10 Collectible Design Shows to See in January

January usually arrives with a rare mix of clarity and creeping momentum. The calendar resets, studios reopen, and galleries use the brief pause between fairs to stage thought-provoking exhibitions that reward close looking and unhurried visits. This month’s adventurous lineup spans materials and continents, meandering from a Mallorcan house-gallery illuminated by a Mexican jewelry designer’s first dedicated lighting collection all the way to a restored Togolese palais chockablock with powerful works made by West Africa’s most illustrious creative talents. Read on for the full guide—and plan your January viewing accordingly. 

1. “Emmett Moore: Neon Sun” at Nina Johnson Gallery | Miami 

Arranged to resemble a sculpture garden, the Miami artist’s latest solo outing introduces vivid outdoor works that situate seating, lighting, and vessels into a loose domestic arrangement. Moore dialed into his architectural training to rework industrial remnants and discarded materials to shape aluminum I-beams, grating, tree-trunk casts, and mussel shells into functional furniture finished in saturated neon pink, a hue he describes as “pure and primal—the color of flesh, flowers, and flamingos.” Floating lamps carved from scrap EPS foam echo coral rock formations and Miami’s oolitic limestone bedrock, while a 3D-printed bowl woven from mussel shells and disposable lighters links ancient shell mounds to present-day waste streams.  

Until February 7 

2. “Andile Dyalvane: iNgqweji (Bird’s Nest)” at Southern Guild | Cape Town 

This colorful presentation expands Dyalvane’s practice into a fantastical environment shaped by his commitment to spiritual ecology and ethical responsibility toward the natural world. Developed over five years, the works translate natural formations into biomorphic structures animated by vivid color and tactile surfaces, using earthenware alongside glass and copper. Freestanding and suspended ceramics appear with free-blown glass and hand-forged metal, while select pieces incorporate light and sound through collaborations with composer Dr Nkosenathi Koela as well as master artisans in glass and metal. Named after the monumental nests of social weaver birds, the project began with a pilgrimage to honor the memory of the Zulu Sanusi Credo Mutwa, whose teachings informed Dyalvane’s journey across the arid Karoo and along the Orange River’s reeded banks. 

Until January 29  

3. “Les Nuits Miroirs” at Sceners Gallery | Paris 

Gathering nearly a century of collectible furnishings and objects by such luminaries as Carlo Bugatti, Josef Hoffmann, Koloman Moser, and Jean Dunand, this presentation forges a lived interior shaped by quiet authorship and passionate collecting. The selection places works from diverging periods in close proximity to reveal shared concerns around ornament, structure, surface, and craft. For example, Bugatti’s highly expressive wood-and-parchment chairs contrast the measured rigor of Hoffmann and Dunand’s refined lacquered surfaces.  

Through March 

4. “Nicole Cherubini: Hotel Roma” at Friedman Benda | New York 

Nicole Cherubini’s latest body of work introduces a new level of figurative complexity to her ceramic practice. The sculptures, built by hand in clay and layered with dense color and sculpted detail, draw from baroque excess and surrealist imagery, embedding faces, limbs, and ornamental motifs within large-scale structures. Literary sources play a central role: texts by Leonora Carrington, Mary Shelley, and Elena Ferrante impart a palpable charge. “They use words in the same way I hope to use clay,” Cherubini says. Anchoring the show is a trio of large-scale pieces that revisit the classical Three Graces through ancient philosophical texts, joined by seating and columnar works that respond directly to the gallery’s architecture. 

January 16 – February 21 

5. “Paweł Jasiewicz: Let There Be Light” at Craftica Gallery | Warsaw 

Shaped by a decade of sustained studio inquiry, Paweł Jasiewicz is presenting subtle lamps built from folded cedar veneer alongside carved larch reliefs worked on the lathe. The Hani lamps, first conceived during a 2015 residency in Japan, reference origami through pleated construction and cast a diffuse light. Nearby, wall-based reliefs cut from larch translate water’s surface into dense fields of grain and tool marks. Throughout the show, the Warsaw artist and toy designer stresses softwood through carving and folding, pushing cedar and larch to their structural limits to show how an oft-overlooked material can support refined light and surface. 

Until January 30 

6. “Alana Burns: Criaturas Del Plancton” at Heroldian Art | Mallorca 

Heroldian Art founder Katharina Maria Herold visited jewelry designer Alana Burns’ studio in Mexico City and immediately felt the spark to collaborate on a show together. Her house-gallery in Mallorca now offers up a body of sculptural lighting that marks a clear evolution in Burns’s practice. Known for handmade bijoux and small-scale cutlery fashioned from metal and shells, the designer has scaled up her practice to home objects, producing seven one-of-a-kind lamps forged in Tumbaga alloys and adorned with carefully selected shells. Each piece pairs hammered metal shades with details such as abalone pull cords and coral-like finials. More pieces are slated to debut throughout 2026. 

Until January 31 

7. “Shared Ground” at Superhouse | New York 

Bringing together the sculptural basketry of Sarita Westrup and Lewis Prosser, this two-artist dialogue examines how inherited techniques weave identity and environment into contemporary material practice. Westrup draws from the material languages of the Rio Grande Valley, shaping woven forms that address borders and belonging through cochineal-dyed reeds and bound structures. Working from the cultural traditions of Wales, Prosser crafts objects that reference costume and performance through exaggerated scale and gesture. Installed in conversation with each other, their rigorous works frame basketry as a living knowledge system rooted in handwork that carries personal and collective histories across geography while remaining grounded in time-honored craftsmanship. 

Until February 21 

8. “Design in West Africa: Unity in Multiplicity” at Palais de Lomé | Lomé, Togo 

This large-scale group show at the restored Palais de Lomé brings together artists from across West Africa to examine how making serves as a shared cultural language across furniture, sculpture, textiles, and installation. Curated by Nicolas Bellavance-Lecompte, the grouping spans objects that draw from ancestral techniques while addressing present-day realities tied to social history and material reuse. Highlights include sculptural seating by Cheick Diallo that rethinks modern furniture through slow craftsmanship, indigo-dyed textiles by Aboubakar Fofana rooted in West African dye traditions, and recycled aluminum works by Nifemi Marcus-Bello that probe industrial production through local contexts.   

Until March 15 

9. “Japanese Design” at Side Gallery | Barcelona 

The postwar furniture fashioned by Japanese makers helped redefine domestic objects during the 1950s to the ‘70s, a period of rapid economic and cultural change. Here, an array of chairs, tables, and seating by figures such as Isamu Kenmochi and Riki Watanabe reveal the era’s careful negotiation between industrial production and long-standing craft values. A series of striking molded plywood works by Tendo Mokko, meanwhile, reveal how advanced techniques generated supple curves rooted in wood’s natural properties. Seen together, the pieces articulate a modern language shaped by deep-rooted material intelligence and a distinctly Japanese approach to making that continues to resonate beyond its historical moment. 

Until March 18 

10. “From the Upper Valley in the Foothills” at Marta | Los Angeles 

Conceived one year after the Eaton Fire devastated the San Gabriel foothills, Marta’s latest group outing brings together Angeleno artists such as Vince Skelly, Sam Klemick, and Ryan Belli to work with a single, charged material. Each participant selected wood salvaged from Altadena through Angel City Lumber, transforming sections of Aleppo pine, cedar, and oak into functional objects imbued with loss and renewal. Throughout the gallery, works are arranged to encourage movement akin to walking through a forest—a setup that honors what was lost while proposing new uses for what remains. 

January 10 – January 31