8 Collectible Design Shows to See in February

February usually settles into a slower, more deliberate pace after the urgency of January peters out, which creates ideal conditions for extended gallery visits (even if the snow piles lining the streets of New York suggest otherwise). Valentine’s Day also prompts musings on love beyond romance, such as devotion to craft and fondness for the objects with which we surround ourselves. Galleries, in turn, are responding with shows sure to quash seasonal slumps and rekindle the flames for stellar design. From the confection-like ceramics of Tamara Van San to Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery’s infectious enthusiasm for the bright-eyed creative explorations that unfolded within our childhood bedrooms, these eight shows deserve a prime placement on any design enthusiast’s itinerary in February.

1. “Tamara Van San: Hope Spots” at Daguet-Bresson | Paris

Tamara Van San’s candy-colored vessels practically carve out a fantasy of their own—their rough-hewn surfaces evoke coral colonies and petrified fossils alike. The Antwerp-based ceramist improvisationally fashions each work through successive layers of enamel, creating dense skins lush with ribbons, bubbles, and saturated hues verging on the edible. Each sculpture rises like a confectionary formation that spontaneously hovers with a sense of otherworldly intrigue. Her practice draws on material experimentation and a profound interest in nature’s most elemental processes, translated here into one-of-a-kind objects imbued with pure joy and saccharine enthusiasm.

Until February 28

2. “Luam Melake: Resemblance of Things Past” at R & Company | New York

Luam Melake is addressing cultural stagnation fueled by concentrated capital and tech-driven convenience through ten deeply layered works organized into four vignettes. Each grouping draws on clever historical references as practical tools for social connection and spatial flexibility. Modular seating in rubber-coated foam, finished with painted florals, subverts inherited ideas around femininity through resilient materials. Another vignette rethinks the La-Z-Boy recliner as a reconfigurable system that shifts from an indulgent lounger to paired slipper chairs. The works appear alongside stop-motion films and are arranged to resemble a mass-market showroom, perhaps hinting that the answers to today’s most pressing cultural questions may appear in unexpected places.

Until March 27

3. “Edges by Uppercut” at Rodolphe Janssen | Brussels

European designers Bram Vanderbeke and Wendy Andreu both share a profound commitment to material exploration, though their methods of making differ considerably. Vanderbeke prefers working architecturally, casting such sturdy materials as concrete and aluminum into stacked, raw structures that assert durability and mass. Andreu approaches textiles with the same rigor by producing foamy armchairs and ottomans. Groups of each are paired together and presented alongside newly realized collaborative pieces that bring these approaches into a conversation made all the more memorable by the gallery’s handsome sky-blue scenography.

Until February 28

4. “The Turning Point” at Nilaya Anthology | Mumbai

Pinakin Patel’s five-decade practice comes into sharp focus through a sweeping retrospective across furniture, art, archival material, and film. Rather than follow a linear timeline, the exhibition charts an illustrious career defined by constant reinvention and an insatiable curiosity for how materials behave. Nearly a dozen of the multidisciplinary designer’s most emblematic furnishings anchor the presentation, spanning 1990 to 2025 and including the Jhoola Bed, Brahmaputra Dining Table, and Burl Armchair. Alongside these pieces appear objects from Patel’s personal collection and selected works by his late mentor Prof. Dashrath Patel, who served as the first director of design education at the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad.

Until March 31

5. “Conrad Hicks: Implemente 4” at Objects With Narratives | Brussels

Conrad Hicks treats blacksmithing as a system of knowledge grounded in early toolmaking and tested through contemporary sculpture. His gravity-defying hand-forged works deftly alchemize iron and copper, two metals the Cape Town–born sculptor chose for their opposing physical qualities and symbolic weight. Iron asserts mass and durability, while copper brings sheen and pliancy, with joints left visible through his commitment to hand joining rather than mechanized welding. Each piece’s surface seems to register the maker’s hand, affording the fluid yet rough-hewn works a palpably charged relationship with nature while carrying an animal-like energy. A chaise, meanwhile, approaches weightlessness through sheets of copper beaten so thin that it almost appears to float.

Until March 8

6. “Play!” at Jacqueline Sullivan Gallery | New York

Drawing on the bright-eyed freedom of childhood interiors, this group exhibition considers one’s early private rooms as sites of unbridled curiosity and self-invention. Contemporary works by Joana Avillez, Matt Paweski, Doug McCollough, Libby Rosen, and Elliot Camarra appear alongside archival furnishings selected for their wit and visual play. Avillez revisits face-in-hole motifs tied to fairs and roadside attractions, while Paweski builds modular furniture from cut drawings that lock together as graphic compositions. Trompe l’oeil tables from late-20th-century Spain and Piero Fornasetti’s Capitello Iconico chairs, meanwhile, reinforce the show’s playful panache.

Until March 21

7. “Material Voices” at Wexler Gallery | Philadelphia

The practices of Jennifer Trask, Sofia Karakatsanis, and Erin Sullivan are vastly different, but they unite around a shared investigation of organic matter’s ability to carry history through use and transformation. Wood, bronze, and bone serve as primary materials across their oeuvres, each noted for their capacity to register time and touch. Karakatsanis works directly with grain and movement, bleaching sycamore to a pale finish or scorching ash to reveal the material’s internal architecture. Sullivan casts sculptural furniture in bronze through lost wax techniques that translate natural impressions into tables, stools, and lighting. Trask assembles antlers, vertebrae, teeth, and antique fragments into dense compositions that examine humanity’s inclinations to preserve nature.

Until March 6

8. “Hitoshi Morimoto: Ceramic City” at Guild Gallery | New York

Rooted in the thousand-year tradition of Bizen, or Japan’s unglazed, high-fired stoneware known as yakishime, the second-generation ceramic artist builds meticulous works through long cycles of making and firing that favor time and fate. Pieces often require years to complete and spend a full week in his family’s wood-fired noborigama kiln. Rounded volumes suggest vegetation or eroded stone; they join squared elements recalling fortifications and modern monuments. Nearby, wall-based ceramic tapestries extend this language through shifts in surface depth and color tinged by the marks of ash and flame. Gathered together, the works assemble a citylike terrain underpinned by Morimoto’s acceptance of kiln accidents and material unpredictability.

Until March 24