10 Questions With… Dustin Yellin

Inside the studio—a warehouse he renovated down the street from his multidisciplinary art center Pioneer Works—Yellin relies on natural light as well as Ketra lighting by Lutron, merging the day’s fluctuating hues with shades he can tune and control. “Like a fly caught in amber, my works act as a kind of time capsule,” he says. “Instead of hosting fossils, I embed human artifacts, typically images sourced from print media, within in such a way that we, as a species, become the specimen.”   

Read Interior Design’s interview with Yellin about finding the right light and the performative aspect of his sculptures.

Interior Design: The invention of the moving image owes much to lighting. What role does light play in your idea of “frozen cinema,” in other words suspending an image to stillness? 

Dustin Yellin: Goethe once said that “architecture is frozen music.” My use of the term “frozen cinema” is an update to his idea that through pattern, plan, and frame, an artist can breathe narrative into fixed forms. Like architecture, and unlike cinema, sculpture requests the observer to experience art through a body in motion in space and time, which is never constant. In a sense, I employ two forms of scenography; one that is pictorial, while the other relies on an active viewer who becomes their own director scripting encounters with the work in real space and in real time. I find that the difference between stillness and animation is really just a matter of time.   

ID: Could you talk about your relationship with glass as a form of craft and a conceptual medium? 

DY: Glass is a paradoxical medium; it is both strong and fragile while it also attempts to show itself and hide at the same time. Duchamp once said something to the effect that the best art exhibits an ambiguity of experience that is not one thing or the other, but is both one thing, and something else at the same time. To answer in the negative, the only thing I am against conceptually in art is the dichotomy between either/or states of being.  

ID: Light, whether natural or artificial, is critical in an artist’s life in studio, one that even determines the artist’s use of the space. What is your relationship with light from conception of a work to its final form? 

DY: All vision is predicated on light, and yet we often take light for granted. Glass by its very nature does something extortionary to all forms of light: it bends it. And while painting reflects light, glass acts as both a prism and a filter that makes legible how photons move around the work and around us. As an analog, my glass works are more like sensors that allow each viewer, and myself, to build sensitivity to the nature of light itself.    

ID: Why is midday sunlight your favorite? 

DY: Midday’s lack of shadows chips away at the object-hood of glass, transforming it into something more akin to an instrument, whether that be a window, a mirror, or a prism.   

ID: Light lives through a constant shift through movement, similar to your sculptures that invite viewers to rotate around them. How do you orchestrate this sense of mobility for your audience? 

DY: My works have different edge conditions that each provide different ways and moments of seeing the work. As sculpture exists in four dimensions, the act of the observer moving around and through these different conditions allows a suit of shifting views that merge, develop, and emerge yet again out of these situations and their borders. This movement allows the work to always be in a state of “becoming.”  

ID: Exhibiting Psychogeographies in spaces associated with dance creates an interesting contrast between movement and stillness. Could you talk about your projects for Lincoln Center in New York and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. through this aspect? 

DY: There is an adage that the rests between notes give music its soul. Movement and stillness are already wed, just as darkness is to light. Each defines and clarifies the other; without one there cannot be the other. Jung mentioned that the human condition is one of duality, and that art is the expression par excellence of this reality.  

ID: Psychogeographies consists of paintings and sculptures. How do you see these play with dimensionality? 

DY: Since the Renaissance, Western art developed a form of painterly perspective based on foreshortening and geometry. The Modernists countered this illusion by flatlining the picture plane to assert the flatness of the canvas. Instead of seeing these two modes as antithetical, I mix both together so that the shift between each technique produces a “3rd depth”.  As my works are three dimensional objects comprised ostensibly of sets of layered picture plains, I also move along the z-axis through these plains to provide a further play of depth through the relation between classical perspective and scale in real space.  

ID: Scale is another critical element, almost similar to miniature art in which minuscule elements build a narrative altogether. Can you share a bit about your process of using small bits to form larger narratives? 

DY: Each work is a microcosm in which the individual parts never lose their own unique identity. They also work together as a community of images to produce a larger systemic image at the same time.  

ID: You create work-on-paper studies of your sculptures but also use paper bits inside the works. Could you talk about your relationship with paper?  

