Marc Newson Surveys Four Decades of Innovation at Château La Coste
At the Provençal estate, a rediscovered sculpture from the 1990s anchors a sweeping retrospective of the industrial designer’s enduring pursuit of pushing material boundaries
By 1995, Marc Newson had already established himself as a formidable industrial designer, propelled by the success of his Lockheed Lounge, a riveted aluminum chaise that reflected his early fascinations with aeronautical references and hand-built construction. The Australian designer, who later co-founded LoveFrom with Jony Ive after high-profile roles at Apple, balanced the making of experimental furniture with ambitious commissions, including a large-scale work conceived for a public art program tied to the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. Fabricated and shipped first to Atlanta and later to Sydney, where it was intended to be installed, the project ultimately went unrealized and slipped from the public consciousness.
Decades later, Newson rediscovered the sculpture in storage. “A barn find of sorts,” he tells Galerie. Now titled Electra, the monumental work—a gleaming aluminum totem that tapers upward before splitting into two rounded prongs that curved toward one another—stands at the entrance driveway of his latest solo exhibition, at Château La Coste, where it is on public view for the first time. Set within the Provençal estate’s luminous Oscar Niemeyer–designed pavilion, the exhibition surveys decades of Newson’s practice through 14 works installed indoors and out.
The selection gathers defining pieces that have gone on to shape global conversations around contemporary design while profoundly influencing the objects that populate everyday life, driven largely by Newson’s enduring focus on craft, process, and experimentation. Early breakthroughs such as the Lockheed Lounge appear alongside later works emblematic of his technical mastery and which extended fabrication into new territories. The tessellated Voronoi Shelf, placed on a reflecting pool outside, evokes wavy natural geometries yet was impressively carved from a single slab of Carrara marble. The Cast Glass Chair, composed of two hollow quarter-spheres precisely stacked atop one another, revisits his early training in silversmithing.
Across the show, a four-decade trajectory emerges through sustained material inquiry and an unrelenting drive to extend what those materials can achieve. “I enjoy exploiting (in a positive way) traditional materials in untraditional ways—toying with scale, pushing the boundaries of processes, and seeing what’s technically possible, often shifting the outcome through scale,” Newson says. “There’s so much to be gained from the evolution of traditional craft.”
His work in cloisonné is a vivid example. Several sinuous chairs and swooping chaises are festooned with intricate spotted and floral patterns realized in cloisonné enamel, an ancient Chinese decorative technique dating to the 13th century. Often used for smaller figurines and vases, the technique was rarely attempted at the scale of furniture. To reinvigorate the tradition, Newson established a workshop in Beijing, where skilled artisans produce each piece by hand. Surfaces bloom with dense fields of color and pattern, including magnolia blossoms that practically sing against white enamel. “My large-scale cloisonné works required purpose-built processes specific to the pieces,” he says. “I stretched the possibilities of material form and process, the result of which is something both compelling and beautiful.”
Stretching the process remains central to Newson’s thinking, venturing far beyond the finished object to the knotty stages in between. “I’ve long been interested in what is absent as well as what is present, how form is created by what is not there as much as what is,” he explains. “I remain interested in the spaces you don’t see, and how they inform your perception of an object or product. It’s another way to push the limits of materials, to shift how they’re seen over time.”
The pavilion’s sweeping curves and otherworldly interior, set aglow by the sylvan Provençal landscape, informed the placement of each work. That dialogue also finds clear expression in Electra, which stands sentinel nearby and entices visitors inward. “Celebrating aesthetic and material diversity,” Newson says, “this show underscores the core motivations of my practice, one which remains non-linear in its approach to problem-solving and attempts to defy cultural expectations.” Put simply, it traces a career defined by the adventure, not the endgame.
“Marc Newson” will be on view at Château La Coste until June 21, 2026.