Spotted | The Week of 02.01.15: At FOG Design + Art Fair, San Francisco

This week, Spotted takes us to FOG’s Design + Art Fair in San Francisco (Jan. 15 – 18th, 2015). Writing for Artsy (we suggest you read the whole editorial) Kara Q. Smith described the event as similar to a “swanky cocktail party that you’re not sure if you should be at.” The fair felt rich without being overcrowded, she said.

Above image: Takuro Kuwata in San Francisco @ Salon 94, FOG Design + Art

It included panel discussions by such people as Yves Béhar and Jonathan Olivares about the link between art and design, with some in attendance questioning whether people of the future will feel the need to draw a distinction between the two.

Ceramics, of course, were also proudly on display.

“Overall, I was struck by the presence of ceramics at FOG, which is not all that surprising given the west-coast-heavy roster. Ceramics drive a delicate balance between form and function, craft and fine art, and possess quite the history in California. From an understated display of works from an exhibition at Los Angeles Valley College featuring historical female icons Ruth Asawa, Ynez Johnston, and Betye Saar, to Rosha Yaghmai’s enameled rendering of things found in a ladies boudoir at newcomer Tyler Wood’s booth, to Artsy’s impressive presentation of work by Los Angeles-based artist Matthias Merkel Hess, these artists transform the ordinary into works of art, inciting a conversation around our personal relationship to everyday objects.”

 “At Salon 94’s booth, Takuro Kuwata’s experimentation with ceramics results in incredibly fragile-looking and unique surfaces that, while titled “bowl” or “vase” (read: functional object), have a certain recherché quality that put them in a category all their own. Ben Peterson’s ceramic forms at Ratio 3 are rendered such that they appear as if they were made of concrete. The small architectural pieces appear weighty and brute, a material feat on its own. Another gem is Sara VanDerBeek’s Chorrera (2014), tucked away in Altman Siegel’s booth. Her blue-tinted, digital C-print portrays a geometric vessel created and used by an indigenous Ecuadorian community that flourished between 1300 and 300 B.C. VanDerBeek captures a rare cubist-looking shape possessing a modern sensibility—a prescient design invoking a sense of wonder about its origin.”

 

 

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