OnOffice

150

Spotlight

FRAGILE:

Spotlight

Spring 2023

Spring 2023

151

words by sarah forman

MATERIAL, INDUSTRY

A

Far from the demands of mass furniture production, Swedish designer Alexander Lervik has set up a new gallery to show objects that are completely unique

Photography: Helén PE

AND OBJECTS

lexander Lervik is a well-known name in the Scandinavian creative community. Recognised globally for his international collaborations and innovative product design, his expansive practice ranges from concept development and photography, installation and invention, to other investigative exploits. His gallery based in Stockholm – Unikat Gallery – sits among these interests, in what Lervik refers to as “a smaller platform to investigate the borderland between art and design”. In contrast with the high volume, mass production expectations of many larger industry players, all works shown at Unikat are completely unique – furniture, objects of use, objects of beauty that exist alone and unto themselves, never to be produced at a scale other than intimate and intentional. One of his latest exhibitions, Fragile, comprises two pieces of furniture: the table Fragile Opposites and the chair Fragile Senses. Each is made of glass and Italian granite, in a balancing of surface, texture and weight that bears an elegant but unsettling quality. Lervik sees the objects as “a metaphor for our strange reality, where the fate of the entire world depends on thin fragile agreements between countries”, but it’s difficult to square the severity of the subject matter with the beauty of the works themselves. In Fragile Opposites, the upper and

Glass and Italian

Alexander Lervik:

granite are contrasted

exploring the borderland

in Fragile Senses

between art and design

152

Spotlight

Spring 2023

The two glass planes of

The glass base adds

Fragile Senses reflect

ethereal colour to

and refract the light

Fragile Opposites

“A metaphor for our strange reality, where the fate of the entire world depends on thin fragile agreements between countries”

lower surfaces of the 400kg boulder are polished and smooth – its coarse, angled, uncut body an artefact of its original form. The trim glass base with almost iridescent film looks like an inversion of the northern lights, a slim band of light beneath a mammoth piece of stone. In Fragile Senses, the glass back of the chair cuts into the granite base, an angular, worked piece of stone chosen for its veining. Here the parts are in negotiation with each other, leveraging each of their properties to create an object that reflects and refracts. The filmed glass throws squares of angled colour across the room, changing itself and its surrounding environment depending on the light. From pink to blue to yellow, it brings the celestial earthbound through in a geometric light show that paints the walls and floors that house it. Innovation and sustainability are at the heart of Lervik’s practice and moving from large-scale production to object-focused making through partnerships with material experts is at the forefront of Fragile. “I have a responsibility as a designer to bring that into the industry,” he says, reflecting on the glassmakers and granite polishers that worked with him in bringing these objects to life. Investing in those with the skills to develop new material technologies has become an integral part of his design practice, and creative practice, in just one of the many ways Lervik continues to thrive in the borderland between them.