A Full Fall Season of Shows and Sales

David San Miguel Photo

What Tanya Aguiniga and Michael Wilson have in common isn’t obvious at first. She’s a native of Tijuana. He’s a former sushi chef. She uses yarn, string, and found or decaying objects to reinterpret industrial designs. He carves wood into furnishings and lighting so refined and delicate they appear to be suspended in the act of floating, growing, or creeping. On October 8, at the JF Chen gallery in Los Angeles, they come together in a dialogue about the nature of craft and its role in design today. jfchen.com

Moss was always part think-tank, part shop. So when the downtown retailer-slash-ultimate design destination closed last February—another casualty of the recession—it seemed natural for its founders Murray Moss and Franklin Getchell to take their ideas to a new, rent-free platform. Hence, Moss Bureau (see MODERN, Summer 2012, pp. 76–78). Now, on October 16, Moss and Getchell hit the auction block at Phillips de Pury & Company with a one-of-a-kind exhibition and curated sale, featuring an eclectic mix of works, including art, couture, and functional objects, from their personal collection. Open for viewing October 6. phillipsdepury.com

On October 7, Los Angeles Modern Auctions (LAMA) celebrates its twentieth anniversary with a landmark auction featuring works by George Nakashima, Peter Voulkos, Sam Francis, and David Hockney. Other highlights include an impressive collection of designs by Greta Grossman; two Sheila Hicks tapestries, which, in their time, represented the cutting edge of the textile art movement; a rare Jean Prouvé table that was commissioned for a hotel in Cameroon; and a hand-decorated gas tank by Keith Haring. lamodern.com

David Trubridge was trained as a naval architect and likes to say that he uses his knowledge of watercraft to make design. So, not only do the lines of his graceful, aerodynamic objects resemble hulls and sails, but they also, in some cases, appear to be capable of slicing through wind and water. “There is purity in his work,” Lewis Wexler, owner of the Wexler Gallery in New York City, says. “David uses his designs to communicate his attachment to the mountains, oceans, and wilderness. Southern Lights, an exhibition of Trubridge’s work opens at the Wexler Gallery on October 5, where it can be seen through November 30. wexlergallery.com

Andrea Branzi co-founded the Domus Academy, the first international post-baccalaureate school of design, and won the Compasso d’Oro three times. Now, in his first gallery exhibition in the U.S., the designer explores the “great plankton of material in which we live” with a new collection of work called Trees and Stones. In the collection, at New York Friedman Benda from September 11 through October 13, Branzi reconciles nature and technology through a series of bookshelves composed of mirrors, metal grids, and chunks of birch trees. friedmanbenda.com

The Syndicat National des Antiquaires is known for its production of the French Biennale. Now, for the first time in its history, the prestigious institution has collaborated with American show manager Sandford L. Smith and Associates to bring a fair to U.S. soil. The Salon: Art and Design will be at the Park Avenue Armory from November 8 to 12 and will feature fifty-three of the Syndicat’s leading dealers from around the world, including some who have never exhibited at fairs before, such as: DJL Lalique, a purveyor of vintage Lalique. thesalonny.com

Think of it as the Comic-Con of the architecture world. On October 3 to 5 the World Architecture Festival will draw some of the most innovative and influential voices in architecture to Marina Bay Sands in Singapore for a weekend of workshops (like “How To Create a Vertical Village”), speakers (including Thomas Heatherwick and Rocco Yim), and the not to be missed WAF awards.
worldarchitecturefestival.com

The Olympic Games are over, but London is not through yet. This fall, from September 14 through 23, three hundred events and exhibitions will open across the city, signaling the start of the London Design Festival. One of the centerpieces of the festival, the Landmark Projects commissions influential architects and designers from around the world to create works in London’s most beloved public spaces. Designersblock, now in its fifteenth year at the Southbank Centre, will partner with the festival for a series of exhibitions that will unfold in locations around the city, from venerable ones like Queen Elizabeth Hall to others that have never been seen by the public.  londondesignfestival.com

And there is more: From September 23 through 26, Decorex London comes to the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, followed, on October 10 through 14, by the Pavilion of Art and Design London, which will transform Berkeley Square into a world-class marketplace for everything from the decorative arts to modern and tribal art, featuring dealers like the Carpenters Workshop, Gallery Fumi, Didier Ltd, and Hervé Van der Straeten.

CASA CATTANEO

When Carlo Mollino was at the peak of his talents, the industrialist Luigi Cattaneo commissioned the designer to build him a villa on Lake Maggiore. Two years later, Casa Cattaneo, the only private residence Mollino ever designed, was complete: a part traditionalist, part modernist home with a pitched roof and open galleries finely attuned to its setting. On October 23 the villa’s collection of furnishings—a combination of Cattaneo’s family heirlooms and Mollino’s custom designs evoking traditional alpine furniture—will be offered in Christie’s sale of 20th Century Decorative Art and Design in London. The entire collection is valued at approximately £700,000. Christies.com