The New Figuration. Curated By Glenn Adamson

“Design is inherently figurative. After all, chairs have arms, legs, a back and seat. Yet this potential has remained largely implicit in modern or contemporary design.” — Glenn Adamson

Friedman Benda is pleased to present The New Figuration, curated by Glenn Adamson. Including works by seven contemporary practitioners, the exhibition considers the current propulsion towards figurative representation in design, and more broadly, probes the mode’s sudden pressing relevance – a phenomenon paralleled in contemporaneous painting and sculpture.

The New Figuration is the second in a series of programmatic explorations of key developments in contemporary design curated by Adamson at Friedman Benda. Following the exhibition “A New Realism” (2021), which considered materially-intensive pragmatism as a working strategy, The New Figuration showcases positions whose formal and conceptual concerns are resolved through figural means. Apart from a few forebears, such as Nicola L and Gaetano Pesce, anthropomorphism has been a rare presence in design history, until now.