DY: Since the beginning of time, people have made marks to record their existence. These marks endure and circulate long after as a collection of shared experience. There are many words for this greater body of knowledge, be it consciousness or culture. In a sense, I feel that I tap into this long conversation by sourcing other people’s marks, and then reconfiguring these items with mark-making of my own. By preserving these histories in glass, I can sustain that long conversation.  

ID: Pioneer Works is a space that proves the multimedia direction art-making has evolved into in recent years. Many artists and designers refuse categorization of their practices. How do you see the center’s impact on your work and vice versa? 

DY: Pioneer Works is a “museum of process” in which we support the continual development of all disciplines and practices through experimentation and production. I feel that as we support others, we advance ourselves. Pioneer Works is my life practice; they are one and the same.  

10 Questions With… Katharina Kaminski and Rodrigo García

The sculptor and model Katharina Kaminski created her light sculptures, which also function as candle holders, during a life-changing discovery. The Uruguay- and Paris-based ceramicist received her genetic test results that confirm she was born intersex while working on a series of bulbous bodily forms. In the meantime, Kaminski continued to hand-pour clay for her sculptures at a foundry in France’s perfume capital Grasse. “I try to follow the clay with an authentic clear energetic intention that transforms itself as the work begins to come alive—I feel the clay, I feel myself, and creation happens,” she tells Interior Design.

The series, aptly titled Luminous Beings, came out of a collaboration with Kaminski’s life partner and Amen Candles founder Rodrigo García to bring the element of light into her work. “The series has empowered me to tap into my truth, to connect with a vision of self that is not adopted from others, but one that is mine and more compassionate with myself,” she adds. Referencing the body in gentle poetic ways, the light sculptures “opened a new chapter in my life,” Kaminski says. In the last year, they’ve been on view at Design Miami/ fair, Bergdorf Goodman, and Dover Street Market in Paris. 

“They encourage forward thinking, authenticity, innocence, pride, a sensuality much rooted in the earth and a high directed spirit,” Kaminski adds. “They brought to surface a version of myself that was deep inside and hopefully they can inspire others on their journey.” While the artist is currently working on large versions of the series as well as experimenting with bronze, marble, and stone, Amen Candles is expanding the light sculptures and their Luz candles in July with new scents, such as eucalyptus, vetiver and ginger, in addition to existing rose and sandalwood. In the fall, new sculptural forms will be added to the series, as well.  

Interior Design talked to Kaminski and García about activating sculptures with scents and light, as well as creating with a mission to stand up for an under-represented community in the design world. 

Interior Design: Could you talk about the journey of your personal and professional unities? How do both relationships feed each other?

Katharina Kaminski: When we first met we would always connect through dreams, goals and visions, and as a couple those got intersected to create a life together. Creating together is a big part of our relationship. We understand each other beyond words and our qualities complement each other very well. We have that creative chemistry—and to me, that’s a huge turn on!

Rodrigo García: The answer to the question in one word would be: organic. For example, the very initial spark idea of light sculptures started by us having outdoor dinners in nature and seeing that classic candles would turn off by the wind, and it was just an idea. Then Katharina started creating a concept which became a challenge of making the empty space the soul of the sculpture instead of the classical approach of the external form. Like holes in Lucio Fontana’s paintings or silence in music compositions, Katharina dominated the empty space. The empty space becomes alive with inner light, becomes a luminous being.

ID: A candle and design object tap into different sensual experiences, smelling and seeing respectively. What type of connections do you see between scents and a design aesthetic?

RG: It is not about a scent, a visual aesthetic or a sound, it is about the feeling that those stimulus generate on us. Whether by smelling a scented candle or by contemplating the light of a light sculpture, the idea is bring us to now, to be present. That is my philosophy of design, it is about designing experiences, instead of just products of design.

It is about bringing harmony, calm, and being present in the moment. I feel candles’ fire light brings us peace. And specially with scent, when we are smelling an aroma, we are not thinking of something else. Luminous Beings connects this in a synesthetic new experience of sculpture, which is the visual art that operates in three dimensions, into a new dimension of light sculptures with scents—they become a fourth dimension experienced when the observer lights the scented candle. Changing at every instant with the observer’s perspective, they become Luminous Beings. It is a meditative experience of time, light, and space, and of course, fragrance.

