After a fourth online edition in 2021, the Collectible show, welcoming the cream of exceptional and emerging international design, made its big comeback between May 20 and 22, at the Vanderborght space. Focus on a dozen pieces, publishing houses, designers or galleries that now make this annual meeting an unmissable event in the sector.
Since 2018, the two founders Clélie Debehault and Liv Vaisberg have been working to make Collectible a platform that promotes the creation of collectible design, through recognized or future designers. “Collectible is more than a fair, it’s a community of actors who come together in a kind of Summer Camp,” emphasizes Liv Vaisberg. This year, more than 100 international participants – galleries, design studios, institutions or renowned houses – took part in the edition placed under the sign of renewal. Indeed, the event has a new section The Editors, bringing together prospective and niche publishing houses, next to Main, section dedicated to design represented in galleries and Bespoke, favoring noble, rare materials and craftsmanship reviewed by independent designers. As for Curated, dedicated to emerging or independent designers and studios, it was designed this year by collector and design curator Berry Dijkstra who imagined Escapism , an exhibition rethinking forms and materials. “I wanted to invite the public to travel outside of reality and transport them to an ethereal, utopian, whimsical world, through shapes and objects,” notes the Dutch curator. In this delightful context, an anthology of a few pieces or notable designers.
Section Main
Sur le stand de la galerie belge Maniera, éditant des objets aux confins de l’architecture, du design et de l’art, le designer autrichien Lukas Gschwandtner présente une chaise qui s’appréhende comme un vêtement de cuir, avec une longue écharpe à franges, modulable. Issu du monde de la couture, il s’intéresse au problème d’échelle, au corps, et étudie particulièrement la façon dont un meuble va s’approprier le langage corporel. Une vision du siège à la fois luxueuse et humaine, à travers des formes rappelant des accessoires que l’on porte très fréquemment sur soi.
The Barcelona gallery presents, among other pieces, Game of synchronocity by StudioPepe, a Milanese design and architecture agency, whose works, often poetic, have a strong iconographic identity. This table is inspired by the philosophy of Carl Gustav Jung, defending the existence of hidden connections between unrelated phenomena. First, its user thinks of an idea, a question or a personal fact. Then, he rolls twice a small metal ball which will stop on a part of the board where a thought is engraved, like an answer to his question. Answers that can sometimes be contradictory. An aesthetic, playful and philosophical object!
The stand of the Maria Karlova gallery in Amsterdam is one of those most noted for its pieces focusing on the value of materials and the pure aesthetics of forms. Known for his work from cardboard and scrap materials, the Czech designer Vadim Kibardin presents for the first time Black Mirror, a new capsule collection comprising a chair and a dressing table made from recycled paper. Its objects with organic design and deep black colors therefore explore the practice of reuse and contribute to the establishment of a circular economy. Jesse Visser Designprojects is a Dutch design agency, specializing in furniture and lighting appealing to many senses. As sober as it is poetic, the Beacon of Light piece consists of a luminous sphere in sandblasted glass, connected to a stone – a unique rock, created by nature – by a cord suspended from a pulley. Does it evoke this fragile point of balance to be reached in our uncertain world? By partly using essential, raw, natural materials, Beacon of Light highlights the rich range of materials, ready to be used, that nature makes available to man, and stimulates the viewer’s serenity.
To create the group Objects with Narratives, two young entrepreneurs-designers from Brussels were inspired by the surrealist painter René Magritte. “For him, painting was […] a way to tell fascinating stories, just like collection design is for us,” explains the collective. As the word “surreal” suggests, the works go beyond their formal reality and demand a second reading […]. » On the stand, two environments – one nocturnal and organic, with blue and pink colors, the other more luminous and radiant, with red and bronze colors – face each other. “Two unique spaces that stimulate each other and end up merging into a single surreal experience. Among the pieces, among others from Supertoys Supertoys, Laurids Gallée, Pietro Franceschini, Sabourin Costes, that of the German designer Lukas Cober evokes the power of the ocean. New Wave Side Table Liquid deploys its oblong lines made from cast and sculpted resin, in order to obtain its final polished shape, all in transparency.
