A circus of wonders

New Design Miami/ director Rodman Primack illustrates his plans to continue expanding and improving the festival inherited from Marianne Goebl by focusing on design’s creative potential.

We met Rodman Primack, executive director of Design Miami/ since March, in Basel. This year’s Swiss edition (17-22 June 2014) of the most sophisticated celebration of design was his first at the helm of an event that has, for years, been a consolidated point of reference for international design.

Architectural Installation TT Pavilion, by Konstantin Grcic for Audi

“I have inherited an extraordinary fair from Marianne Goebl; I don’t want to turn it into a new one but to refine, expand and improve what Design Miami/ is today, a much-awaited and first-class event,” he said. “When people ask me what I want to change about Design Miami/, I reply that I simply want to ensure it attains the standard of quality and dynamism it deserves. What I intend to do is look forward.” The programme and number of galleries present this year were extraordinary: 47, plus 8 in the “Design/On site” section, as well as talks and special projects, including a delightful wool one by ECAL in Lausanne entitled In Wool We Trust. Following in the footsteps of the event’s co-founder the Greek-born Italian Ambra Medda and Austria’s Marianne Goebl, Rodman Primack was the first American (Californian, actually) to head up the Miami-born fair about to celebrate its tenth anniversary – and casting a highly interested gaze from the warm beaches of Florida to the East.

Prologue, by Fredrikson Stallard for Swarovksi

Primack has an exceptional CV: with a solid design and contemporary art training behind him and a fine market instinct, he has been the director of the Los Angeles Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills and associate vice-president and head specialist on Latin-American art at Christie’s in New York. As well as his latest job with the fair, he manages to run for his RP Miller Design Consulting, an all-round creativity incubator centred on design with its head office in New York. “I have always had an incredible passion for design,” he explained. “I believe designers possess the talent needed to solve problems, of whatever nature; they can do it better, in a more eco-friendly manner and using less material and the right one. We are the beneficiaries of their efforts. The very concept of design entails the promise of a future solution: it’s the tool that can, wants to and concretely produces new ideas.”

Dominic Harris, Ice Angel, presented by Priveekollektie Contemporary Art|Design

Innovations in the new direction? Primack invited the expert and collector Dennis Freedman (with whom he discussed Radical Design in one of the talks) to curate the new “Design At Large” section, a number of site-specific macro-installations featuring, in particular, Anton Alvarez’ Thread Wrapping Architecture 290414 (Libby Sellers showed more of his exceptional pieces) and Denmark’s Eske Rex with his Drawing Machine, an imposing pyramid-shaped wood, steel and concrete contraption made with two pendulums fitted with a pen that produces concentric abstract designs on a roll of paper in a successful exploration of gravity backed by the Maria Wettergren gallery – which also exhibited a splendid (unique and stimulating) macramé wall piece by Gjertrud Hals.

Eske Rex, Drawing Machine, presented by Galerie Maria Wettergren

The entrance to the fair was marked by Jamie Zigelbaum’s site-specific Triangular Series, a gigantic interactive array of 59 luminous geometric bodies hanging like stalactites from the ground-floor ceiling; Konstantin Grcic designed a circular pavilion for Audi with several Audi TT parts: if ever it were possible to create a living module from single car components, Grcic succeeded majestically, adding only wood to lend warmth to his mini-architecture.

Anton Alvarez, Thread Wrapping Architecture 290424, presented by Gallery Libby Sellers — Anton Alvarez, Thread Wrapping Architecture 290414, presented by Gallery Libby Sellers

“The fair is not only stimulating for the objects exhibited but, most of all, because we have an opportunity to be positively influenced by interaction with good design, be it contemporary or from the last century,” commented Primack. Several significant pieces were from his star galleries: Gabrielle Amman presented new designs by Turin collective Nucleo; London’s Gallery FUMI showcased Rowan Mersh’s Placuna Phoenix, a panel of more than 40,000 oyster shells cleverly assembled – which no one is allowed to touch; the Carpenters Workshop Gallery asked critic and curator Jérome Sans to curate the Rock The Casbah collection, designed by artists such as Erwin Wurm, Noble&Webster and Atelier Van Lieshout, among others; the eclectic Cristina Grajales exhibited pieces from the painstaking work of Steven and William Ladd; the Galerie BSL had the previously unseen Faye Toogood’s Caged Elements and Pascal Cousinier paid homage in a solo show to Joseph-André Motte, who died last year.

As ever, the Milanese Nilufar gallery produced one of the most fascinating spaces, with Gio Ponti the undisputed star; slightly farther on, at R&Company, the Haas Brothers drew us into an explicitly sexual universe – which is, on the contrary, dedicated to freedom of expression, argued Zesty Meyers and Evan Snyderman, the gallery’s directors.

The Basel week has long played a prevalent role - and not for the art world alone. Thanks to the great Basel war machine, design also entered the sacred rooms of the prestigious “Art Unlimited” thanks to London studio Troika: a pitch-black object hung in a small room but its geometric shape changed according to the angle it was viewed from.

Jamie Zigelbaum, Triangular Series, 2014

Outside the fair, the independent space Depot Basel – co-directed by designers Matylda Krzykowski and Laura Pregger – always brings fresh and innovative ideas. This year, it was the turn of “CRAFT & BLING BLING – FAKE”, a contemporary jewellery exhibition. Rodman Primack may well have felt like the director of a circus of wonders, given the amazement produced by the pieces presented inside the venue’s walls. In fact, he wanted “an open-air design parade through the streets of Basel,” which regrettably did not happen, but he did invite us to explore “the creative potential of today’s design and what may happen tomorrow.”

A circus of wonders

New Design Miami/ director Rodman Primack illustrates his plans to continue expanding and improving the festival inherited from Marianne Goebl by focusing on design’s creative potential.

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