8 Collectible Design Shows to See in August
From Sabine Marcelis’s luminous mirrors inspired by Alpine fog to Vince Skelly’s towering redwood totems born from sketches of chess pieces
August may bring a lull to much of the design calendar, but galleries are venturing far beyond their usual walls. This month, collectible design is appearing in delightfully unexpected settings, from an Alpine cottage in Switzerland’s Engadin and historic Belgian villas to a resplendent vineyard in Oregon. Sabine Marcelis is debuting luminous mirrors inspired by mountain fog, Nilufar brings its cinematic vision to New York, and Objects With Narratives will inhabit a landmark residence by Henry van de Velde. Here are the collectible design exhibitions we recommend seeking out this month.
1. “Nilufar Grand Hotel Vista Mare” at Galerie56 | New York
During this year’s Milan Design Week, gallerist Nina Yashar transformed her soaring collectible furniture emporium into a dreamlike grand hotel untethered from time or place, with each room offering a distinct meditation on hospitality through works inspired by Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita. That curatorial vision now arrives in New York with a fresh cinematic reference, this time drawing from Luchino Visconti’s Death in Venice. Galerie56 founder Lee Mindel developed the palette from the film’s luminous stills, borrowing the ivory of the Lido’s changing cabins, sun-washed sand, pale sea blues, and the golden haze of an Italian summer. Those evocative hues frame an exceptional selection of 20th-century Italian masterworks, including Carlo Bugatti’s extraordinary furniture that recalls Venetian balconies and facades, Gio Ponti’s rare Altamira bookcase that marks a graceful threshold, and Carlo Mollino’s dazzling extendable dining table, whose elongated silhouette evokes a pier reaching into the lagoon.
Until October 16
2. “Vince Skelly: Sentinel” presented by Marta at Antica Terra | Willamette Valley, Oregon
Last year, the collectible design gallery Marta brought Lily Clark’s stone and ceramic sculptures to Antica Terra’s resplendent Oregon vineyard. It has now returned with Pacific Northwest woodworker Vince Skelly, whose monumental redwood sculptures seem wholly at home among the moss-covered oaks and sun-dappled clearings of the Willamette Valley. Installed within a section of the winery’s 88-acre woodland, the works began as sketches for chess pieces but rise to human scale through stacked geometric volumes that appear delicately balanced despite each sculpture emerging from a single block of redwood. Skelly preserves every quirk of the timber, from fissures and pronounced grain to growth rings and chainsaw marks, allowing the wood’s natural character to remain fully visible alongside the evidence of his hand.
Until August 31
3. “Godspeed” presented by Uppercut at Château de Spycker | Bruges, Belgium
Since founding Antwerp gallery Uppercut in 2023, Scott Lippens has championed emerging voices from across Europe whose work pushes collectible furniture into unexpected territory. That mission comes into vivid focus in the gallery’s annual summer exhibition, which fills the stately rooms of Château de Spycker, an elegant 19th-century estate just east of Bruges. Amid marble fireplaces, gilded moldings, and richly paneled salons, Linde Freya Tangelder of Destroyers/Builders’s aluminum seating draped with olive-green lacquered cotton and sculptural tulipwood daybeds share space with Alexander Kirkeby’s shimmering crystal vessels. Nicolas Zanoni offers a striking foil through hulking chairs and tables fashioned from melted polystyrene industrial waste, their dark, craggy surfaces suggesting objects unearthed from deep below the earth.
Until August 31
4. “Sabine Marcelis: Maloja Fog” at Etage Projects | Maloja, Switzerland
At the heart of the Engadin, the high Alpine valley in Switzerland celebrated for its crystalline lakes and broad glacial meadows, a low cloud sometimes forms at the pass and slips down toward the lakes in a single unbroken ribbon. Locals call it the Maloja Snake, a phenomenon that has captivated painters and filmmakers for generations; Giovanni Segantini famously settled here in pursuit of the singular mountain light. It’s also where Copenhagen gallery Etage Projects has opened its second outpost, inaugurating the space with a new body of work by Sabine Marcelis, the Dutch designer who credits the mountains with informing her sense of color. A monumental mirror stretches more than ten feet across, its reflection slowly dissolving into mist like the Maloja Snake descending the valley. Elsewhere, blush tones bloom at the center of smaller glass mirrors before fading toward the edges. A resin table, meanwhile, retains the velvety matte surface that first distinguished the series.
