Experimental glass brick features at "long-awaited" Detroit design exhibition
Demonstrations of a new glass block type and silicone pottery featured at the Detroit Warehouse: Art and Design Fair show during Detroit Month of Design in a post-industrial building.
Sited in a Boyer Campbell Building, a former paper factory that anchors a development dubbed the Detroit Design District, the exhibition featured work made by local creators.
An outgrowth of the marketplace ArtClvb, this year's fair was the first to feature design as a discrete section. It was curated by Detroit-based Turkish designer Bilge Nur Saltik of design studio Form & Seek, while Katy Kim curated the visual art.
"Detroit has long been waiting for a central design fair during Month of Design," Saltik told Dezeen.
"In the past, designers like myself organized smaller, independent shows scattered across the city, but visitors had to track down individual studios or exhibitions to get a sense of Detroit's creative energy," she continued.
"Detroit Warehouse changes that — it brings together the city's diverse talent under one roof, creating a focal point where the design community and the public can connect."
The first floor of the three-storey exhibition featured an array of designs. Colour was plentiful, typified by Saltik's own work, especially a new collection of iridescent 3D-printed vessels.
The curators joked that the work looked so good one could eat it, with its bright, candy-like tones.
Form & Seek's multiple pedestals of colourful pieces were complemented by squishy Silicone Pottery bowls by Yosuke Shimano and colourful geometric wall hangings made of clustered tubes by Erika Cross.
One corner room on the ground floor was dedicated to glasswork, especially from designers of Toledo, Ohio, a long-standing hub for the material.
Another theme was the presence of designers associated with the Royal College of Art in London, Saltik's alma mater.
Among this exhibition was a showcase of decahedral glass bricks by Michigan studio Phosphene, led by Catie Newell and Alli Hoag.
Called Light Forms, the cast glass blocks can be stacked together in a variety to create structures and were designed to diffuse light in a specific way, with modular diffusion based on the stacking pattern.
The showcase featured prominently the work of local designer Simon Anton, who was tasked with filling a whole room with decorative wall hangings made from plastic waste, steel, brass, and nichrome that reference forms found in Detroit's architecture.
Other Detroit designers present included Evan Fay, who showed a series of lamps made with woven brass mesh and Paul Karas, who showed a monumental daybed with green-dyed leather.
On the upper floors of the exhibition saw scenography related to the wide-open industrial spaces. In one room, the sculpture work of artist Jessika Edgar was placed on light-green pedestals.
Another stand-out piece was a collection of sinuous lamps by designer Justin Bailey that have flexible laser-cut Yupo Paper shades.
The Place for Continuous Eye Contact experiential domes, where participants are covered in material and prompted to look into the eyes of another person, by late American artist Bobby Anspach, were placed on the grounds for the duration of the fair.
According to Kim, the showcase was meant to respond directly to the building, and parts of it were highlighted, including the painting of the central slide. As in common for Detroit, the building itself and its story becomes as much a part of the exhibition as the art.
"We wanted to speak to the historic warehouse space by responding to it: inviting established artists and designers to create site-responsive installations, and finding creative ways to use every nook and cranny of the building," Kim told Dezeen.
"You might open a former electrical closet and discover a ceramic tower. In the context of a fair, I still wanted to create some more ‘curatorial' moments to visitors to discover."
Detroit Month of Design brings together creatives and initiatives. In 2023, Dezeen spoke with director Kiana Wenzell about the event's engagement with the city and its history.
Other recent design exhibitions in the United States include the Collectible fair in New York.
Detroit Warehouse: Art and Design Fair ran from 18 to 21 September as part of the Detroit Month of Design. For more events, talks, and exhibitions in architecture and design, visit Dezeen Events Guide.
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