Simply Red at the Fabric Workshop

Lily deSaussure

Until April 28th the FWM is featuring a slice of modernist, sculptural, yet functional objects focused on the potent color red. They are displaying everything from tea services to radiators, radios, fans and phones to giant gushy chairs that look like they’ll swallow you whole (notably the Up 5 Chair and Up 6 Ottoman by renowned Italian designer, Gaetano Pesce).

Clean lines, elegant and slick forms, and also functional objects that behave like sculpture are highlights of Modernism’s effect on furniture, common household appliances and fixtures. Fortunately, you don’t always have to meander endlessly through a museum or dare to enter a high-end furniture gallery (where they watch you like a hawk) to find amazing modern, functional art. This is because wonderful places like the Fabric Workshop Museum exist.

The surge of Modernism was certainly not exclusive to painting as one will witness in most modern and contemporary art museums. Although, the furniture/functional art is usually neatly tucked away in some remote wing, jam-packed with stuff. Or you have to risk the wrath of the salesperson in a high-end furniture gallery if you so much as look at a piece the wrong way.

I am a red enthusiast and I have a bit of a thing for functional design objects, but how great is a coiled tubular radiator, painted in glossy red-orange that sits at painting height on the wall and takes up a third of the space of a regular radiator? The piece owns “damn cool”.

I highly recommend seeing Simply Red at the FWM – there is plenty of room to breathe in their exhibition and the theme is both innovative and, let’s face it, good to look at. If you cannot make it before the 28th of April, consider stopping by to browse their bookstore or their second gallery on the 6th floor that is currently housing a Will Stokes J.R. exhibition. Please note that they will be relocating in the near future.

For further information: www.fabricworkshopandmuseum.org