A CONCRETE POETRY: CABINETS (&MORE) IN CAST CONCRETE

The gallery presents a new collection of cabinets in concrete by the artists Stefan Buxbaum (Austria) and Franz Ferro (Austria). The cupboards of Buxbaum—a casting and concrete expert—are technical feats: the corpus is cast in one piece, in a lightweight technique. For his emblematic plant models, the artist applies his chosen specimens and petrifies those paragons of beauty as permanent reliefs on the surface. Lava and fossil-like structures can also be found eternalized in those furniture works. The pieces perfectly blend into the overgrown and deserted concrete beauty and ruin aesthetic of the Alcova venue which shows magnificently (and reassuringly) how the power of nature takes over when left alone. Being cast into a timeless state for eternity, the beauty of nature becomes particularly manifest, the finesse of the plant-world truly obvious. The chaste hardness of concrete highlights the fragile vivacity and tenderness of plant specimens. There is a technical sophistication inherent in his work, which has its own melody and adds a new lightness and aesthetic to the gravity of the material. Franz Ferro is an artist and maker. He is collaborating with Stefan Buxbaum while sharing workshops and expertise. Ferro will show his new concrete desk, an elegant piece of “stone,” perfect to get immersed in one's tasks. The desk distinguishes itself through its pure form where a simple concrete volume carries the wood. Together the two materials form a seamless natural serenity.

Marion Friedmann Gallery/London launched in 2011 as a nomadic gallery for collectible design, craft, and material culture. Friedmann is an established ambassador for promoting exceptional—frequently overlooked— Mexican and Latin American design talent. The gallery merges a penchant for the avant-garde with a passion for celebrating and promoting the most remarkable emerging and established contemporary designers. Seeking significant narratives in creation and objects, it has a passion for material culture, remarkable raw materials, and techniques, unique ideas, artisan-designer collaborations, contemporary craft, sustainable thinking, and social design. The gallery has been at the forefront of discovering talents and nourishing cross-cultural exchange and knowledge transfer since its inception.