Calling Collectible

This weekend, contemporary art is headed to midtown, and design is going downtown. While the Armory Show is having its own international showcase at the Javits Center, the Brussels design fair Collectible is concurrently making its New York debut at Water Street Projects, an emerging contemporary arts and cultural space located inside the historic, 31-story-high Water Street Associates (WSA) building. For the past seven years, the fair has brought together contemporary designers, design studios, galleries, curators, and brands to Belgium’s capital. Now for its inaugural U.S. exhibition, the fair collates American and European sensibilities, creating a new, transatlantic space for contemporary, collectible design.

The fair will divide over 100 exhibitors into eight sections throughout the sprawling, concrete, 50,000-square-foot loft space overlooking the Brooklyn Bridge and East River. One grouping juxtaposes pieces from the ‘80s and ‘90s with contemporary pieces, while another asks independent design studios to each select one piece of work inspired by Frank O’Hara’s 1960 poem Having a Coke With You. Another presentation pairs architects and interior designers whose own furniture lines developed out of their respective practices. Elsewhere, exterior furniture is staged in a conceptual garden.

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In the fair’s main section, the Antwerp-based design store and gallery St Vincents presents its first U.S. presentation. The international booth, curated by San Francisco-based designer Michael Hilal, features pieces from the gallery’s international collaborators, including Cologne-based Studio Kuhlmann and Mexico City-based EWE studios. Hilal additionally features American designers, including Brian Thoreen, as well as items from his own Big Sur furniture collection—the latter features a modular sofa, integrated side tables, stools, and totems that reflect the sloping silhouette and undulating hills of California’s landscape. 

Another anticipated presentation is that of the up-and-coming Emma Scully Gallery, plus more by those based in New York such as the inventive Greek architect and designer Kiki Goti, Mexican architect and designer Leonardo Garza, and the sensitive French architect and ceramicist Celina Salomon. Each signals a new wave of contemporary, collectible design in the city—and Collectible is at once riding and propelling this moment. Designers and gallerists like those aforementioned, events like Collectible, and even spaces like WSA are shifting New York’s once stuffy and predictable contemporary design scene into a new gear.

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The Collectible design fair will take place at Water Street Projects in the WSA Building from September 5 to 8, 2024 at 161 Water Street, New York, NY 10038.