A 112-page hardcover book concentrating on Arad’s limited edition work with essays by Issey Miyake, Reed Krakoff, architect Jean Nouvel, and Barry Friedman, plus a rare interview between Marie-Laure Jousset of the Pompidou Museum and Ron Arad, will accompany the exhibition. Reed Krakoff, President/Executive Creative Director for Coach, will co-sponsor the book and the exhibition.
Active in London for more than 30 years, Arad has not had a major exhibition in New York since 1987. This will be the most complete retrospective of Arad’s unique and limited edition work to date.
The exhibition at Barry Friedman Ltd. will include Arad’s most famous designs beginning with his early works such as Aerial Light and the famous Rover chair. It will also feature Arad’s celebrated Big Easy, At Your Own Risk and London Pappardelle chairs, which are widely sought after by museums and private collectors alike. Some of the furniture, including prototypes, has never been exhibited in public; many other designs will be presented in the U.S. for the first time. The exhibition will include works made in steel, bronze, aluminum, and carbon fiber.
At Phillips, dePury & Company, during the preview of the contemporary art sales, we will unveil two new chair designs in blown aluminum, a technique Arad employs with unique results. In addition, large architectural installations and the Oh Void chairs in Corian® first shown last spring during the Milan furniture fair, will make their U.S. debut. Lo-Rez-Dolores-Tabula-Rasa, the acclaimed architectural installation made in Corian® was also presented last year at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in the Italian Pavilion. A 4 x 8 meter (13 x 26 ft.) wall, an oversized rounded table, and a large column made in pure white Corian® act as giant screens into which and through which film can be transmitted. To realize this vision, 40,000 tiny non-penetrating holes were drilled into the reverse side of the Corian® wall, and 27,000 into the Corian® table. Each hole is connected to a tiny fiber optic cable that transmits colored light and image through the surface. The fiber optic cables are connected at the other end to a metal plate. Images from a computer, DVD player or television are projected through a high-powered Barco projector onto the metal plate so that any film or image can be transmitted onto the Corian® surface, where it appears in ‘lo-res’ format. Described by Arad as ‘the most difficult thing we have ever done’, the final realization of this project justifies the effort. Arad has developed a new concept for transmitting film that opens up possibilities beyond this first experimental incarnation. “When you see an LCD screen, if it’s not switched on, it’s like a black hole – very dense and dark,” explains Arad. “But by using Corian®, you can have a smooth, perfect, white wall, which is beautiful in itself.”
Critically acclaimed British feature film and documentary maker Mike Figgis will create a film especially for the New York installation incorporating the wall, table and column.
Additionally, Ron Arad’s interactive Lolita chandelier made with Swarovski crystal will be on view at Phillips. Visitors are invited to send text messages to Lolita via their cell phones. The text will then displayed be on an LCD screen within the chandelier’s crystal elements.
About Ron Arad
Ron Arad was born in Tel Aviv in 1951 and studied at the Jerusalem Academy of Art (1971-73) and at the Architectural Association in London (1974-79). In 1989, he and Caroline Thorman founded ‘Ron Arad Associates’. Arad has exhibited at many major museums and galleries throughout the world, and his work is considered definitive within public collections of contemporary design, including those at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Metropolitan Museum of Art, N.Y; Victoria & Albert Museum, London and the Vitra Design Museum, among many others.