ID: Intersex community has been underrepresented in the art and design world. Has this been changing? Could you talk about your experience?

KK: Intersex community has been underrepresented in not just the art and design world—it has been underrepresented, stigmatized and forbidden subject by parents, doctors and the whole system. I am optimistic that we are in a much more open-minded place as society and it is generally more welcome to talk about it. In my experience, I still feel not everyone is comfortable with this topic but I feel happy that I can help a little by opening the conversation on intersexuality and that many people are happy to learn about it. Many are surprised to first find about a condition present in same percentage of humans as redheads that they never heard about before. 

Silence creates taboo, taboo creates trauma and nobody deserves none of that! Expressing, sharing, coming together can be very healing. I dream of a future where kids that are born intersex are not stigmatized and parents are properly educated, guided, and supported.

ID: How does modeling and the fashion world inspire your design practice? Do you find yourself connecting the two worlds?

KK: I feel that connection of worlds in this context would be me, Katharina Kaminski, my spiritual path and the balance of energies that both professions give me. Modeling has been the greatest university of life for me. I find it very enriching and exciting to have a profession that requires me to be open to unexpected adventures and meet new creative people all the time. I find inspiration and growth in all the people, places, and new situations along the journey. In modeling I have learned to embody an energy, to use my physicality to express something, which connects with being a sculptor who models clay. The big difference with modeling and making art is that modeling jobs choose me, while I get to choose myself when I create. I find that very powerful because I get to explore the depths of being myself as it comes and express myself more profoundly. It’s a journey that feels more natural to my most authentic self. At this point of my life, I feel very grateful to be able to explore both facets of mine and evolve in them and through each other. 

ID: Your forms defy any gender connotation while paying homage to bodily curves. How do you balance this duality of capturing an alternative corporeality?

KK: The balance of the duality is my inner process and an alternative corporeality was an unconscious seek for new perspectives and to celebrate the infinite human experience. The only way to capture this is to be in that meditative creative space that allows my truth to be expressed. That is the beauty of art to me.

ID: Luminous Beings is about the immaterial through the material experiences of scents and sculpture. Could you talk about encapsulating ephemerality through sculpture?

KK: I see my creative process as a physical manifestation of whats going on inside me, that takes form in space, translating what I can not express in no other way than with art.

ID: The light sculptures are also about discovery. They invite the viewer to look inside their hollow parts and notice different curves. What do you think about crafting this ritual for viewer through your work?

KK: If you look around you will never find angles in nature: in nature everything is curved. Angles are men-made and so is the binary norm. Not everyone is born in this norm, nature is infinite. I hope curves inspire for a world with more openness, understanding, harmony and love.

A luminous being for me means someone that enlightens you with their presence. The collection of lit clay sculptures embodies a universe free of limits, where life is celebrated for its infinite unique forms of expression.

ID: What about the element of light? The sculptures gain a new depth with light stemming from their bellies. How critical was the presence of light in your design?

KK: I love the challenge of shaping the way the light comes out of my sculptures, specially a candle light which is the element of fire—it has life and it moves, giving the light a form. I personally love the ritual of turning the candle light on in the sculpture. I invite the observer to become a participant of the creative process when lighting the fire and changing the form of the light with each perspective.

ID: Could you talk about your studio life in Uruguay?

KK: In Uruguay is where I have my studio and where I am creating everyday, being in nature helps me to be peaceful to create with intention. When I am in Paris, it’s more a balance of modeling work, creating and planning where the work is going to be shared—the more “yang” part of being an artist. But the truth is, I travel with my tools everywhere and I create from anywhere. I have lots of experience in the nomad life.

RG: Both of us spending a long time in nature in Uruguay allow us to connect with nature and express that in our philosophy of design. My philosophy of design is to think always more than sustainable design, to think on how nature would do it on every aspect of it from the scents—[to make] the eucalyptus scent just like eucalyptus is in nature—or when it comes to packing, we wouldn’t use a plastic styrofoam packaging, so lets look for a biodegradable mushrooms mycelium packaging. Being in Uruguay also helps to remain authentic, and instead of being influenced by trends or what others are doing, it allows to create unique and authentic design with purpose.

