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NEW YORK - On March 4th, a new body of work by Dutch designer Joris Laarman will be unveiled at Friedman Benda. Laarman’s unique aesthetic merges cutting-edge technology and the life-sciences to create work of unexpected beauty. In 2008, Laarman’s Bone Chair and Bone Chaise, his first two works since graduating from Eindhoven, were displayed in MoMA’s exhibition Design and the Elastic Mind. This marked a major milestone in his career and the chair subsequently, was added to the museum’s permanent collection.
In 2006, Laarman’s Bone Chair revolutionized the design process by using an algorithm to translate the complexity, proportion and functionality of human bone and tree growth into a chair form. The algorithm, originally used by the German car industry, enabled him to reduce and strengthen his designs by optimizing material allocation, weight and stability, while minimizing material input. In his own words, he sculpted “using mother nature’s underlying codes.”
The upcoming exhibition is the culmination of five years of trial and error, exploratory material research and his continuous quest to translate science into functional objects of beauty now, on a monumental scale. His new body of work expands on his core investigations; it includes Skyline Storage, Fractal Bookshelf, a table that captures patterns inherent to flocks of birds, and a sustainable lamp made from living cells. The show will be on view from March 4 through April 10, at Friedman Benda, 515 West 26th Street.
About Joris Laarman
Joris Laarman was born in the Netherlands in 1979, and graduated cum laude from the Design Academy Eindhoven in 2003. While still in school he created the “heatwave radiator,” a design widely-lauded and incorporated into museum collections such as the Cooper-Hewitt and Fond national d’art contemporain, Puteaux, France, and has been produced by Droog. In 2004, he received Wallpaper’s “Young Designer of the Year” award, and in the same year established his studio and laboratory. He has since received the Red Dot design award (2006), the Woon award (2007), and the international Elle deco award (2008). He has collaborated with Flos, Vitra, Swarovskki, and Droog.
His work has been exhibited internationally and can be found in major public collections worldwide including the Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; the Groninger Museum, Netherlands; the Art Institute of Chicago; the High Museum, Atlanta; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg; Vitra Design Museum, Wil am Rhein, Germany.
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