Eliana Willis

Glenn Adamson has established himself as an authority on contemporary craft, with former positions as Head of Research at the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London and Director of New York’s Museum of Art and Design (MAD). Increasingly, the domain lends itself as much to fine art as it does collectible design, with Adamson positioned as a thought leader in both. Adamson also writes books and essays, hosts panels, teaches and lectures, and consults widely. In the comprehensive compendium The Craft Reader (2010), the polymath synthesized the full breadth of craft theory. Fewer Better Things (2018) is Adamson’s ode to the objects in our homes that we imbue with personal narrative and value. He is currently at work on A Century of Tomorrows, a new book about the history of the future. Hosted since 2020, his video series Design in Dialogue has covered topics ranging from 3D-printing to social housing and has featured designers such as Sheila Hicks, Stefan Sagmeister, and Jacques Herzog of architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron. At the core of his practice, however, is curation. While at the V&A, he helped mount “Postmodernism: Style and Subversion,” an extensive historical survey of the movement. At New York gallery Friedman Benda, Adamson guest-curated the “Static” exhibition of 2017, which analyzed the impetus behind Italian Radical Design in the 1970s and ‘80s.
Chatsworth House
Now, Adamson has guest-curated “Mirror Mirror: Reflections on Design at Chatsworth,” working with Chatsworth’s senior curator of program, Alex Hodby, to strategically place contemporary design pieces in various rooms of the storied estate in central England, a museum in its own right. Joining forces again with the Friedman Benda, Adamson highlights a diverse group of 16 talents, ranging from Memphis Group founder Ettore Sottsass and contemporary master Michael Anastassiades to rising stars Najla El Zein and Fernando Laposse. 
Glass works by Ettore Sottsass that appear in “Mirror Mirror.” Courtesy of Friedman Benda and Ettore Sottsass.
We spoke with the independent curator about the dynamic showcase (on view March 18 to October 1, 2023), delving into his perspectives on contemporary design, craft, collectible culture, and his own collecting practice.   What’s the concept behind the “Mirror Mirror” exhibition? What’s significant about the estate in both a historic and contemporary context?  The name of the exhibition obviously references the fairytale. Our concept was to create dialogues between contemporary work and the examples of historical art, architecture, and design already in place at Chatsworth and to uncover how one reflects the other. I did a Design in Dialogue talk with the current owner, Duke of Devonshire Peregrine Cavendish (“Stoker”) about his ceramics collection back in 2020, which sparked a longer, ongoing conversation. His family has a legacy of commissioning new art and design for the primarily Baroque-style property specific to their time, fostering what’s cutting-edge from an aesthetic and technical standpoint. One has only to think of the estate’s 1730 William Kent armchairs that represent the latest artisanal innovations of the time. Joseph Paxton’s 1832 Chatsworth Greenhouse was groundbreaking at the time and set the standard for the typology. The Cavendishes have kept up this practice of patronage to the present day. 
Fernando Laposse in “Mirror Mirror.” Courtesy of Chatsworth House.
Take us through some of the pairings.  We looked closely at Chatsworth’s different interiors—the furnishings and architectural details—and carefully chose existing pieces by designers that we felt would best lock into the scenarios on a primarily material level. Following certain thematics, we set out to illuminate both the pieces and the context by highlighting their similarities and differences. The house is impressive in that it’s not an inert historic situation being disrupted through a series of contemporary interventions, but rather the result of continuous creative re-imagining. It’s the first property of its kind to have become a visitable site, a model similar locales have adopted to remain viable.
Andile Dyalvane in “Mirror Mirror.” Courtesy of Chatsworth House.
We placed South African ceramicist Andile Dyalvane’s abstract vessels—Cornish Waterfall (2019) and Ngxondorha (Volatile Rocky Terrain) (2021), among other works—in direct dialogue with British ceramics artist Edmund de Waal’s A Sounding Line installation. Their approaches differ but both have responded to the surroundings in different ways in their respective collections. Both also attest to historic American ceramicist Michael Leach as a source of inspiration. Exhibitor Ndidi Ekubia uses the same silversmithing handwriting and chasing techniques you would see in an 18th-century object at Chatsworth but in a manner that’s more contemporary and abstract. Max Lamb uses a bandsaw to cut up wooden fragments and reassemble them in the 6-by-8 chair, bench, and table series. He’s not implementing traditional wood carving techniques as you might find articulated throughout the house. 
