Jan 31–Feb 02, 2025

516 W 26th Street
New York, NY
10001

Exhibitor

Catalog Projects assembled a collection of twelve works, partially pictured below, focused on American Country and Vernacular furniture and objects with precocious, clean, and artful forms, drawing the throughline directly to Modernism, Minimalism, and Abstract Expressionism.

Following text courtesy of Nameless Art Show:

The second annual Nameless Art + Design Show opens during New York Antiques Week as the only art fair dedicated exclusively to American self-taught art by unknown creators. Curated by two dozen art and antiques dealers from around the country, Nameless presents examples of visionary outsider art and folk art as well as vernacular design to include functional objects, furniture, lighting,and textiles, with pieces spanning American history, from the 17th to the mid-20th century.Championing the anonymous artist, Nameless challenges an arts establishment that devalues extraordinary art for lack of a signature. Driven by homegrown creativity and liberated from the constraints of conventional design, “nameless” self-taught artists of decades and centuries past often worked in obscurity, with many lacking access to formal training and recognition due to their race, gender, disability, or class. Today, their legacies more often than not take the form of singular, unsigned works of art, the best of which thwart categorization and disrupt mainstream narratives. Nameless aims to invert the market and institutional forces that continue to discount and neglect this remarkable unidentified material while inspiring collectors to engage it with fresh eyes. Celebrating works made for the joy of creative expression as well as those created out of necessity, Nameless broadens the story of American art through surfacing discoveries, opening paths for scholarship, and honoring the genius of countless individuals whose names are forever lost to time.

May 19–27, 2023

5 Chatham Square
New York, NY
10038

Co-curated with Marta

Marta and Catalog Projects are pleased to present Make–Do, an exhibition of twenty-four historic and contemporary ad-hoc chairs, held in alignment with NYC×Design. This selection of improvised chair typologies surveys twelve works curated by Catalog Projects, placed in dialogue with a dozen works from contemporary practices, each of whom fabricated their entries in response to the following brief: Make a Chair in Three Days.

Day 1 — Identify & Gather Material
Day 2 — Design & Plan
Day 3 — Craft & Assemble

The proposed schedule emphasizes the primary components of making-do, the verbiage of which suggests the simultaneous expression of Place, Time, and Know-How—the submission to what is at-hand. Catalog Projects' selections revel in spontaneous necessity: a seat of tires assembled by employees at an auto body shop; a swag of worn carpet, suspended over a slatted wood frame, discovered in a rug warehouse—each represents an idiosyncratic respite of a moment off-the-clock.

The effortless intuition of these pieces, and their development from non-active sourcing, is reflected back through a seamless integration with the works produced by the artists invited to participate in this exhibition, all of whom are based in New York City. As a place that often demands ad-hoc living—spatial, financial, infrastructural—of its denizens, the essence of the ‘brief’ is particularly germane, and serves as a reminder that limitation, within reason, can be a deep well from which to draw focus and inspiration.

Shaina Tabak has fabricated her chair from the surplus wood and metal components of a variety of previously-realized projects, developing a seated work that stands with the subtle gravity and metallic brilliance of a medieval sentry. Similarly, the invitation to Chen Chen & Kai Williams to produce a make-do perch coincided with a studio move, providing ample opportunity for the duo to unearth material from past projects (some dating as far back as 2014). Their chair, a jaunty construction of wood, steel, and woven plastic bags, culminates in an asymmetrical, brightly-pigmented structure seemingly on the verge of animation. Sarah Burns continues to explore near-extinct furniture typologies with distinct references to Americana, fabricating a slipper chair that foils soft materials, such as pillows and a sheepskin, within more emphatic structures of rope and thickly-hewn slabs of pine.

Each of these twenty-four chairs, regardless of origin, represents deliberate construction. They are reclamations of the throne; vessels for the body and a mirror image of their maker; and bridges over the gap between the made and the crafted, amongst which we may wander and, ultimately, rest.

12 Contemporary Ad-Hoc Chairs from — Joseph Algieri, Samuel Brockman, Sarah Burns, Chen Chen & Kai Williams, Miles Huston, Sebastijan Jemec & Georgia McGovern, Minjae Kim, Nifemi Ogunro, Isabel Rower, Shaina Tabak, Brendan Timmins, and Kristen Wentrcek & Andrew Zebulon

12 Historical Ad-Hoc Chairs from — Anonymous (Berks County, PA), Anonymous (Berkshire County, MA), Anonymous (Bucks County, PA), Anonymous (Coos County, NH), Anonymous (Inyo County, CA), Anonymous (Kennebec County, ME), Anonymous (Kings County, NY), Anonymous (Lincoln County, ME), Anonymous (Middlesex County, MA), Anonymous (San Bernardino County, CA), Anonymous (Spartanburg County, SC), Anonymous (Ulster County, NY)

Above text courtesy of Marta.

Exhibition scenography and location scouting by Office Cat Snodgrass. Exhibition concept and historical curation by Catalog Projects. Historical chairs sourced by Avi Kovacevich (Principal, Catalog Projects), Derek Magnette, Eric Oglander, and John Radtke.

Musical performance by Tamio Shiraishi

View press coverage of Make–Do via Architectural Digest, Architectural Record, Dezeen, Dwell, Interior Design, New York Magazine / Curbed, The New York Times, Sight Unseen, and Wallpaper*

(Catalog Projects FKA Catalog Sale at time of this exhibition.)

"If necessity is one mother of invention, constraint is another. "Make–Do," a pop-up exhibition in Chinatown organized by Catalog Projects and the Los Angeles gallery Marta, offered a tongue-in-cheek paean to improvisation and instinct.

Avi Kovacevich, founder of Catalog Projects, curated 12 idiosyncratic chairs – objects made from carpet, car tires and wheelbarrow parts – alongside new commissions from a dozen New York designers, including Minjae Kim and Nifemi Ogunro, who were tasked with creating a new chair in three days.

"The spirit of 'just try it' is the most important aspect of this," Kovacevich said. "The Final product is the sketch and the prototype and the adjustments, all at once."

Aileen Kwun for The New York Times
Jun 02, 2023