Discover the Top Highlights from this Year’s PAD London

On October 13, the doors of the big white tent in London’s Berkeley Square will open again for the 26th edition of PAD, or the Pavilion of Art and Design. London’s most significant collectible design fair, the exhibits span 125 years, from historic pieces to works straight from the designer’s studio, all on display in the heart of Mayfair. Among them will be Andre Sornay’s stunning 1960s lacquered bookshelves at Parisian gallery Marcelpoil and pieces from early 20th-century masters like Jean Dunand and Carlo Bugatti at Sceners, whose huge Paris premises occupy a former toy factory.

It’s never business-as-usual at PAD’s London edition. There are new galleries to reckon with—Bessa Pereira from Lisbon and Milan, for example, which specialize in Portuguese Modern and contemporary works, as well as historic Brazilian names (see more below). They joined PAD earlier this year when the fair embarked on its first South of France edition in Saint-Tropez at the beginning of July. Other newcomers include the jeweler Nikos Koulis, launching a high jewelry collection that matches tortoiseshell acetate with precious stones.

“We work on our fair program months in advance,” says Robbe Vandereyngaerde, co-founder of Belgian gallery Objects with Narratives, who have just taken on a stunning building in Antwerp—the 1865 City Palace, which once housed a museum—as a permanent new gallery space (it opens officially in December). “At the gallery we can tell our complete story, but to the fair we bring work that is so new we haven’t even had time to photograph the pieces.”  Focusing on two designers, there will be a large table in stone and wood by the Lisbon-based Mircea Anghe—and a chandelier by Antwerp’s Vladimir Slavov in cast bronze.

“We’re not just looking for buyers: we’re looking for conversations, and we’re looking for a new audience,” continues Vandereyngaerde. Sam Pratt, founder of London gallery FUMI agrees that the fair is about more than sales. “We’re showing a new work by Kobina Adusah, an artist from Ghana, who usually works in terracotta, making tall vessels with a marked surface,” says Pratt. “For PAD, we have an exceptional piece that Kobina made with the master bronze casters in Benin. We know about the restitution issues around the historic Benin bronzes. But it’s also important to talk about how today’s bronze casters can sustain their skills and traditions.”

While FUMI and other galleries, including Charles Burnand and Scandinavian specialist Modernity, have spaces in the city, the jeweler Silvia Furmanovich is launching an exceptional collection with British luxury house Asprey, while Vikram Goyal has taken over the top floor of a townhouse to recreate a sumptuous Indian interior. Not in the tent, then, but both very nearby for those who like to spend their days in Mayfair. Details below…

Highlights from PAD and Around Town

Bessa Pereira

The brightly colored 1950s Reversível Armchair by Carl Hauner and Martin Eisler is bound to attract visitors to the stand of Portuguese and Brazilian specialists Bessa Pereira. With its sensuous curving seat and oval pillow back, it’s a perfect example of how Brazil made modernism sexy and fun. Other exhibits will include prime Brazilian pieces, including Sergio Rodrigues Molecar sofa (Mischievous in English); and paintings by Paolo Louro, who represented Portugal at the Venice Biennale in 2015.

Charles Burnand

“It’s all about scale,” says Charles Burnand, founder Simon Stewart, of the new works that will be on his gallery’s stand at PAD. A glazed stoneware ceramic artwork by New York’s Peter Lane will take up the entire back wall of the space, while Niamh Barry—an Irish sculptor who works primarily in bronze—has increased the dimensions of her practice for the first time. The Korean Kyeok Kim is showing an illuminated sculpture in knitted copper wire that measures 11×10 feet. “It is impossible to show monumental works in photography,” says Stewart. “We now make videos of every piece, so clients can ‘walk round’ the work, but there’s nothing like confronting a large artwork in real life.”

Nikos Koulis

The Greek jeweler has branched out into furniture pieces for his series called moNO, which he presented at TEFAF this year. He will show these alongside his newest high jewelry collection, 77, which is created around the plant-based material, tortoiseshell acetate. This was launched at PAD Paris in April, but here it sees its first London presentation. Koulis has matched the acetate with yellow, white, and gold diamonds to evoke the spirit of 1970s disco, channeling the glamour of Yves Saint Laurent and Studio 54 for sculptural necklaces, hoops, and band rings.

Gallery FUMI

To highlight the solo presentation at its nearby permanent gallery, FUMI is showing Lukas Wegwerth and Corinna Dehn’s Armadillo Cabinet, a slender, towering piece that demonstrates the designers’ extraordinary layering of fine wooden shingles, as well as their surreal imagination. “It is a showstopper,” admits Sam Pratt. Equally arresting will be a reworking by London-based Rowan Mersh of an award-winning wall sculpture that received the PAD prize in 2016. Called Dreamcatcher, the original comprised thousands of Turritella shells. Mersh has now cast each tiny piece in bronze for Dreamcatcher V2.0.

Silvia Furmanovich at Asprey

“Seeking out exceptional artisans, respecting traditional techniques and allowing natural materials to tell their own stories,” is how the Brazilian jeweler defines her practice. At Asprey’s London flagship store, ten minutes walk from the tent, she is presenting new work around the house’s exceptional collection of brilliantly colored Jadeite in rare colors, including lavender, white, and orange. Furmanovich contrasts the material with hand-crafted Japanese bamboo, woven horsehair, Amazonian hardwoods, and Shibayama inlay, and, inspired by flora and fauna, stays true to her investigation of cultural practice played out through jewelry making.  

Vikram Goyal

At his spacious atelier in Delhi, Vikram Goyal strives to maintain and even reintroduce the fine craftsmanship that has marked India’s long decorative arts history. During PAD, he is creating a fantasy Indian interior inside a Georgian building in Mayfair, on the floors above the Spruth Magers gallery. For furniture, tableware, carpets, and decorative arts, designs draw from a web of references— from Silk Road textiles to Indian miniature painting to French Art Deco—while inspiration comes from the characters, animals, deities, and locations in the epic poem, the Ramayana.