Section Bespoke
Le jeune créateur français Leo Orta imagine des « œuvres d’art fonctionnelles », aux formes hybrides rappelant étrangement celles des humains et des végétaux et quelque peu surréalistes. Son ensemble est composé d’une table basse à deux plateaux et de deux chaises en fibre de verre, aux couleurs acidulées. « Le titre de cet ensemble est inspiré des propos du psychiatre Serge Tisseron dans son livre « Le jour où mon robot m’aimera », explique-t-il. Celui-ci évoque nos relations avec les machines, les robots et l‘intelligence artificielle. Avec certains objets, nous créons des liens affectifs. […] Grâce à ces liens, certains meubles nous permettent de ne pas avoir à rentrer dans une « surconsommation » du produit. »
Created in 2022, the Heim + Viladrich office was born from the association of Lauriane Heim and Johan Viladrich, Dutch designers with sensual, direct and uncompromising design. For their first participation in a fair, they are presenting AIRE 75 , a set of objects and furniture inspired by a motorway service area. “These always different and yet always identical places have inspired us seven works, explains Lauriane Heim. Having recently moved from Rotterdam to Montpellier, we decided to pay homage to the inglorious objects encountered along the A75, to reach the south of France. The materials and dimensions of the picnic tables, ashtrays and benches have been swept, stretched and transformed, in order to generate familiar and unexpected pieces. » Objects often of a single material, displaying joints and structures. Note their raw stainless steel mirror, worked in such a way as to recall the image of fog in cars…
The Antwerp stone-cutting studio Studio DO, founded by jewelery designer Dana Seachugan and artist Octave Vandeweghe, analyzes the material and cultural role of gems. Their Gemma ex Lapide collection demonstrates the strength of the mineral used as a fundamental material and as a support for their multiple ornaments… Intervening in an almost minimalist way on the stone, they extract the traditional form linked to the jewel and its function. A delicate and innovative vision of the gem, as well as the use value of the object, highlighting the simplicity and the essential nature of the material-support to be exhibited. Studio DO, a jewel to wear, a stone to display!
Section The Editors
Créé en 2019 par le designer Clément Rougelot et le jeune entrepreneur Kevin Dolci, 13Desserts est un label français original et visionnaire. Sur leur stand, le luminaire rouge Venus de Sophia Taillet interpelle par le détournement de la technique de la cive, utilisée pour la création de vitraux contemporains. « Entre surface onduleuse et courbe voluptueuse, Venus est un luminaire en verre soufflé explorant les techniques traditionnelles du verre en fusion, explique-t-elle. En suspension, sa forme organique et gracieuse révèle une légèreté visuelle qui illumine l’espace. » En outre, Venus interroge l‘usage d’un verre aux antipodes de sa fonction. À tout moment, la cive ainsi courbée, à l’allure étrangement molle, semble basculer de part et d’autre du néon lumineux.
The second collection of the French house Theoreme Editions , Collection 02, brings together pieces from ten designers such as, among others, SCMP Design Office, General Services, Adrien Messié, Victoria Wilmotte or Wendy Andreu, who have collaborated with European craftsmen. On the stand mixing scenography in acid pop colors and pieces with pure lines, often geometric, Maze Mirror by Wendy Andreu is a long mirror designed by Italian craftsmen. It looks like a mineral monolith, except that it is made up of smoked glass panels and mirrors. A “mirror-sculpture” that allows you to see without really being seen, playing on reflections and perspectives.
À l’espace Vanderborght, Collectible 2022 a tenu toutes ses promesses, offrant une belle visibilité à un design visionnaire, parfois radical, entre art architecture et design. Et confirmé sa place de choix au sein du Design contemporain et de son marché.
Virginie Chuimer-Layen
