Tom Dixon - Design New York Wednesday, July 29, 2020 | Phillips

Design

New York Auction 29 July 2020

  • Provenance

    Chantal Coady, London

  • Literature

    Michael Collins, Tom Dixon, London, 1990, pp. 90-91 for similar examples
    Gareth Williams and Nick Wright, Cut and Shut: The History of Creative Salvage, London, 2012, pp. 102-03 for a similar example
    Tom Dixon, Dixonary: Illuminations, revelations and post-rationalizations from a chaotic mind, London, 2013, p. 41 for a similar example

  • Catalogue Essay

    Creative Salvage was the collective name for the ad-hoc movement started by designers Tom Dixon, Mark Brazier Jones, Nick Jones and André Dubreuil in 1985. Creative Salvage emphasized a “punk” approach to interior and industrial design, an ethos and aesthetic achieved by welding recycled scrap metal to create sculptural artifact-like objects, born out of the detritus of the urban landscape. Creative Salvage held just three exhibitions, and the creations of the designers, intentionally meant to appear unskilled and underground, were showcased in London’s club and party scene of the 1980s.

    The present lot is from the collection of chocolatier Chantal Coady, Tom Dixon’s first patron. Coady became acquainted with Dixon through Creative Salvage and was attracted to his work’s “raw energy and anarchic quality.” Shortly thereafter she commissioned Dixon to outfit the interior of her confectionery Rococo Chocolates in London, transforming it from a candy shop to a Salon de Thé and gallery space to showcase the work of the designers from Creative Salvage. Despite being furnished in work that Coady described as “neither safe nor comfortable to sit on” the Salon drew crowds and attention, marking it a success.

44

Tom Dixon

Unique "Concrete Reinforcement Rod Chair"

circa 1985
Steel, rubber.
25 1/2 x 20 1/4 x 22 1/2 in. (64.8 x 51.4 x 57.2 cm)
Executed for Creative Salvage, London, United Kingdom.

Estimate
$5,000 - 7,000 

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Design

New York Auction 29 July 2020