- Art & Design
From 30 November until 4 December, the annual Design Miami fair took place. The fair is not only the largest of its kind in North America, it is also the place where you can always find impressive works. Imagicasa highlights the two galleries that particularly caught our eye this year and that we would love to highlight here.
With the ‘Material Shores’ exhibition, Sarah Myerscough Gallery chose to put forward organic elements. Gold and sand colours alternate, striking textures take centre stage. Visitors were challenged to come into contact with the tactility of materials and to approach them in a different way. With an elegant setup, the gallery displayed a new, playful vision on design, that is based on a deep respect for the natural world and a less destructive vision of the future. The most striking piece of the collection undoubtedly was an ecological, contemporary interpretation of a chandelier by Angela Damman. The design was handmade from sansevieria plant fibres and combines luscious materiality with a touch of absurdity. In 2012, the artist brought her passion for sustainable design to Yucatan, where she works closely with local craftsmen. In this way, she revives their culture and knowledge. Work by Lin Fanglu, Fernando Laposse and Christopher Kurtz, among others, also passed by the gallery's stand. Fanglu reworks fabrics into extraordinary sculptural landscapes, while Laposse brought his popular hairy sisal furniture and Kurtz presented a beautiful wooden table that reminds of stacked stones. 
The most striking piece of the collection was an ecological, contemporary interpretation of a chandelier
The New York based Atelier Courbet impressed us as well. Their stand focused mainly on bronze smithing, which fitted in Design Miami’s ‘Golden Age’ theme. Every phase of working with bronze is displayed, from hand or 3D casting of the original models to their conversion into molds and meticulous patinas. The gallery displayed the collaboration between the Chilean sculptor Abel Cárcamo and the French designer Emma Donnersberg, just as their most recent discovery, the Moroccan sculptor Hamza Kadiri. In the stand, the Penzai series was presented, that displayed the bronze sculptures by Donnersberg and gallery founder Melanie Courbet. The Eros Brut table by Kadiri, that was developed with the help of the Japanese Shou-Sugi-Ban technique, is a testimony to the artist’s very profound knowledge of wood. Next to these three artists, whose works were put on display for the first time in the United States, work by the American designer Jonathan Hansen, the Italian sculptor Gianluca Pacchioni, the German designer Bodo Sperlein and the French Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance also received a spot. 
It is clear that Design Miami again managed to bring together the best artists and most impressive pieces. We are certainly keeping an eye on these names and are already looking forward to the fair’s next edition!
Header image: Atelier Courbet installation, photography by Joseph Kramm
Photos 1-7: Atelier Courbet installation, photography by Joseph Kramm
Photo 8: Sarah Myerscough Gallery, photography by James Harris