ID: How about Paris? After the isolation of Uruguay, does the city’s chaos and energy inspire you?

RG: Paris is great for launching and sharing new collections to our community of creative friends, feel the feedback, and share our purpose. Since the beginning of Amen Candles in 2020, I love to launch new concepts at Dover Street Parfums Market because there is a great community of designers and creatives that are very open minded to share the purpose behind our concepts. For example, when we were about to launch our mushrooms packaging some buyers would say we need to add a gold or a ribbon on it, while at DSPM we had carte blanche to creativity. Same goes for sharing our Luminous Beings collaboration with Katharina and to be speaking about intersex awareness and celebrating the infinite human experience, Paris is now the right moment and right place to share our purpose, to start a conversation, which is our intention, is not about product, but is about objects of design that begin conversations.

10 Questions With… David Dolcini

Interior Design: What are some of your earliest memories of design, and what was the “aha” moment when you knew this would be your path, too?

David Dolcini: I was still studying at the Art School of Piacenza when a dear friend of my father, who worked in the world of design, saw some of my schoolwork and gave me a catalogue of an exhibition on design in Milan. I went to see that exhibit and was literally blown away. That started my forever love for the design world. My curiosity kept growing, and I needed to dive in myself. 

ID: What was it like living and working in Shanghai, so different from Italy? What did you learn and integrate into your work back in Codogno and Valencia?

DD: When I arrived in Shanghai in 2006 it was an adrenaline rush. The world was moving at a speed I wasn’t used to. You just had to be ready. I’ve always had an insatiable curiosity and I immediately fell in love with Chinese culture, that of the ancient dynasties. Ancient Chinese carpentry techniques have certainly influenced many of the details of my projects in wood such as the leg joint of my Argo sofa for Porada. Traditional ink painting influenced the pattern of my Ulisse suitcase for Brics. 

ID: Speaking of these product designs, how did you connect with some of Italy’s top manufacturers? 

DD: Every project has its own history and so does every client. Luceplan, for example, knew me before I opened my own studio. They followed my professional trajectory and one day we met again. I was in Brianza at a wood supplier and showed the owner a project of which I was particularly proud. He said it would be perfect for Porada, accompanied me to the company, and we have collaborating for nine years ever since. In 2007, I took part in a competition organized by the Lombardy region, which identified designers under 30 and matched them with companies. I was matched with Riva1920. I met the owners of Brics during a workshop I was teaching to IED (Istituto Europeo di Design) students and Brics was a partner. They inquired about my design process and then proposed the suitcase challenge. Arflex was thanks to a dear friend, also a friend of one of the Arflex owners. She introduced us, and we met after the first lockdown. A great feeling was formed, so then the Lizzy [chair] was born. 

ID: The pandemic brought about a shift in focus. You returned to your roots in wood and woodworking, resulting in a series of stunning sculptural objects called Timemade and presented at the Riviera creative hub in Milan. Tell us about the catalyst and the pieces.

DD: I don’t consider Timemade an artistic work, but more of a personal path of research. The pandemic, the tension, and the deafening silence of those days forced us to confront ourselves with what we are and do. Time intensified for me and allowed me to change my perspectives, to experience a slow step in design. The time of doing is distinct from the time of thinking. Timemade stems from my passion for botany and grafting (the passion transmitted by my brother, a philosopher, gardener, and farmer), art, and oriental carpentry. All pieces are unique and handmade by me using classic tools such as a Japanese pull-saw, chisels, and rasps. Woods come from my workshop and the workshops of elderly carpenters in my area. Often pieces are scraps or remnants of old boards. The whole process took about two years.

ID:  Any plans for Timemade to travel? Any plans to sell the pieces?

DD: I would love to take Timemade around the world, and I believe there will be a second exhibition where I will present new developments of the project. Now, I’m organizing to sell pieces and have already been commissioned for some pieces for an important event. Stay tuned. 

ID: Speaking of important events, Salone del Mobile is about to take place [the fair is currently underway as of the time of this publication]. What will you be introducing? 

DD: The Lizzy chair is our first product for Arflex and their first wooden chair. It uses only seven elements of steam-bent solid ash (a solution reducing waste) and curved plywood seat that may be upholstered. Savio for Porada is inspired by Danish secretaire furniture. Closed, it looks like a harmonious volume in walnut with maple for decoration. Once opened, it surprises with leather and the color of maple as well as its multiple functions and possibilities. 

