Feature: The Best of British
March 1, 2004
Furniture is hot in London. The kind of excitement once reserved for art by the
likes of Tracey Emin or Damien Hirst is now being generated by a great piece of
contemporary furniture, a lamp or wallpaper. Furniture and home products are
seen as an enjoyable way to make a great investment, but it is no longer the
20th-century names like Eileen Grey, Mies van der Rohe or Arne Jacobsen that
have people salivating.
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Matthew Hilton’s Balzac chair is upholstered in Paul Smith’s perfect
pinstripes. (Click image to enlarge)The Louisa Guinness Gallery in Chelsea, which opened in May 2003, offers the public the chance to buy furniture and other functional objects by contemporary artists. The initial shows featured the works of Donald Judd followed by stunning sculptural furniture by Ron Arad.
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The Seed Light by Black + Blum marries high style with a low
price. (Click image to enlarge)Influential
gallery owner David Gill has been fusing the world of art and functional design
in the same way since the 1980s, and his Fulham Road gallery has long been the
first stop for many of the world’s most sophisticated collectors. This year at
his warehouse space across the Thames in Kennington, he showed furniture
commissioned from the painter Guido Demo and sculptural metal furniture coated
with distressed car paint by Roland Mellan.
In his flat above the warehouse,
Gill hoards his most precious pieces, such as Emilio Terry’s rococo revival
chairs and the prototype for Paul McCarthy’s Blockhead (the
115-foot-tall, Pinocchio-inspired rubber sculpture that stood outside Tate Modern for most of
last year). “It all begins with a sense of excellence. A feeling that the top is
where one has to be,” says Gill, and he does not distinguish between a coffee
table, a hat or a Bacon triptych. If it’s excellent, it’s Art, and Gill knows
his clients will want it.
Brits used to look in awe at Continental Europe’s
contemporary furniture design—from Jaime Tresserra to Patricia Urquiola and
others at B&B Italia—but now homegrown talents are achieving a similar
critical and commercial success. Perhaps encouraged by awards at British design
schools, where scholarships are granted by such bodies as the Audi Design
Foundation, talented young Brits have become proud leaders in world-class
design. Not content with creating new shapes and forms, many are also
experimenting with innovative materials.
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