Imagine Noah’s Ark–that vast hull of creatures–as a menagerie of high-design objets placed throughout an extraordinarily appointed hôtel particulier in Paris’s Left Bank.
As it happens, such a scene is currently playing out at Design Miami.Paris—in Karl Lagerfeld’s former home, L’Hotel des Maisons, no less. There, fauna, some of it fantastical, is everywhere at this intimate, impressive show from the world’s leading design galleries. The motif is so prevalent, one almost feels like the gallerists coordinated, assembling a zoo's worth of highbrow faux creatures. Here, we unpack all of the animal motifs at the design fair, running through Sunday.
Natural Juxtapositions — At New York-based Hostler Burrows’s chamber, a solo installation by the artist Frida Fjellman combines wild boars and snakes with colorful geometric glass forms, including a striking, almost chunky chandelier meant to look like an oversized child’s keychain. Fjellman’s juxtaposition of the casual and the wild makes for a striking interchange; and a reminder that even as the world becomes increasingly big, brash, and pixelated, nature always lurks beneath it.