BASEL, June 2018 – During Design Miami/ Basel, high-end Mexican glass manufacturer Nouvel Limited showcases five works from the series Precarious at Design Miami Basel in the Curio section. This is the first time the company participates in the iconic art and design fair.
The pieces on show include the Precarious collection by Héctor Esrawe, Emiliano Godoy and Brian Thoreen, and the Magma wall light pieces by EWE Studio. The two collections share a similar spirit and materials palette, yet inhabit the Curio space with different spacial strategies to generate an environment of great tension and refined intensity.
Nouvel Limited is the division inside Nouvel Studio that produces unique pieces and limited editions. These collections on show expand the frontiers at the factory, opening the door of the creative laboratory to art and signature design. The selection includes pieces of unusual dimensions in the field of glass design, some of them artistic in nature, while others feature a usefulness hint that augments the tension and drama of the designs.
ABOUT PRECARIUS
Throughout several months, Héctor Esrawe, Emiliano Godoy and Brian Thoreen worked hand in hand with the design team and the artisans at Nouvel Limited to generate risky, large-scale pieces which take glass design to new heights. The work pushed the boundaries of the factory beyond the processes they normally use to create the products in their catalog of designer pieces.
The project’s aim was to contrast glass blown by expert hands with brass and steel. The visual tension between the different materials is heightened in pieces which remain upright due to counterbalances that defy gravity. This way the designers confront glass, in all its purity and plasticity, with the roughness and rigidity of metal plates coming directly from the rolling mill.
The Precarius pieces are comprised of glass pieces formed around steel or brass plates. These two materials are holding each other in a delicate balance, and the contrast is quite severe as the color glass is transparent while the plates are rougher and less refined.
The metal plates were prepared by a local metalsmith, with the objective of altering them the least possible from their steel mill origin. The designers’ aim was to confront these materials with glass to highlight the perfection and beauty of Nouvel Limited’s materials and craftsmanship.
ABOUT MAGMA
EWE Studio collaborated with Nouvel Limited to produce the special golden edition of Magma lighting sculptures for Curio/Design Miami, Basel.
The process began with creating molds varying in size and scale, hand carved in volcanic stone by local stonemasons. The volcanic stone was chosen for the molds as it is not affected by the heat of the blown glass, due to its origin. Being an artisanal process, the shape, thickness and tonality differs, as a result giving unique characteristics to each one of the Magma ‘bubbles’.
The ethereal golden light is generated through acid finish that was applied on the amber glass surface, together with the hand hammered brass surface contained within the bubbles.
Each variety of size of this golden special edition of Magma lighting sculpture is a limited edition of 7.
ABOUT NOUVEL LIMITED
In 1994, NOUVEL STUDIO originates and evolves as an artistic workshop dedicated to experimentation and development in glass. Our commitment to good design has led us to international projection and to display our pieces at fairs and exhibitions worldwide. We are constantly working with an elite team of designers to take the traditional processes of highly skilled craftsmen to incredible limits that only a factory that alternates between manual and automatic production can provide. The secret of NOUVEL STUDIO is the mix in precise proportions of design, craftsmanship, and technique. Our projects are based on the exploration of new creative frontiers, in a synthesis of tradition and innovation, design and functionality.
Following a long list of collaborations with artists, designers and architects, developing unique pieces and limited editions that push the boundaries of what can be said and done in glass design, NOUVEL LIMITED is born. The collaboration between NOUVEL LIMITED and the designers shown at Design Miami/ is part of this body of work shown now under the name of NOUVEL LIMITED.
ABOUT CURIO / DESIGN MIAMI BASEL
Design Miami/ is the global forum for design. Each fair brings together the most influential collectors, gallerists, designers, curators and critics from around the world in celebration of design culture and commerce. Occurring alongside the Art Basel fairs in Miami, USA each December and Basel, Switzerland each June, Design Miami/ has become the premier venue for collecting, exhibiting, discussing and creating collectible design.
Curio is Design Miami/’s newest exhibition platform which invites designers, curators, innovators and gallerists to present cabinets of curiosity throughout the fair. The program spans the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and emphasizes surprising installations of scientific and technological research alongside handcraft and creative production. The Curios are interspersed amongst Design Miami/’s core galleries, infusing the fair’s exhibition program with inventive snapshots of today’s design landscape.