Max Lamb in “Mirror Mirror.” Courtesy of Chatsworth House.
What can the estate’s history as both a platform for art and design teach us about holistic collecting and patronage?  Very few people are in a position to do what the Cavendishes have done, partly because their house is so extraordinary. However, if you think about it on a smaller scale, it becomes much more about building a story in a continuous way. Even if it’s about shaping a space with fewer resources that might exist for a shorter period of time, you can still think of collecting as this kind of cumulative or additive practice, a stratigraphy if you will. Collecting isn’t always thought of in that way. For many, it’s about growing a collection in size rather than over time.  Regardless, there’s been a shift in the past 20 years or more in how collectors view what I call avant garde design. I prefer this term to ‘collectible’ as it englobes a wider scope of work and research currently being conducted in Europe, Asia, and increasingly in the United States, if not also elsewhere.
Joseph Walsh in “Mirror Mirror.” Courtesy of Chatsworth House.
There’s been a significant growth in this market that runs parallel to the acquisition of fine art. A lot of the people that were initially and maybe still collecting this kind of material have begun acknowledging that the rest of their domestic interior can attain the same rigor as their paintings and sculptures. They might have Gerhard Richter on the wall but pair it with a West Elm sofa. There’s nothing wrong with that brand but why not think about functional seating as being every bit as intellectually or visually challenging as the Richter? In its ability to transcend time, Chatsworth demonstrates this all-encompassing approach and to great effect. If you look at Chatsworth, the value of the handmade cannot be understated. It’s an amazing repository of craft works and craft history and so it serves as the perfect context to explore this focus. 
Samuel Ross in “Mirror Mirror”. Courtesy of Chatsworth House.
How has craft continue to play a role in this evolution?  Craft is inextricably linked to the avant garde lineage that runs between the decorative arts, Radical Italian Design, Dutch design, work being done by Japanese talents like Shiro Kuramata, and more recent movements. The entire ecosystem centers on artisan knowledge, and material intelligence. Dyalvane, Ekubia, and Lamb are strong proponents of this impetus. Exhibitor Samuel Ross is also interesting because he’s able to work between what we might consider industrial and craft production. Presented in the home’s sculpture gallery, works like his Anxiety Birthed Corrosion table or Amnesia or Platelet Apparition lounger blend both more readily available industrial components and noble materials like marble. If there’s one place in the show where you feel like the conversation between the present and the past is its highest pitch, his work stands out. The pieces are also imbued with a significant amount of self reflection and expression. It’s important to mention that 20 years ago we might not have seen as much diversity represented in this market. 
Jay Sae Jung Oh in “Mirror Mirror.” Courtesy of Chatsworth House.
If we look at where the scene is now and where it’s headed, there are two lines of inquiry that seem the most prevalent to me. On the one hand, there’s an increased interest in almost alchemical material research. Half of the designers in the “Mirror Mirror” center the practices on this preoccupation. For them it’s not necessarily about inventing new materials but inventing new ways of working with available matter and developing objects accordingly. Korean designer Jay Sae Jung Oh implements an analog cord wrapping technique but does so in such a manner that the seemingly mundane component becomes transformative in its application. It’s equally parts resourcefulness and imagination. Chris Schank does a great job of this as well by combining waste materials in singular, crystalline, almost geological forms using layers colored resin foil. On the other hand, there’s a growing desire to explore the spiritual resonance of objects. Both American designer Ini Archibong and British designer Faye Toogood are on this wavelength. 
Faye Toogood in “Mirror Mirror.” Courtesy of Chatsworth House.
