Beginning May 31st, select lots from our highly anticipated June auction will be on view in our New York gallery. Highlights of the sale include several sculptures by Harry Bertoia, early works by George Nakashima and an important sculpture by Georges Jouve, originally exhibited at Galerie La Demeure in 1959. Italian design also features prominently in the sale with a rare coffee table by Gio Ponti, a prototype Diamond dining table by Gio Ponti and an important coffee table by Carlo Mollino for Singer & Sons, alongside works by Ico Parisi, Angelo Lelli and Fausto Melotti.  Also included in the exhibition are works by Jean Prouvé, Jean Royère, Charlotte Perriand, Paul Evans and Wendell Castle.
- from wright20.com

PRESS RELEASE

Hedge Gallery
in collaboration with Friedman Benda Gallery Presents
Not Furniture : XXI Design
18 October through 10 November 2007

I am not making furniture; I am making Art

– Forrest Myers

Bringing the Design = Art movement to San Francisco for the first time, Hedge Gallery, in collaboration with Friedman Benda Gallery of New York, will present Not Furniture : XXI Design, on view at Hedge from October 18 through November 10, 2007.

This group show will feature noted contemporary designers Ron Arad, Wendell Castle, Forrest Myers, Droog Design, Marcel Wanders, Maarten Baas, Mathias Bengtsson and Arik Levy in a special exhibition comprised of roughly twenty works that will occupy the entire gallery.

Not Furniture : XXI Design presents a careful selection of designers whose vision concentrates on pushing the definition of furniture design beyond its conventional perception. This exhibition emphasizes the blurring of boundaries between art and design. Since the turn of the 21st Century, seasoned and new collectors have turned to investing across a broader swath of the art market, seeking contemporary, unique and rare pieces by many of the featured artists. Major cultural institutions have begun acquiring such pieces as part of their permanent collections, including MOMA in New York, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, Victoria & Albert Museum in London, Bojimans van Beuningen in Rotterdam and Stadelijk Museum in Amsterdam.

Not Furniture : XXI Design will premier the presentation of these works in San Francisco.

Hedge Gallery was founded in 2003 by Steven Volpe and Roth Martin. The gallery specializes in a highly edited personal vision of 20th and 21st century design, encompassing furniture, objects and art. The common thread of this vision is the search to find new relationships, amongst ever evolving acquisitions, from the past, present and future.

Hedge Gallery is located at 48 Gold Street, San Francisco CA 94133.
Exhibition hours are Monday through Friday, 10am to 6pm, Saturday 11am to 5pm. For visuals and more information, please contact Antonio Ametrano:
[p] 415.433.2233, [f] 415.433.2234, [e] antonio@hedgegallery.com, [w] www.notfurniture.com 

Matthias Merkel Hess
THINGS


CHICAGO – Volume Gallery is pleased to announce its first solo exhibition with Matthias Merkel Hess, Things, opening April 25th with a reception from 6-8pm at 845 West Washington Blvd, Chicago IL 60607.

“For all our technical mastery over things, in the end it is the things that have come to dominate us.” 
—From The Meaning of Things, by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi & Eugene Rochberg-Halton

For his new show, Things, Matthias Merkel Hess has made a decided break with his previous work and created a series of sculptures that are animate, hive-like and gestural, while remaining rooted in the history and traditions of ceramics. Best known for remaking plastic vessels and other consumer objects in glazed ceramic, for this exhibition Merkel Hess has expanded beyond copying readymade forms to make sculptures influenced by diverse sources including the geometric patterns on milk crates, the early sculptures of Peter Voulkos, and the Marvel character and Fantastic Four member, The Thing.

The Thing, who was born Benjamin Grimm, had his skin transformed by cosmic rays into a craggy, orange, rock-like hide. Unlike the other members of the Fantastic Four, Grimm is unable to change back and trapped in his monstrous form. Unhappy with the transformation, Grimm still uses his powers as The Thing for good. In this sense, he’s a modern version of the Golem – the animated being created from inanimate matter in Jewish folklore – and teaches us that you can’t have everything, and that true liberty and freedom comes from accepting yourself.

Created from inanimate clay, Merkel Hess’ Things begin their life on the wheel. Once the initial form is created, it is altered, carved and pierced, taking on characteristics that are both abstract and familiar. The pieces are then fired and glazed, undergoing a permanent transformation in the kiln that echoes Benjamin Grimm’s own transformation into The Thing.

Abandoning his previous work with plastic forms, Merkel Hess has maintained a looser approach to the Things while still allowing references to historical ceramic vessels and glazes. Less literal than his previous work, the duality of sculpture/vessel, animate/inanimate, figure/ground allows Merkel Hess to further free the medium of ceramics from its constraints of tradition and definition by working within and reveling in the possibilities offered by the medium.  

FROM: http://www.wvvolumes.com/galleries/23/about