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Small Design Shows Just Keep Getting Better – Our Highlights From Lisbon Design Week Are Proof
Our inboxes are often symptomatic of the insanity of the design world’s calendar year after year – first we’re buried in emails about Milan from February, then comes the deluge from New York Design Week, and then, just when we think we might be participating, the Copenhagen blitz begins. As our friends in the art world know all too well, the growth of exhibitions and festivals in recent years is as much a blessing as it is a soul-wrenching curse; you can go around the globe now trying to see it all by resting your head on your pillow. But one thing we can say about the fair region is that in the 20 years we have been doing this, the content is actually getting better – it used to be that small cities organize events that seem reasonable and maybe unusual, without the power of real creation, but then people like Stockholm, Melbourne, and Copenhagen have raised the bar, and now we have a week of doubts only to be pleasantly surprised by what we found.
Lisbon Design Week, which follows closely behind the ARCOlisboa art fair, is now in its fourth year, and like many of our favorite events, it doesn’t revolve around the fairgrounds but around individual venues across the city – more than 80 of them, to be precise. Although founded by a Belgian curator, funnily enough, named Michèle Fajtmann, LDW specifically aims to highlight not only Portuguese design but the country’s strong history of craftsmanship, which is part of what makes it so compelling. Remember all those shows in the early 2000s where you would travel to some exotic location just to have fun, like an invitation to Marcel Wanders? This is not one of them; the talents included in today’s best compilations are entirely local. Check out our top picks for Lisbon Design Week below, making a case for next year’s Lisbon-Copenhagen circuit, perhaps.
Narciso collection by Alan Louis
Alan Louis is French, and based mainly in Paris, but his workshops are in the Portuguese countryside of Ribatejo, north of Lisbon. His new Narciso collection, shown above – presented at the same venue for Lisbon Design Week and at Lisbon By Design, a completely different but at the same time small exhibition that showcased the work of more than 50 artists focused on art – was a total knockout, with monochromatic ceramic mirrors, lamps, tables, and wall panels decorated in various colors and a spired landscape. with the construction of ancient houses. The sleeper hit, however, was the series’ matching Espírito chair and sofa, matching muted gold upholstery with a “burlwood” frame made entirely of ceramic, glazed to match knot patterns. These two presentations cemented Louis as one to watch.Photos: Fanny Leselbaum and Claudia Rocha
O Longo Adeus with the Great Plan
Main Edition is the furniture and ceramics practice of designer Victoire de Lencquesaing, based between Paris and Lisbon; During Lisbon Design Week, she commissioned her own house and exhibited at O Longo Adeus, showcasing her designs, pieces by her artist and designer friends (such as Claire Duport, who created the pink mesh outdoor sculpture shown above), and antique Portuguese furniture collected by dealer João Cabaço of Stood Design. Personal favorites were the two Starck-esque maroon club chairs shown above, which were actually the last two from a warehouse salvaged from a closed Portuguese nightclub. Chic.Photos: Ariel da Mata
The new collection of Maison Intègre
Inside the smallest showroom was the most exciting – new and decorative wall textiles by Maison Intègre, furniture from Lisbon and the lighting studio founded by Ambre Jarno that makes all its objects in its copper casting facility in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Jarno set up shop in the West African country in 2017 after spending two years living there and loving his craft, and has since produced designs for designers such as Marian Mailaender, Pia Chevalier, and Brendan Ravenhill. The new programs presented during Lisbon Design Week were designed by Rachel Marsil, whose “Scenes from Day-to-Day Life” (small pictures on the wall above left) I’d just pop out of my suitcase if I had the budget!Photos: Matilde Travassos and Timothee Chambovet
Wovenware by Lia Raquel Marques
Lia Raquel Marques had work in two large group exhibitions – one of them a Portuguese handicraft exhibition held at the Arquivo Aires Mateus, the other a group of designers who claim to be from the former Portuguese colonies – but I was hooked right away. They are part of his Wovenware series, which “rethinks basket weaving techniques by combining the material traditions of the past and modern ‘plastic-ware'” – this time, made of ceramic – “talking about African woven fabrics, basketry and colorful plastic items found in street markets.” Marques was born and raised in Angola, studied at RCA in London, and is now based in Lisbon.Photos: Ariel da Mata and Ujo Shop
Integrity of Form by Luso Collective
Another Lisbon design group, Luso, won the exhibition space lottery, so to speak, when it came to exhibit inside the magnificent Baroque and Neoclassical 18th-century church called Basílica da Estrela. Thirteen different designers showcased furniture pieces, highlights including a Rorschach tree-bark cabinet by Dublo Studio, a brutal yet cheerful metal console by Andre Teoman, and a chic, ribbed bench by Thayra Correia. In general I am also glad that the collective design culture is still thriving, especially in small towns where a bigger voice can increase the impact.Photos: Irina Boers Mamachado
Continuous Living
Partners in life and work, the two designers behind the ceramic and wooden furniture studio Further Ther – Natasza Grzeskiewicz and Tomás Fernandes – turned their entire home into a showroom for Lisbon Design Week. It was partly a practical way to show their new and old pieces together in a controlled space, like a new sofa with a low-slung metal base and a large commemorative yellow ceramic coffee table, but also partly a way to show their more holistic view in an effort to hack potential interior design projects. One highlight not shown here was the custom wood and stone kitchen that you can see a peek of in this Instagram post; Maybe I could add rugs, but the idea was really strong!Photos: Irina Boers Mamachado
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A scene from Lisbon By Design, with a chair from Bernardo Barros, an embroidery from Seda e Companhia, and a wall lamp from ADU Studios.
