Raphael Navot On the Same Subject
Raphael Navot: On the Same Subject
by Glenn AdamsonThe first piece of furniture, presumably, was a rock. Or maybe a fallen tree. Something to rest on, for our primordial ancestors. Then it stayed that way, for almost the entire time that humans have been on earth. Only in the past few thousand years have we collectively applied our technological, aesthetic, and (most recently) conceptual gifts to the task of holding ourselves up off the ground.
Raphael Navot goes back, back, back to this deep source, and brings it into contact with the present day. The forms that he has given us may seem naïve at first. Give a few pebbles to a child, ask them to come up with a “chair” or a “sofa,” and they might create something very similar.
Look closer, though, and you’ll see extraordinary nuance. It’s in the precision of the contours, the way the shapes meet one another, the floor, and the body. It’s in the craftsmanship of the upholstery and the finishing. Above all it’s in the materials: 3D-printed foam surfaced in a thin, patinated shell of projected bronze, creating the impression of a solid metal volume, but at a fraction of the weight; cast resin in a deep red, which Navot likens to the “blood of a tree.”
Having been made, skipped like smooth stones across the currents of design history, these objects will tumble forward in time, accruing a physical patina and the psychic overlay of long use. Yet they will retain the connection that Navot has given them, to the very origins of human need. Design has evolved so much since, and will continue to do so. But it’s always been the same subject.
Acrostic (Compass), 2021
Oak, silk, cashmere
31.5 x 112 x 38.25 inches 80 x 284 x 97 cm Edition of 8
Acrostic (Disperse), 2021 Cashmere, silk, oak 31 x 126.75 x 37.5 inches 79 x 322 x 95 cm Edition of 8
Acrostic Ottoman, 2021 Cashmere, silk, oak 16.25 x 28.5 x 23.25 inches 41 x 72.6 x 59 cm
Quartet Chair 2022
Oak, velvet
29.5 x 26.25 x 25.5 inches 75 x 66.5 x 65 cm
Quartet Chair 2022
Oak, velvet
29.5 x 26.25 x 25.5 inches 75 x 66.5 x 65 cm
Threefold (Right), 2022 Cast concrete, velvet 30.50 x 36.50 x 31 inches 77.5 x 92.7 x 78.7 cm Edition of 8
Clast (Stream), 2022
Bronze, 3D-milled foam
15.5 x 70 x 33.25 inches
40 x 178 x 85 cm
Edition of 8
Clast (Translucent Stream), 2022
Non-toxic resin
15.5 x 68.25 x 28.75 inches 40 x 174 x 73 cm Edition of 3
Entwined, 2022
Velvet, bronze, fiberglass, 3D-milled foam 36.75 x 152 x 56.25 inches 93 x 386 x 143 cm Edition of 8
Knots Bench, 2021
Oak
18.25 x 82.75 x 17 inches 46.5 x 210 x 43 cm
Edition of 8
Menhir Lamp (Large), 2022 Fiberglass, Zappala fossil
64.75 x 17.5 x 15 inches 165 x 45 x 38 cm
Menhir Lamp (Medium), 2022 Fiberglass, Zappala fossil
38.25 x 17.75 x 15.75 inches 97 x 45 x 40 cm
Pi, 2022
Bronze, 3D-milled foam 22.75 x 29.25 x 20.5 inches 58 x 74 x 52 cm
Edition of 8
