For his second solo show at London’s Haunch of Venison gallery, maverick designer Thomas Heatherwick has produced a twist on conventional furniture design – a ‘functional’ spinning top chair formed from a single profile rotated through 360 degrees.

‘SPUN’ by THOMAS HEATHERWICK, 31st March – 15th May 2010

HAUNCH OF VENISON

6 Burlington Gardens, London W1S 3ET (020 7495 5050)

The exhibition includes five versions of the ‘Spun’ chair in copper and stainless steel. The five versions are mirror polished stainless steel; brushed stainless steel; mirror polished copper; brushed copper; and patinated with brushed seat copper.

The concept of this new design evolved from Heatherwick’s love of the traditional manufacturing technique used for making large timpani drums. This established craft skill has been revised and used to make a playful piece of metal furniture.

Mayfair gallery, Haunch of Venison, is staging its first exhibition of British artist and designer Stuart Haygarth with an exhibition called ‘Found.’ The show examines his ongoing relationship with abandoned objects and his fascination with taxonomy through a series of new furniture works, lamps and chandeliers.

FOUND, open 1st December 2009-30th January 2010

HAUNCH OF VENISON

6 Burlington Gardens, London W1S 3ET (020 7495 5050)

Haygarth has spent many years gathering seemingly insignificant, discarded items such as ceramic figurines, spectacles, glassware, and plastic objects whilst beachcombing, cycling and on excursions to markets and car boot sales. These are then sorted and graded, methodically stored by  colour, material and subject.

The found materials often inspire the final work through their form, previous use, tactile qualities and their relationship to light. They are then painstakingly compiled to create lamps and furniture, giving otherwise banal and overlooked objects a new significance.

For his new work at the show, Haygarth has been gathering smashed car wing mirrors from narrow roads and ‘hot spots’ in London, such as Rotherhithe Tunnel, using them to create several new objects including a revolving mirror-ball with 350 smashed wing mirrors attached to a mirrored sphere, and a series of wing-mirror shaped tables complete with smashed glass surfaces.

Haygarth has also continued to explore his fascination with spectacles, creating a series of urchin lights for the exhibition – shaggy cascades of frame parts lit from within, and an optical chandelier made from tinted lenses (top image).

Haygarth sees his years of collecting and studying our unwanted items as an opportunity to investigate our social behaviour and habits. He finds beauty in the everyday discarded items, and through his work he challenges perceived notions of precious and beautiful.

Images courtesy of Haunch of Venison: from top – OPTICAL (2007); TIDE (2004); RAFT (2009); DISPOSABLE (date unknown)

EDITOR’S COMMENTS:

Haygarth’s first major show in the UK is housed within truly spectacular space at the Haunch of Venison gallery in Mayfair. One can’t help but be mesmerised by the painstaking care and attention that goes into each piece of work here. Many pieces in the show are new (the images we have here are mainly older pieces) and have taken several years to complete, based on the fact that the found objects from which they are assembled must be collected over time.

And it is the patience of such an undertaking that adds to the awe of his work. TIDE (shown above) is made up of the plastic objects that washed up on the Dungeness coastline in Kent over several years. The obsessive nature of such an undertaking instills as much fascination in the viewer as the beauty of the object itself.

However, at the opening party, I heard several attendees say that Haygarth’s working practice is changing. The giant Mirror Ball made from smashed car wing mirrors has apparently been falsified. These aren’t real smashed wing mirrors but, in fact, new ones that have been smashed in the studio. Er, what? Several pieces are also said to be made by an external fabricator.

I know Haygarth has always flirted between being an artist and designer (handmade vs fabricated) but the charm of his work is led by the idea that he himself collected and assembled each piece. The thought that some of his designs are essentially ‘get the look’ items totally strips him of integrity. I very much hope these were rumours and that I can be proved wrong.

Exhibition finishes soon: check out the ‘Extrusions’ exhibition by British design maverick Thomas Heatherwick. The show boasts “the world’s first single component of metal furniture, extruded by machine” and is showing at Haunch of Venison London until 7th November.

‘EXTRUSIONS‘ open until 7th November 2009

HAUNCH OF VENISON

6 Burlington Gardens, London W1S 3ET (020 7495 5050)      

The exhibition includes six extruded, mirror polished, aluminium benches made without fixtures or fittings, which have been produced by the world’s largest extrusion machine. 

Heatherwick Studio commissioned a specially designed die through which aluminium was ‘squeezed’ into a chair profile, complete with legs, seat and back. The resulting exhibited extrusions are the early prototypes for a final outdoor installation – a metre-long piece that tangles into an extraordinary form, which will be constructed and exhibited in 2010.

Images courtesy of Heatherwick Studio.