Until September 12
5. “Antiqua: By the Sea” at Maison Bardot | Antiparos, Greece
This summer, Athens dealer Antiqua has brought its exceptional collection of historical furniture, lighting, and ceramics to Maison Bardot, the upstart gallery that has become one of Antiparos’s most compelling cultural destinations. The presentation settles naturally into the building’s distinctly Cycladic interiors, whose limewashed walls, pigmented terracotta floors, rounded plaster volumes, and filtered daylight offer a welcome alternative to the conventional white cube. Thanks to a collaboration with Massimo De Carlo, new ceramic sculptures by Brian Rochefort have also joined the mix. Characterized by volcanic surfaces, richly layered glazes, and rugged organic silhouettes, they create a striking quality with Antiqua’s museum-caliber selection of 20th-century masterworks, each illuminating the other’s rich material character.
Through August
6. “Modulo” at StudioTwentySeven | New York
One of the standout presentations at Milan Design Week now arrives at StudioTwentySeven’s Tribeca gallery after debuting at The Pool in the historic 5Vie district. Created by Stefania Digregorio, Mirko Sala Tenna, and Enrico Serventi, the Modulo collection reimagines the bold geometry of 1970s Italian furniture through monumental assemblies of fused glass blocks paired with mirrored steel. Four pieces comprise the New York presentation: the Fumoir coffee table, a side table, a console, and the floor lamp in its tallest height, each customizable in finish and dimension. Rather than treating glass as a decorative surface, the designers employ it as a structural material, allowing light to filter through the stacked cubes as reflections shift across the mirrored steel. Handcrafted in Italy, every piece is issued in a limited edition of ten.
Until August 28
7. “Objects With Narratives: Summer Group Show” at Villa Westhinder | Knokke, Belgium
After opening a permanent gallery in an 18th-century Bruges mansion this year, Brussels dealer Objects With Narratives is continuing its run of staging collectible furniture in remarkable settings. This summer, for one week only, it is taking over Villa Westhinder, Belgian architect Henry Van de Velde’s landmark 1931 seaside residence in Knokke, whose sweeping horizontal lines, flat room, and Bauhaus-inflected architecture provide a compelling backdrop for contemporary works. The selection acknowledges the home’s modernist character while introducing pieces that draw from multiple eras. Karl Monies contributes mushroom-like brass luminaires that occupy the kitchen while Laurids Gallée’s slender resin lamp rises beside the sculptural staircase. Elsewhere, works by Manuel Baño, Elissa Lacoste, and Ben Storms seem to inhabit the villa with exceptional ease.
August 8–16
8. “Morten Løbner Espersen & The Hunchback Society” presented by Daguet-Bresson at Domaine Fondugues Pradugues | Ramatuelle, France
Each summer, Galerie Daguet-Bresson leaves Paris for Domaine Fondugues-Pradugues, a biodynamic wine estate in the hills of Ramatuelle, transforming its winery, vineyards, and umbrella pines into an open-air showcase for contemporary ceramics. This year’s presentation pairs two distinctly different voices: Danish ceramist and Loewe Craft Prize finalist Morten Løbner Espersen contributes vessels whose richly encrusted glazes evoke volcanic landscapes, their cratered surfaces built through years of experimentation with enamel. In playful contrast, Lisbon duo The Hunchback Society populates the estate with fanciful creatures and domestic objects inspired by the local flora and fauna, from owls and ducks to music boxes, each rendered with an irreverent charm that draws equally from decorative arts and folklore.
Until September 12