Where to See Stellar Collectible Design During NYCxDesign
A wealth of design-focused exhibitions have popped up in New York City during the annual NYCxDesign festival
New York City transforms into a full-fledged design capital during NYCxDesign, the annual festival celebrating North America’s dynamic design landscape and headlined by ICFF/Wanted, which opens May 18–20 at the Javits Center. Beyond the fair, the Big Apple’s abundance of independent designers and collectible design galleries are hosting timely exhibitions and pop-ups throughout the week and underscore the city’s stronghold of creative ingenuity. There’s a wealth of design to be discovered—especially by vanguard talents making sculptural furniture, functional one-offs, and memorable objects inextricably tied to their identities.
From Pierre Yovanovitch’s exquisitely crafted furniture imbued with a summery spirit and EWE Studio’s dive into Purépecha metallurgy to stellar group shows at Colony and Love House, scroll below to explore nine design-focused exhibitions that caught Galerie’s eye.
1. “Sean Gerstley: Free Play” at Superhouse | Tribeca
Referencing 20th-century avant-garde movements like Orphism and Fauvism, ceramicist Sean Gerstley has been embracing spontaneity to guide the creation of chromatic vessels invested with emotional heft. Particularly notable is his painterly application of color: he utilizes vibrant industrial glazes to create evocative compositions where hues interact in compelling ways, from hard-lined geometric color blocks to fluid transitions where glazes bleed into one another. Despite their differences, the work exudes a meditative presence and aesthetic harmony.
Until May 31
2. “Été 25” at Pierre Yovanovitch Mobilier | Chelsea
Pierre Yovanovitch’s latest collection is a spirited ode to summer and the sense of relaxation the season brings. Spanning lounge chairs with butterfly-shaped backrests and rounded sofas intended to spark conversation and conviviality, the series of 15 new pieces dials into the duality of playful forms and the French interior designer’s signature exceptional craftsmanship.
Until September 30
3. “Chris Gustin: Ascension” at Donzella | Midtown South
“Ascension” offers a comprehensive view of Chris Gustin’s decades-long artistic journey, which has seen the renowned sculptor wield clay to explore form, movement, emotions, and forces of nature through sinuous and spellbinding ceramic creations. Among his latest is a series of monumental works—some up to five feet tall—whose amorphous forms channel elemental forces and whose wood-firing techniques and mineral-like glazes lend summon spiritual energies. “I want the viewer to feel that the works are not just stationary objects,” Gustin says, “but energies in motion, rising upward and breaking free from the physical world.”
Until June 5
4. “The Independents” at Colony | Tribeca
A culmination of Colony’s decade-long celebration and stewardship of independent American designers, this stellar group exhibition reveals the layers behind each featured maker’s creative journey and “encapsulates my very own ‘why,’” says founder Jean Lin. Twenty-seven studios from the gallery’s past, present, and future converge, from alumni Chen & Kai’s chair inspired by the Chinese tradition of passing walnuts down to the next generation to Aaron Poritz’s side table made in memory of his father. Participants in Colony’s annual Designers’ Residency program, such as Ember Studio, Thomas Yang Studio, and Studio BC Joshua, also star.
Until May 20
5. “Flower Beneath the Foot” at Emma Scully Gallery | Upper East Side
The textile designer Madeline Weinrib enjoyed a fruitful creative partnership with the late poet, critic, and artist Rene Ricard, first developing a rug collection from a design in which he wrote her name repeatedly in his distinct penmanship. After his death, she “still felt in dialogue with him” and decided to expand the collection in honor of his creative vision. Using Ricard’s first rug as a guide, Weinrib sent textile and handwriting samples to Nepalese artisans over several years to conceive new rugs marked by lush blooms and intricate weaving reflective of Ricard’s extraordinary knowledge of color and love for textiles. Complementing the show are ornate glass chandeliers by Dana Arbib and bronze lily-shaped sconces by Simone Bodmer-Turner.
Until June 20
6. “Jewel Box” at Allen Street Gallery | Lower East Side
Throughout history, sconces have transcended their utilitarian use as mere light fixtures—they have become spatial waypoints, sculptural landmarks, and intimate architectural gestures that are often compelling works of art in their own right. This stellar group show curated by Leroy Street Studio Interiors celebrates this oft-overlooked lighting typology through a curated array of pieces by the likes of Anna Karlin, Bec Brittain, and Katie Stout, and Pelle that serve as sculpture during the day and transform into a source of decorative illumination after dark.
Until May 30
7. “Forced Perspective” at Radio Star | Greenpoint
Caleb Ferris, Kiki Goti, Vincent Staropoli, and NJ Roseti pose a salient question: how do art and design respond to an era rampant with misinformation and disunity? Their two-day group show may have an answer. “Forced Perspective” situates one-of-a-kind collectible works by 15 designers—up-and-comers like Ellen Pong, Forma Rosa Studio, and Kim Mupangilaï among them—within curated domestic vignettes that challenge a perspective or expectation, from the imagined warmth of a hearth by Aydan Hüseynli to Heechan Kim’s meticulously made metal stools that simulate rocks and push us to question what’s real versus fabricated.
May 19–20
8. “EWE Studio” at Les Ateliers Courbet | Chelsea
The first solo exhibition by EWE Studio, founded in 2017 by gallerist Age Salajōe and designers Manuel Bañó and Hector Esrawe, sheds light on metalsmithing, specifically Purépecha metallurgy and pre-Hispanic technologies drawn from ancestral knowledge of metal casting and stonework passed down through generations. A sculptural coffee table, console, and mirror crafted by blacksmiths and bronzesmiths from EWE’s collaborative foundry in Puebla, Mexico, employ an ancient sand casting technique where impressions are created in packed, fine sand into which molten metal is poured directly. The show’s centerpiece is a monumental polished stainless steel and bronze wall mirror that takes its form from copper Tajadero chopping knives once used as standardized currency in Central Mexico.
Until August 1
9. “The Family Show” at Love House | Two Bridges
Inaugurating Love House’s newly opened Lower East Side location is its first-ever group show, which features more than 60 unseen works from the design gallery’s roster of artisan talent. Each piece unpacks the meaning of “family” and how it connects to the design process, with participants like Alban Roger, Astraeus Clarke, Paolo Ferrari, and Jackrabbit Studio offering personal interpretations through one-of-a-kind collectible objects and furnishings.
Until May 31