Recently someone asked me what makes the work of London-based designers Fredrikson Stallard significant. Their designs are universally beautiful as their furniture pieces are flawless, minimalist in a contemporary way, and have the ability to transform interior spaces into a powerful visual experience. Their pieces are always ambitious, imaginative, and unexpected, whether you live with them or are simply observing them. However, there is more to their work. It is the brilliant eye for scale and proportions which attain their objects with a sense of elegance, setting them apart and bringing their objects to the highest level of contemporary design.
I have been following the work of this duo for two decades and have enjoyed witnessing the way in which they keep applying their established principles and defined taste to new collections. The new pieces of furniture presented in the duo’s current solo show titled Tomorrow at David Gill Gallery in London embody those principles. In the series, crafted in their signature materials (polished steel, acrylic, stone), they extract and summarize towering monolithic forms: solid, powerful, mass-like shapes that are clean and sharp, made of single materials.
Patrik Fredrikson and Ian Stallard began their celebrated career in the design/art field 25 years ago, just when the British avant-garde needed a new and fresh voices. They met as students at Central Saint Martins, founded their atelier in London, and were discovered by Gill. The first piece that I saw by them was a coffee table made of raw logs of birch wood held together with a steel belt called The Log Table. While the material is organic, personally handpicked in a forest in Kent, the way that the logs were placed together was an exercise in achieving precision and perfection while using organic elements found in nature. This table cemented the duo’s vision, which was then shaped and defined by their following pieces where they used materiality in unique and personal ways, like sofas crafted in sculpted sponge, tables cast in rubber, and tables and seats in clear acrylic that look like broken pieces of ice. The quest to distort the viewer’s imagery stands at the core of their work.
An art collector once told me that of all the pieces in his art collection presented on the walls of his home, it is Fredrikson Stallard’s coffee table in acrylic that ‘makes’ the home—constructing the experience while turning the interior from a typical home of a collector into an exquisite and memorable space, a dream home. One of the strengths of their pieces is that they look effortless, which is what makes them so elegant and simple, where the layers of effort are concealed like a Chanel Suit or a teapot by Christopher Dresser. You cannot read layers and the complexity of bringing those pieces to life. While there is a great sense of illusion, they are not playful, but as serious as a glass building by Mies. They are memorable and transformative but also integrated. They are fairy-tale-like objects which embody the energy of the materials because, to them, design is a form of performance, combining art, design, motion, and sensuality while simultaneously expressing a superb sense of style, which is present in their home and in the way they dress and carry themselves.
The exhibtion will be on view at David Gill Gallery through November 8th.