Shifting gears slightly, could you talk about your own collecting practice?  I live in a Hudson Valley house purpose-built by Postmodern ceramic artist duo Phillip Maberry and Scott Walker. Defined by larger boulders with poured concrete connecting them, the home is almost like a walk-in sculpture with colorful tiles throughout. It might not come as a surprise that what I mostly collect is also studio ceramics. The medium was my entry into the avant garde design scene and something I still cherish. I eat my breakfast out of Warren Mackenzie bowls. I also have a Jolie Ngo vessel that I received after helping her complete a thesis project at the Rhode Island School of Design. Her work is interesting because she’s one of the only digital native designers that I know of who is still implementing handbuilding techniques all while looking to combine different approaches and materials.    More Trending Stories: Banksy Created His Latest Artwork on a Rundown Farmhouse by the British Seaside—Only to Have It Immediately Destroyed A German Man Just Learning How to Use a Metal Detector Uncovered a Hoard of Buried Byzantine Jewelry and Silver Coins The New York Art World Had High Hopes for Black Wall Street Gallery. Allegations Against Its Founder Have Soured Those Dreams New York’s ‘Hot Dog King’ Has Held Court Outside the Met Museum for Years. Now Fans Are Rallying to Stop the City From Ejecting Him Sotheby’s Surrealism Sale Fails to Meet Expectations, Pulling in an Under-Estimate $18 Million With Several Blue-Chip Works Going Unsold In His Upstate New York Studio, Stefan Bondell Paints Day and Night, Fueled by Hudson River Light and Copious Amounts of Sugar We Spoke to the ‘Anguished’ Barcelona Residents Fighting to Prevent the Completion of Gaudí’s Famed Sagrada Familia ‘All the Beauty and the Bloodshed’ Is a Truly Great Artist Documentary. Here’s What Makes It Work So Well Who Was Leonardo da Vinci’s Mom, Actually? A Provocative New Book Suggests She Was a Slave From the Caucasus of Central Asia Kenny Schachter Pays a Mind-Bending Visit to Beeple’s New High-Tech Art Compound (Getting in Plenty of Trouble Along the Way)
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The newest iteration of Desert X is all about water—which might come as a surprise, seeing as how there’s not much liquid of any kind to be found along the dusty stretch of land in south-central California where the biennial exhibition is installed through May 7.
But, for Neville Wakefield and Diana Campbell, the show’s two curators, “a desert is not defined by the absence of water.” To them, “the desert landscape is formed by the memory of water.”
As suggested by that quote, this year’s Desert X—the fourth mounted in the Coachella Valley since the program was founded in 2017—zooms out for a holistic, ecological perspective on the land and art’s place in it. This edition spreads out across the land and features the work of 10 artists and collectives, including Tschabalala Self, Torkwase Dyson, and Tyre Nichols, among others. 
“How do we connect the specificities of the Coachella Valley to the wider biosphere, where resources and energy… flow across borders and impact parts of the world we may never see?” Campbell asked in a recent interview. 
That’s a lofty prompt, as much of the curators’ ideas are. But navigate from one individual site-specific commission to the next, and it becomes clearer what the duo means.
Rana Begum, No.1225 Chainlink (2023). Photo: Lance Gerber. Courtesy of the artist and Desert X.
A sculpture by the Bangladesh-born, London-based artist Rana Begum, for instance, is made almost entirely from chainlink fencing—a ubiquitous industrial material used to demarcate natural land as human property. The maze-like quality of Begum’s piece also suggests that it’s not just acreage these fences tend to divide.
In a funny way, Matt Johnson’s contribution to the show—a tenuous arrangement of stacked shipping containers—shares similar themes. On one hand, the L.A. artist’s gigantic installation situates the region in a globalist context and suggests connection across cultures, countries, and oceans; on the other, it points out that that sense of connection is mediated through commerce and comes with a devastating environmental toll.
Elsewhere in the valley is a larger-than-life game board, conceived by Gerald Clarke; an assemblage of reflective squares mounted atop the same electric motors used for mechanical bulls, made by Mario García Torres; and a readymade car sculpture from which a pair of giant animal arms emerges from its trunk, courtesy of Paloma Contreras Lomas. 
Together, these makers’ contributions “make visible, as instruments of self-awareness and devices of wonder, the forces that we exert on the world,” according to a catalog text from Wakefield. 
See more images from Desert X 2023 below. 
Lauren Bon, The Smallest Sea with the Largest Heart (2023). Photo: Lance Gerber. Courtesy of the artist and Desert X.
Torkwase Dyson, Liquid A Place (2023). Photo: Lance Gerber. Courtesy of the artist and Desert X.
Gerald Clarke, Immersion (2023). Photo: Lance Gerber. Courtesy of the artist and Desert X.
