Galerie Kreo at Design Miami/ Paris 2024.
Photo: Ivan Erofeev
See Highlights from Design Miami/ Paris 2024
The second edition of the coveted fair opened to much fanfare—with a who's who of creatives and celebrities dropping in on opening day
In Europe, it’s been one long fortnight of art and design that started in London on October 7, then reprised in Paris a week later. The French capital seems to have been the preferred stop for U.S. visitors. “All I’ve heard are American accents,” says Pierre-Marie Giraud, the Belgian ceramics specialist, on the opening day of Design Miami/ Paris, where he has a stand. Among them was actor Nathalie Portman, who cruised the stunning rooms of the Hotel de Maisons alongside some younger Arnaults and designers India Madhavi, Lord Foster, Raf Simons, and Samuel Ross.
Sales have been brisk at the second edition of Design Miami/ Paris–the fair that first launched in Miami in 2005. It takes places in the large private mansion which was once home to Karl Lagerfeld. (He was frequently photographed in its exquisitely appointed, wood-panelled rooms.) A demountable Jean Prouvéhouse–an icon of mid-century French industrial design from 1946–sold on day one for over one million euros at Francois Laffanour’s gallery, Downtown. A suite of two armchairs and a sofa designed by Charles Dupre Lafon around 1927, and shown by Maxime Flatry, will shortly be on its way to the U.S. “I’m happy about that,” says Flatry, 31. With its generous, easy feel, we think it was created for an American customer in the first place.”
Here are more highlights that made a splash:
Flou Table by Ronan Bouroullec at Galerie Kreo at Design Miami/ Paris 2024. Photo: Ivan Erofeev
1. Galerie Kreo: Flou table by Ronan Bourroullec
For their return to this fair, the prime Parisian contemporary gallery Kreo took full advantage of the natural light that streams through the house. They placed Ronan Bourroullec’s new Flou coffee table centre stage–its green glass top looking more like water as the sun fell upon its wavy surface. Flou means vague or blurry in English, but here flowing works better. The dimpling effect is matched in the table’s silvery-colored hammered steel base.
Hostler Burrows at Design Miami/ Paris 2024. Photo: Ivan Erofeev
2. Hostler Burrows: Jasmin Anoschkin
The American specialists in Scandinavian ceramics—with galleries in New York and Los Angeles—filled their first floor room with large-scale works including glossily glazed animals by Jasmin Anoschkin. “It has a cartoonish, fantastical quality,” said Juliet Burrows of the hybrid creatures stalking across the floor. “It’s the world of the childhood imagination.” The Finnish artist uses glaze in a liberal layered way, to complete these wide-eyed quadrupeds.
Galerie Gastou and Galerie Desprez-Bréhéret at Design Miami/ Paris 2024. Photo: Eduouard Auffray
Galerie Gastou and Galerie Desprez-Bréhéret at Design Miami/ Paris. Photo: Eduouard Auffray
3. Galerie Gastou: Jean Touret
The second generation gallerist, Victor Gastou, presented a formidable showing of the work of the Atelier de Morolles – robust wooden furniture, with a rustic style but a highly considered finish. Wooden surfaces are hand-worked with a gouge for a rippled appearance that plays with the light. This guild of craftsmen was set up by the self-taught designer Jean Touret in 1950 in Morolles, a small village in the Loire and the work was produced piece by piece by traditional methods. It is now highly collectible.
Galerie Mini Masterpiece at Design Miami/ Paris 2024. Photo: Ivan Erofeev
4. Mini Masterpiece: Philip King and Joana Vasconcelos
Esther de Beaucé works closely with contemporary artists at her gallery Mini Masterpiece to create wearable works of art. The rings on show by the British sculptor Philip King, who died in July 2021, are the very last works he made. He designed the clustered cubes in his hospital bed and insisted on posting the maquettes to De Beaucé. Now, in gleaming gold and with the deep colours achievable with nano-ceramic, they are the last testament of a great twentieth century talent.
Pod of Drawers by Marc Newson at Carpenters Workshop Gallery at Design Miami/ Paris 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Design Miami Paris
5. Carpenters Workshop Gallery: Marc Newson
What an absolute joy to see Marc Newson’s 1999 Pod of Drawers at Carpenters Workshop Gallery. Made with the same construction process as the Australian designer’s most famous piece, the Lockheed Lounge, it is a curvy cabinet finished in sheets of aluminum riveted to a wood and fiberglass body. Reminiscent of Man Ray’s photographic homage to Ingres of a woman’s back, if sold it will be for something near to $2 million.
Cover: Galerie Kreo at Design Miami/ Paris 2024.
Photo: Ivan Erofeev
