Welcome to The Buzz, our monthly roundup of design world news and inspiration for Design Miami’s discerning community of creatives and collectors. Enjoy!

Gareth Mason at Jason Jacques

Acclaimed British ceramist Gareth Mason’s latest show at Jason Jacques Gallery in New York celebrates the un-tamability of the artist’s chosen medium. Wild Clay features a selection of Mason’s expressive, sculptural vessels—complex pieces, rich in form and texture, seductively wearing bits of wild clay alongside repurposed shards of pottery and droplets of gold luster. On view til August 14th.

“We love glittering things brought into being by forces beyond our ken. We want to bear witness and to know awe. Clay has this potential in spades.”—Gareth Mason

Nanda Vigo at MADD Bordeaux

MADD Bordeaux presents The Inner Space, an exhibition honoring the late, radical Italian artist, designer, and architect Nanda Vigo. Known for avant garde work marked by strong geometries, often elevated by light, the pioneering Vigo built her career around the idea of transcending the physical limits of space. This immersive exhibition features several important, reconstructed historic environments and installations as well as scenography that plays—in the spirit of Vigo—with artificial and natural light. The aim is to give visitors not just a chronological overview of her work but rather, as organizers note, to let audiences “see, perceive and feel all the dimensions of Nanda Vigo’s artistic creation…an experience that allows the audience to live the unframed dimension of her work.” On view through January 8, 2023.

“To confine our attention to terrestrial matters would be to limit the human spirit.”  —Nanda Vigo

On the Axis at Ippodo Gallery

New York’s Ippodo Gallery presents On the Axis, the gallery’s first dual exhibition, featuring work by two Japanese artists fascinated by the axes of time—glass artist Kota Arinaga and porcelain ceramist Kiyoko Morioka. Arinaga’s colorful pieces are marked by intricate, thread-like patterns, reflecting on the legacy of glasswork over the centuries while also embracing the immediacy of his craft. Morioka’s signature gray, ombre works, meanwhile, are inspired by the sky above Kanazawa City, where she was raised—a sky that seemed constant while she herself grew and changed—and her pieces evoke the comfort and warmth she experienced under those clouds.  Until August 25th.

Wedding Anniversary at Friedman Benda

Next week, Friedman Benda’s LA outpost opens Wedding Anniversary, an exhibition featuring work by ceramicist Candice Romanelli and multidisciplinary creative director Darren Romanelli. The show examines the LA-based husband and wife’s individual practices as well as their collaboration as creative partners—and, in particular, the impact of the couple converting their Los Feliz home into a shared studio space during the pandemic, and how working closely side-by-side has affected each of their own approaches. Among other pieces, the show includes Candice’s largest works to date and her first lighting objects, as well as Darren’s signature quilted and upcycled seating. The exhibition opens on the duo’s 15 year wedding anniversary on August 11th, marking the couple’s fourth and most personal collaboration to date. On view until October 1st.

Patrick Bongoy at Southern Guild

This week, Southern Guild opens Unseen Dimensions of the Known, a solo show featuring work by South African-based, Congolese artist Patrick Bongoy. The exhibition includes sculpture, tapestries, painting, and site-specific installations in hessian and rubber. Bongoy upcycles stockpiles of industrial rubber (often the inner tubes of tires), and manually works the material—stitching, weaving, cutting, wrestling and manipulating—to transform it into various states of textile-like plasticity. His latest pieces continue to reflect on his native DRC’s past and present, while also considering the broader human condition, inquiring into our personal and collective liberation and purpose. Open ’til September 29th

Celebrating 20 Years of Ornamentum!

Now through August 27th: In honor of its 20th anniversary, Hudson, New York’s Ornamentum—a lauded gallery specializing in contemporary jewelry and related objects and artworks—presents a special exhibition featuring standouts from across the years by several artists, including the likes of Lisa Walker, Jaydan Moore, and Aaron Decker, complemented by stories and images behind the work and/or the relationships between the makers and the gallery.

Ornamentum’s aim has always been to present work by exceptional contemporary studio jewelry makers on par with the world of collectible art and design. Looking back on the past two decades, Co-Directors Laura Lapachin and Stefan Friedemann—partners in life and work—tell us: “Our proudest achievement has been to have put a niche field with a limited collector base into a much stronger and recognized position, and making collectors out of important clients that were previously unaware of the type of work—both jewelry and artworks—that we represent. With our exhibitions, especially at Design Miami/, we believe we’ve set the bar higher, and it is being reflected in museum interest, auction and aftermarket sales, and of course growing clientele.”

Congratulations to the entire Ornamentum team!

“Looking back, if we’ve learned anything, it’s to just go with the flow. There are things that are out of our control, but if we just keep forging ahead, focusing on quality and our relationships with the artists and our collectors,  it will keep building.” —Stefan Friedemann, Ornamentum