dominated industry. The reimagined House will be displayed alongside work on display from two contemporary sculptors, Taylor Kibby and Molly Haynes, and Egg Collective will also release and show a new piece of work, the Eileen Mirror, to coincide with the presentation.
May 15 - June 15, 2024, 151 Hudson Street
eggcollective-designingwomen.com
Lighting designs by Rosie Li
Tribeca gallery Salon Design is hosting Color Theory, an exhibition that includes new collections from Brooklyn-based lighting designer Rosie Li and Dutch textile designer Sina Dyks, plus other designers and artists exploring colour in their practices. The exhibition’s theme was influenced by Li’s new collection of limited-edition light sculptures, Chroma, and Color Theory pairs these works with five new, editioned tapestries by Dyks that offer a nuanced backdrop of colour and texture. US gallery debuts for both Dutch solar designer Marjan van Aubel and Malmö-based designer Kajsa Willner, along with a site-specific glass-based installation by Christina Watka and original paintings from Dominick Leuci and Darryl Westly, will also feature.
May 10 - June 21, 2024, 27 Vestry Street, Ground Floor
salondesign.us
Sight Unseen team up with Nordic rugmaker Heymat on the Iconic Women Collection, a series of three indoor mats with abstract compositions created by Sight Unseen's founders Jill Singer and Monica Khemsurov. The collection will include shapes inspired by their favourite female designers of the past, and will debut at—and be available for purchase through—Lower East Side design boutique Coming Soon.
May 19, 2024, 53 Canal Street
sightunseen.com
heymat.dk
Inside the Invisible Collection’s impressive Upper East Side townhouse, Paris-based architect and designer Thierry Lemaire will present his signature furniture pieces for the first time in the US. The scale of Lemaire’s sculptural, oversized designs—which are often influenced by 1970s shapes and materials like oak, marble, and bronze—fits right at home in the impressive townhouse setting. His 17 pieces ranging from seating to lighting and tables will make up a series of vignettes across the gallery’s two floors and over 1,700 square feet of space.
May 15 - November, 2024, 24 East 64th Street
theinvisiblecollection.com
Dumais Made founder Charlie Dumais is presenting the results of his commitment to craft a pair of lamps every day for a whole month, in a show aptly titled 31 Days. The collection of 62 works includes a wide variety of forms, with influences from mid-century design to Brutalist architecture, and reveals both successes and challenges that Dumais encountered during his attempt to reconnect with daily making and explore his artistic process.
May 15-17, 2024, 195 Christie Street
dumaismade.com
This queer designer-led exhibition of 17 architects, artists and designers will take place in Bushwick, and emphasise the importance of queer creative spaces on how they inform LGBTQIA+ art and design. Design Dysphoria is co-curated by designers and founders of Studio S II, Erica Sellers, and Jeremy Silberberg—whose work incorporates elements of kink, queerness, astronomy, and science fiction—along with textile artist Liz Collins; and interdisciplinary glass and performance artist, Grace Whiteside.
May 18-25, 2014, 53 Scott Avenue, 401
studiosii.com
Brooklyn design shop Assembly Line will present a group exhibition, titled Time & Materials, showcasing furniture, lighting and objects that foreground materiality and process. Curated by Assembly Line founders Colin Stief and Sarah Zames, also of New York-based design studio General Assembly, the installation of new one-off and limited-edition pieces by a diverse group of independent makers and brands will take over the storefront. The title refers to the term used in client-contractor agreements to provide transparency on construction costs and offers creative freedom, a theme explored in the experimental objects by 10 designers that will be on show.
May 15 - June 23, 2024, 373 Atlantic Avenue
assemblyline.co
New York-based lighting manufacturer RBW has partnered with Brooklyn-based interior, architectural, and environmental designer Little Wing Lee, founder of Studios & Projects, on a collection of four new lighting fixtures. As the brand's inaugural partnership with a black female designer, the collaboration marks a significant milestone for RBW, which worked closely with Lee to combine an array of sources, including materials sourced from her Brooklyn studio, and innovative fabrication techniques at RBW's factory in Kingston.
Ongoing, 50 Greene Street, Floor 2
rbw.com
studioandprojects.co
Hosted by Swedish rug company Kasthall, designer David Week will present a 13-foot, sculptural pendant light, Scopo, which he developed during his prestigious six-month fellowship at the American Academy in Rome. Composed of thin brass sheets and housing 14 individual light sources, the new mobile chandelier cascades utilises a combination of descending, interlocking hooks to create a spine-like curvature. Other details include a custom plum bob with a built-in level filled with 35-year-old whiskey.
May 17-23, 2024, 29 Howard Street
davidweeksstudio.com
kasthall.com
British designer Lee Broom will install his new Alchemist Collection of lighting, which centres on the balance and interconnection of sculptural metal forms containing light, at his Tribeca penthouse showroom. This collection marks the first occasion that Broom will debut designs in the US, and includes four unique lighting ranges—Mythos, King, Solstice and Gemini—spanning pendants, chandeliers and wall sconces that all focus on traditional brass welding combined with glass, acrylic and leather.
By appointment only
leebroom.com
Oil-pastel landscape drawings that designer Jean Pelle has based on her father’s old photographs and childhood memories of growing up in South Korea have been turned into scenic wallcoverings by Calico Wallpaper. Pelle is the co-founder and creative director of the New York-based lighting and furniture design studio of the same name, and the new Memoir collection’s rich textures and pastoral imagery represent her upbringing before emigrating to the US in 1982. The designs are available in six colourways, and will be on show at Calico Wallpaper’s Tribeca showroom.
May 16-24, 2024, 57 Lispenard Street
calicowallpaper.com
pelledesigns.com
Danish furniture brand Carl Hansen & Søn is encouraging visitors to its showroom to explore the Wonders of Wood in its collection of heritage and contemporary furniture. Renowned designs and new pieces that will be on show include the Children’s Wishbone Chair from Hans J. Wegner, Sideways Chair and Table from Rikke Frost, Chrome Vega Chair from Vilhelm Lauritzen, Table Bench from Børge Mogensen, and the Embrace Outdoor Series from EOOS.
May 13-24, 2024, 251 Park Avenue South, 13th Floor
carlhansen.com
French silk weaver Prelle and Julien Sebban from Parisian design collective Uchronia have joined forces to collaborate on a new textile collection, which sees the former’s 18th-century heritage imbued with the latter’s vibrant pop art universe—weaving together tradition and modernity. The collection initially debuted in Paris in January 2024, but New York Design Week offers the opportunity for the US market to experience it first-hand. The Prelle showroom will also exhibit new furniture pieces upholstered by Pierre Atelier: a custom upholstery and wall covering atelier based in Brooklyn.
16 May, 43 East 10th Street
prelle.fr
uchronia.fr
Dan Howarth is a British design and lifestyle writer, editor, and consultant based in New York City. He works as an editorial, branding, and communications advisor for creative companies, with past and current clients including Kelly Wearstler, Condé Nast, and BMW Group, and he regularly writes for titles including Architectural Digest, Interior Design, Sight Unseen, and Dezeen, where he previously oversaw the online magazine’s U.S. operations. Dan has contributed to design books The House of Glam (Gestalten, 2019), Carpenters Workshop Gallery (Rizzoli, 2018), and Magdalena Keck: Pied-À-Terre (Glitterati, 2017). His writing has also featured in publications such as Departures, Farfetch, FastCompany, The Independent, and Cultured, and he curated a digital exhibition for Google Cultural Institute in 2017.
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