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Better known as a dynamic and unconventional designer whose eponymous fashion label has attracted a remarkable cult following, Rick Owens emerged in 2007 as a new and considerable talent in furniture design. Jason Jacques’ booth at TEFAF 2016 provides the last opportunity to acquire four rare proofs of Owens’ first truly iconic and most recognizable furniture design, the Stag Benches. Three variations on Owens’ ox bone benches will also be available. Moving beyond mere function, these highly collectible works are monuments to radical design and to artisanal craftsmanship.
For TEFAF 2016, Owens has collaborated with Jason Jacques Inc. to curate a booth combining his own extraordinary furniture designs with the work of artists Adrien Dalpayrat and Huma Bhabha. Owens’ love of French high-fire stoneware such as Dalpayrat’s and the presence of Bhabha’s haunting works in his own private collection make these two artists perfect pairings for the designer’s unique and impactful furniture.
A catalogue with essays by Etienne Tornier and Paul Arthur will accompany the collection.
Adrien Dalpayrat (1844-1910) began his career as a faïence painter, working at six manufactories between 1867 and 1888 before settling near Paris in 1889. There he devoted himself to stoneware, a material then held in high esteem by French art potters. Working alone and with collaborators, Dalpayrat produced a vast range of shapes and decorations. He was so well known for his oxblood flambé pottery that the term "Dalpayrat red" was coined to designate his distinctive glaze. Perfected in 1892, it is dappled or veined with greens, blues and yellows, and appears on pieces in the form of gourds, fruits, and shapes derived from Japanese bottles.
Huma Bhabha (b.1962), born in Karachi, Pakistan, is known for using found materials like Styrofoam and animal bones to create haunting sculptural figures. These works tend toward the grotesque, as they often contain unsettling depictions of distorted or dismembered human bodies. Despite the macabre nature of her work, however, Bhabha has been said to create “monuments to human life,” by creating juxtapositions between her representations and the detritus they are composed of and surrounded by. Her work is both primitive and contemporary, looking simultaneously forward and back.
Rick Owens (b.1961) began his fashion label in Los Angeles in 1994. Moving to France in 2002, he has been showing sculptural ready-to-wear for men and women on the Paris runway ever since. Known for an anti-conventional aesthetic, his shows have gained recognition for breaking conventions of race, gender, body size and runway show format. He is a recipient of the Council of Fashion Designers of America’s Emerging Talent Award, the Cooper-Hewitt’s National Design Award and the Fashion Group International’s Rule Breaking Award. Since 2006 he has been presenting a collection of monolithic furniture produced in collaboration with his life partner, artist Michele Lamy.