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Daniela Franceschini of our favorite Lisbon interior design firm, Quiet Studios, invited the public into her offices, where she styled both her designer furniture (tables shown here) and collections from her partner’s stash — she’s the classic retailer and designer behind Barracuda Interiors.
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Martinho Pita Studio showed a very nice mixed glass table and Lisbon By Design benches, but there were no good pictures of the whole thing; here are the details of the bench.
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Ditto this collection at Lisbon By Design, by furniture designer Kylie Marie and artist Amelia Dennigan, who combine not only wooden furniture, an upholstered bed that is hard to see here, and a wonderful fabric lamp with beautiful metal stars on top (not pictured), but also Dennigan’s paintings.
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Victoire de Lencquesaing of Main Edition, mentioned above, also released his new Poing Poing lamps during the show – available as pegs, table lamps, and large wall lamps, using hand-shaped metal anchors wrapped around thrown glass beads made by local glass artist María Renée Morales Lam.
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Ceramic artist Maude Téphany showed a series of table lamps for Lisbon By Design that look like they were made from 80s bedspreads but are, in fact, glazed and textured clay.
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Another ceramic artist, Jeremy Bellina, put on a terrific show of vessels and tables inside the textile artist’s Flores Studio showroom, and although we didn’t get photos of the full show, this ceramic table – with a glass top and by María Renée Morales Lam – was our favorite of his pieces.
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More glass cases, in this case large vases by Emmanuel Babled, who has installed an extensive exhibition of his work inside the showroom of the tapestry maker Manufactura de Tapeçarias de Portalegre, and is preparing a selection of their wall hangings from the mid-20th century to the present for display.
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Olivia Cognet has taken over Jacques Couelle’s 1964 Dragon Hill Residence in France for “Inhabiting the Landscape House,” which will be on view in November.
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Ceramic artist and designer Olivia Cognet, who is based in the South of France, has two big shows this summer: one exhibition at the Brussels gallery of Objects With Narratives, where she reinterpreted the city’s famous Manneken Pis fountain in black abstract ceramic, and another on a 1964 sculpture called White Dragon called Hilluellecques in her white house called Hilluellecques creation. Located outside of Cannes, this house has hosted artist residencies for the past few years, and Cognet created all the pieces for the exhibition there, to match the site exactly. It is available by appointment until November, while the OWN show closes on September 6.
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If you’re in New York this summer and looking for an excuse to get out of the city, the Nomad design fair that takes place in places like St. Moritz and Abu Dhabi comes, for the first time, to the Hamptons June 25-28, where it will take over the Watermill Center. Object & Thing will have a special presentation there, along with the usual program of galleries such as The Future Perfect and Gallery Fumi, and tickets are free. The grounds are pretty good, too, if you’ve never been.
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An amazing group of artists and designers at this benefit auction hosted by Artsy and the ACLU, to benefit the legal defense of immigrants. There’s a benefit event happening next Thursday in Tribeca in New York, but you can also make a donation, or bid on the auction starting June 9. Here’s the full list of participants, including Shane Gabier, Maia Ruth Lee, Colleen Herman, and more. It looks like the Arsty auction page isn’t up yet, but you can watch this page for more, or follow the project’s IG account.