London designer Paul Cocksedge's first solo exhibition, at Friedman Benda in New York, features a table folded from a single sheet of steel (+ slideshow).
Paul Cocksedge's Capture exhibition at New York City's Friedman Benda gallery includes two new pieces by the designer.
The first is a table made from a curved Corten steel sheet, which balances on one end and curves back on itself to create the top.
The half-ton sheet folds at an angle so the top and base point in different directions.
His second new design is a large black domed lamp, which glows with a white light across the entire 1.6-metre-wide base.
Hand-spun from aluminium, the hemisphere is tilted to direct the light at an angle.
Capture opened last week and continues until 12 October. Also in New York, the retrospective on the life and work of Le Corbusier at MoMA finishes next week.
Photography is by Mark Cocksedge.
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More information from the gallery follows:
Paul Cocksedge: Capture
Friedman Benda will present Paul Cocksedge: Capture the British designer's inaugural solo exhibition, 12 September - 12 October 2013.
Capture will introduce new works developed by Cocksedge over the last four and half years that push the mediums of light and structure, including a large-scale light installation, a collection of dramatic, seemingly impossible, hand-wrought dome lamps, and Poised, a series of unyielding steel tables inspired by the delicacy of paper. Known for exploring the limits of technology, materials, and manufacturing capabilities, Paul Cocksedge Studio has produced both commercial and experimental work, as well as a series of high-profile public installations around the world. Capture finds Cocksedge presenting a new series of concepts informed by his studio’s commitment to technological ingenuity, expanding the boundaries of physics, and the creation of works that are both thought provoking and unexpected.
The works include Capture, a 1.6-metre hand-spun aluminium dome that appears to "hold" the peaceful glow of a warm white light. The piece is informed by a process of reduction - a recurring theme in Cocksedge's work - as it subtracts the typical infrastructure around light, instead creating a hemisphere that seems to stop light from escaping.
For White Light, Cocksedge will create a room within the gallery in which everything and nothing changes. For this work, the designer will create an illuminated mosaic of precisely calibrated and positioned coloured panels on the ceiling of the gallery. The ceiling will slowly fade from a spectrum of colours to a warm white light, while the room itself will remain unchanged, demonstrating the ways in which we do and do not perceive the interplay of colour and light.
The inspiration for Poised comes from the elegance and amenability of paper. Half a ton in weight, the steel table appears improbable upon investigation. Created following an intensive series of calculations regarding gravity, mass, and equilibrium, the table looks as though it is about to fall, but is perfectly weighted and stable.
In addition to these new works, Cocksedge will present three architectural models that take conceptual threads from Capture and White Light and reapply them to architectural settings outside of the gallery space. Central to Cocksedge's work is an appreciation for the ways in which people respond to and interact with his designs. As a result, potential real world applications of these new works will be explored in a series of architectural models.