Mario García Torres, Searching for the Sky (While Maintaining Equilibrium) (2023). Photo: Lance Gerber. Courtesy of the artist and Desert X.
Tyre Nichols, Originals (2023). Photo: Lance Gerber. Courtesy of the artist and Desert X.
Hylozoic/Desires, Namak Nazar (2023). Photo: Lance Gerber. Courtesy of the artist and Desert X.
Paloma Contreras Lomas, Amar a Dios en Tierra de Indios, Es Oficio Maternal (2023). Photo: Lance Gerber. Courtesy of the artist and Desert X.
Tschabalala Self, Pioneer (2023). Photo: Lance Gerber. Courtesy of the artist and Desert X.
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Photographs tend to flatten—in multiple senses of the word—the subjects they depict. But do they have to?
The medium’s capacity for complex, multidimensional depiction is front of mind for Bieke Depoorter, Samuel Fosso, Arthur Jafa, and Frida Orupabo—the four artists nominated for this year’s prestigious Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2023. Their work is on view now in a show at the Photographers’ Gallery in London.
Now in its 27th iteration, the annual £30,000 ($36,000) prize recognizes outstanding photographic artworks or exhibitions presented in the preceding year. The winner, who will be announced in a ceremony set for May 11, will join an impressive list of previous recipients, including Deana Lawson (who won in 2022), Susan Meiselas (2019), Trevor Paglen (2016), and Paul Graham (2009). This year’s runners-up will each receive £5,000 ($6,000).   

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Depoorter, a Belgian artist whose work often probes the power dynamics between photographer and subject, was chosen for her 2022 show “A Chance Encounter” at C/O Berlin. Among the two projects she presented there was Michael (2015-present), an installation that explores the inner life of a man Depoorter met on the streets of Portland, Oregon in 2015.
Last year’s career-spanning survey of Fosso at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris qualified him for the Deutsche Börse prize. For five decades now, the influential African photographer has turned his camera on himself, donning elaborate costumes for coded self-portraits that reflect on the performance of identity. 
A series of piecework photo-sculptures represents the contributions of Orupabo, who was nominated for her exhibition “I have seen a million pictures of my face and still I have no idea” at Switzerland’s Fotomuseum Winterthur. Using imagery culled from both colonial archives and contemporary picture-sharing platforms, the Norwegian Nigerian artist creates collages of black female bodies that are both dense and fragmented. 
Jafa, who rounds out the group of shortlisted creators, similarly draws from disparate sources for his own library of pictures, though how that material manifests in his work varies widely. The American artist’s 2022 exhibition “Live Evil” at LUMA in Arles, France featured photographs, sculptures, and large-scale installations, as well as signature films like The White Album (2018).
Arthur Jafa, Bloods II (2020). © Arthur Jafa. Courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery.
This year’s four shortlisted artists were selected by a jury of five industry experts: Anne-Marie Beckmann, director of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation; Natalie Herschdorfer, director of the Photo Elysee in Switzerland; Mahtab Hussain, an artist based in Britain; Thyago Nogueria, head of contemporary photography at the Instituto Moreira Salles in Brazil; and Brett Rogers, director of the Photographers’ Gallery.
“Our shortlist for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2023 exemplifies photography’s resounding power and resonance right now,” said Rogers in a statement. “Each artist addresses subjects which drive forward debate about the nature of the medium, and the role it plays in history and society.” 
See more pictures from the 2023 Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize nominees below.
Frida Orupabo, A lil help (2021). Photo: © Frida Orupabo, courtesy of the artist and Galerie Nordenhake.
Samuel Fosso, Autoportrait (1976). Photo: © Samuel Fosso, courtesy of the artist and JM Patras.
Bieke Depoorter, We walked together, Portland, Oregon, USA (2015). Photo: © Bieke Depoorter/Magnum Photos, courtesy of the artist.
Samuel Fosso, Self-Portrait (Angela Davis) (2008). Photo: © Samuel Fossoc courtesy of the artist and JM Patras.
Arthur Jafa, Ex-Slave Gordon 1863 (2017). Photo: Andrea Rossetti, © Arthur Jafa, courtesy of the artist and Gladstone Gallery.
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