interview: marc newson on his blue and white designs at gagosian athens

MARC NEWSON EXHIBITION AT GAGOSIAN ATHENS

Marc Newson’s first solo exhibition in Greece takes place at Gagosian Athens with a presentation of new limited-edition furniture. On view now and until January 7, 2023, the exhibition brings together works featuring a palette of blues and white as a tribute to the nation’s traditional colors. ‘Everything in the exhibition is blue and white, which is my homage to Greece,’ Newson tells designboom during the opening. The show features a new cloisonné chair and lounge (see previous editions here), whose copper bodies are ornamented with circle and molecular ‘orgone’ motifs. ‘It’s a crazy technique, and like anything with glass it’s a kind of alchemy because you never really know if it’s going to work or not,’ the designer notes. His employment of the ancient technique of cloisonné recalls his early days of training as a jeweler, when he first had the chance to work with it. ‘Like a lot of things, it has always been at the back of my mind, subconsciously thinking that it would be really nice to do something with it, and I guess I finally developed the confidence,’ he explains.

The exhibition in Athens includes Newson’s cast glass and Murrina works, such as Blue Glass Coffee Table (2022) and Blue Glass Chair (2017). Extruded Ribbon Console (2022), a new addition to his series of extruded chairs, consoles, and tables, is presented here for the first time. The console’s dynamic form is carved from a single piece of Azul Macaubas stone. The show also features Newson’s surfboards in blue (2015–16) and uncolored (2017) aluminum, hightech designs that began as a prototype for surfer Garrett McNamara. Finally, his sculptural Blue Hourglass (2022), produced in Basel, complements the negotiation of history and innovation that undergirds the exhibition. Handblown from a single piece of borosilicate glass, it is filled with millions of minute blue steel nanoballs, precisely engineered through a unique process of heat treatment in collaboration with Swiss watch manufacturer De Bethune. To find out more about the works on view, designboom spoke with Marc Newson during the exhibition’s opening. Read our conversation in full below.

Portrait of Marc Newson, courtesy of Gagosian Gallery & Marc Newson Ltd

INTERVIEW WITH MARC NEWSON

designboom (DB): Is there a common theme tying all the exhibition pieces together?

Marc Newson (MN): It was a great opportunity for me to do something in Greece, which I always wanted to. Everything in the exhibition is blue and white, which is my homage to Greece and it works really well actually.

DB: The exhibition includes a new cloisonné chair and lounge. When was the first time you started working with the cloisonné technique? Is there anything new you’ve learned whilst working with it?

MN: The first time I presented cloisonné works was in 2019, but we started making the pieces four or five years before because it’s really difficult to do. It’s a skill which only exists in China, it was invented hundreds and hundreds of years ago. They still use it there but only for small things, they never made anything very big. The pieces that are exhibited here were completely impossible to make. Meanwhile most of the places doing this kind of work were somehow working with the government. So we had to find the right people and build our own factory. It took years to do that, even in China. This place is functioning now in outer Beijing.

Marc Newson, installation view, 2022 | all installation images by Paris Tavitian, courtesy Gagosian unless stated otherwise

(continued): Throughout those years we have perfected the technique, but it took a long time and many failures to get it right. The pieces improve and get better and better each time. It’s funny because I trained as a jeweler early in my career, and although I never intended to become one, it was a nice way to learn how to use materials and methods. One of the things you learn as a skill is cloisonné, but in a really small scale. Ever since then I’ve been fascinated by the technique. Like a lot of things, it has always been at the back of my mind, subconsciously thinking that it would be really nice to do something with it, and I guess I finally developed the confidence. It took many trips to China to do the research and meet the right people. It was a very long and difficult process, and I like difficult things.

Cloisonné White and Blue Chair

DB: What is the process behind making these pieces?

MN: Everything is done by hand. The body is made of copper, and then for the enamelling they put into an oven. They do that nine times because all the different colors have different melting points. So you put it in once and one color melts, and then you take it out and put back in and so on. When it comes out of the oven it’s bright red and hot. It’s a crazy technique, and like anything with glass it’s a kind of alchemy because you never really know if it’s going to work or not. The failure is very high, for every piece that you see we’ve probably lost one.

DB: Can you tell me more about this extruded ribbon console? How did you decide on the marble?

MN: I’ve done a very similar piece before, which I presented at a previous exhibition in Gagosian but never in that material. It’s a piece which I love. I never knew blue marble existed actually. The stone comes from Brazil but I found the piece in Italy with one of the factories that I work with. We had to search and search and eventually we were able to find it. Its pattern is all natural and it even has this ‘eye’ shape there, as a sort of nod to to Greece and its evil eye.

cloisonné chair making process | courtesy of Gagosian Gallery & Marc Newson Ltd

DB: What about the new Murrina table?

MN: I have all of these processes and techniques which I have developed, and that table is made through a crazy process called Murrina technique. It’s a Venetian way to fuse glass together. Unfortunately I couldn’t do it in Italy because they couldn’t do anything bigger than a plate, but I worked with some fantastic people in the Czech Republic, which is where that glass is made. I now have a lot of expertise making these things and I want to continue, I don’t want to just make one thing and then stop. With the cloisonné for example, I’ve done some editions for the previous exhibition in 2019 and we still haven’t delivered some of the pieces because they take so long to make. It takes about year to make one of them, thankfully we have some very patient collectors! But somehow it’s also nice because the factory is constantly working and producing works.

Extruded Ribbon Console (left) and aluminum Surfboard (right)

Quobus modular display unit (more about it here) and Extruded Ribbon Console

Marc Newson, Extruded Ribbon Console, 2022 | Azul macaubas | 90 9/16 x 29 1/2 x 15 3/4 in / 230 x 75 x 40 cm | Edition of 3 + 2 AP © Marc Newson | photo: Paris Tavitian, courtesy Gagosian