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Twenty-eight Leading International Design Galleries are set to Participate in Design Miami/ Basel 2008

Twenty-one Returning and Seven New Galleries Will Represent the Extraordinary Scope of Historic and Contemporary Design at Design Miami/ Basel - Switzerland / June 2 – 5, 2008.

Design Miami/ Basel, the premier global forum for collecting, exhibiting, discussing and creating limited-edition design, unites 28 of the world’s most illustrious design galleries to present the broadest scope of significant furniture and objects in the show’s three-year history. Each participating gallery has been chosen for its commitment to presenting highly curated exhibitions of historical and contemporary collectible design from an international roster of designers spanning six continents. Promising to draw an impressive audience of international collectors, critics, curators, designers and enthusiasts, the show will take place at the Markthalle, Viaduktstrasse 10, Basel, Switzerland and will be open to the public June 3-5, 2008 from 11:00am – 7:00pm.

Seven galleries will make their Design Miami/ debut this June, each adding a distinctive curatorial voice to the program. First time participants include: Carpenters Workshop Gallery (London); Galerie Eric Philippe (Paris); Galerie Dewindt (Brussels); Perimeter Editions (Paris); Galerie Pierre Marie Giraud (Brussels); VIVID Gallery (Rotterdam); and Yoshii Gallery (New York).

Carpenters Workshop Gallery aims to bring a new perspective to Design Miami/ Basel by focusing solely on cutting-edge design-art from the likes of Jurgen Bey, Atelier Van Lieshout and Pablo Reinoso. Specialising in contemporary ceramic, glass and objets d’art, Galerie Pierre Marie Giraud will bring unique, museum-quality pieces from European, American and Japanese artists.

VIVID Gallery has a strong relationship with the current generation of innovative Dutch designers, such as Hella Jongerius, Jurgen Bey, Richard Hutten, Wieki Somers, Studio Job, and Ineke Hans, and will bring a selection of their most recent work to Design Miami/ Basel.

Yoshii Gallery is committed to exploring the relationship between modern masters and oriental antiques, with an emphasis on work that merges the historical and the contemporary. Exemplifying this commitment, Yoshii Gallery will exhibit the distinctive white porcelain vessels of artist Taizo Kuroda, presented in a unique booth designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Tadao Ando.

Galerie Eric Philippe is dedicated to European and North American handcrafted furniture from the 1920s to the 1980s and will bring rare pieces by Jean Royère, Isamu Noguchi, Preben Fabricius, Frank Lloyd Wright, and George Nakashima.

Galerie Dewindt represents modernist and constructivist artists/designers of the 1920s. For Design Miami/ Basel, the gallery will show French designer Matali Crasset’s new limited-edition pieces alongside works by Andrea Branzi and Gerrit Rietveld in an environment inspired by Nana Ditzel, who designed the iconic suspended egg chair in wicker.

Perimeter Editions produces and promotes furniture and objects with a uniquely humanist angle, working closely with living designers of different generations—Janette Laverrière to Fíel dos Santos—to present sophisticated objects that reveal the philosopher and the artist in the designer.

Design Miami/ Basel’s returning 21 galleries exemplify, in the words of the dynamic Pearl Lam, “creativity in all forms.” Under Lam’s direction, Shanghai-based Contrasts Gallery will be returning for a third year with a collection of highly conceptual pieces by Studio Makkin & Bey, Maarten Baas and Shao Fan that are as narratively rich as they are aesthetically striking.

New York design scene veteran Murray Moss is bringing Moss Gallery to Basel for the first time. The gallery will present Studio Job’s Homework, a collection of domestic totems and tableaux consisting of common household objects magnified to heroic proportions then rendered in polished bronze and placed on aged wooden pedestals.

Specialising in 20th-century furniture and architecture, Galerie Patrick Seguin (Paris) will exhibit an exceptional selection of works by Jean Prouvé, Charlotte Perriand, Le Corbusier, Pierre Jeanneret and Jean Royère, as well as light-fixtures by Serge Mouille, ceramics by Georges Jouve, and hand-carved furniture and objects by Alexandre Noll.

Los Angeles’ Reform Gallery is the first California-based gallery to participate in Design Miami/ Basel. After debuting in December 2007 at Design Miami/, Reform will bring its distinctive roster of the best of handcrafted California Modern design to Switzerland. On view will be landmark works by J.B. Blunk, Sam Maloof and Federico Armijo, among others. Blunk’s seminal Arch 1 (1975) will return to Basel for the first time since it was exhibited there at Galerie Schreiner in 1978.