At Maison et Objet 2012, taking place in Paris, Japanese design studio Nendo will be presenting two solo exhibitions.
At the Carpenters Workshop Gallery they will present Static Bubbles, while Object Dependencies will be on show at Galerie Pierre-Allain Challier with Specimen Editions.
Static Bubbles will consists of three new furniture collections. The Innerblow Collection was inspired by molten glass and the way professional glassblowers work with the material to breathe new shapes into it. Rather than removing the metal form that was used to help shape the glass object Nendo chose to leave the metal form in place so that it becomes part of the final product.
The second part of Static Bubbles exhibition is the Overflow Collection that sees tables resulting from free-flowing liquid that was left to harden in place. To achieve this, Nendo heated glass onto a frame where one section was missing so that the liquid could run over this gap and harden in place.
Farming Net Collection is the last part of the Static Bubbles show and includes lamps, tables, vases and bowls made from agricultural nets that were heated and warped into place.
Object Dependencies, Nendo’s exhibition at the Carpenters Workshop Gallery, sees the studio presenting 14 “weak furniture” pieces. The pieces in this collection cannot structurally stand on its own. A specific object needs to be added to each furniture piece before it becomes a functional form. The added object will not only make the original piece strong but it will also add other aesthetic elements, like changing the angle of light emitted from a lamp, or it could expand into a bookshelf.
Nendo explains that Object Dependencies is “an exploration into new forms created by resetting the once unquestioned relationship between furniture and objects”.