ID: What is your design process?

DD: As Bruno Munari, the master of Italian design whose writings I have read and re-read wrote: “Da cosa nasce cose.” (From one thing comes one thing). The methodology I apply to each project is always the same, whether it is a product, interior, installation, or creative direction. It starts with deep and far-ranging study. Once this depth is reached, functional solutions almost automatically emerge. My task as a designer is to give shape and coherence to these solutions. 

ID: How does your life differ between Italy and Valencia?

DD: In Italy, I work at a fast pace. We have the laboratory in the studio, allowing me to work directly on developing the projects with prototypes and models with the guys. As the family is in Valencia, I can work late at night or early in the morning. Valencia works like a decompression chamber. I go back to the rhythms of family life. I carve out more time for study and research. I often wander through the beautiful neighborhoods in search of inspiration. Or I sit on the terrace of a bar to drink a coffee and draw in my sketch book. 

ID: We’re always looking to expand culturally, so let’s ask you to turn us onto some of your favorites. Also, with Salone coming, special places in Milan?

DD: This is always the most difficult question. I will try to answer carefully.

Book: “Il Barone Rampante” by Italo Calvino. Movie: “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” by Sergio Leone. Music: “Give Up” album of 2003 by The Postal Service. Restaurants: Erba Brusca in Milan and Toshi in Valencia. Elsewhere in Milan: Palazzo Litta, the new Compasso d’Oro museum at the ADI headquarters, and do not forget to get lost in the side streets of Brera. 

ID: What is your free time like?

DD: The mountains and nature have always fascinated me: trekking, mountaineering, ski-touring, and climbing. Also, simple walks or scavenging, especially mushrooms. For me, the mountain represents a place of retreat and confrontation. I learn to listen and respect nature and therefore myself.

SBGA | Blengini Ghirardelli Collaborates With Valerio Berruti on the Artist’s Live/Work Space in Italy

Valerio Berruti has always wanted to be an artist. Piedmontese by birth, the 45-year-old Italian sculptor-painter is firmly rooted in his profession—when he exhibited at the 53rd Biennale di Venezia in 2009, he was one of the youngest participants—and his homeland. He is also open to experimentation and collaboration, which is revealed in two recent projects. One is at Cracco, the Michelin–star Milanese restaurant owned by famed chef Carlo Cracco. There, in the eatery’s semicircular lunette windows overlooking the city’s thriving Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II arcade, is Credere nella luce, or Believe in the light, three figures of girls, frescoed and backlit, that are not only a message of hope in this pandemic era but also evoke the magical moment of childhood, a constant theme in Berruti’s oeuvre. “This is the first time I used direct light in a work,” he says. “Believe in light and science. This is my invitation.”

Milan happens to be the home base of architect Giuseppe Blengini, cofounder of the firm SBGA | Blengini Ghirardelli and an integral collaborator in the second of Berruti’s recent projects: his home in Alba. The Piedmontese town is where Berruti was born and where he first discovered—and fell in love with—Blengini’s architectural vision, in a shop he designed there that no longer exists. Blengini was invited to dinner at Berruti’s house at the time, a small 18th-century deconsecrated church in nearby Verduno that the artist had converted into his residence and studio. During the evening, Blengini, who’s also passionately Piedmontese, noticed a detail: a window that connected the atelier and the former sacristy. And that—the perfect demarcation, clear but not too much, between intimate space and working space—was the jumping off point for the new home and atelier he would build in Alba for Berruti and his family.

Unique and complex, the resulting 5,000-square-foot structure is the product of four years of close four-handed work, a dialogue made up of flying notes, sketches drawn on restaurant napkins, and phone calls between artist and architect when Blengini traveled around the world to his firm’s other construction sites. “For this project, Valerio was the client and my assistant at the same time,” Blengini recalls smiling. Indeed, Berruti was on-site every day, following the group of local artisans and construction step by step. The 5-acre site itself was chosen for its peaceful and panoramic qualities—vineyards rising toward the house, fields of meadows all around, the hills of Alba stretching into the distance. These aspects dictated the basic lines of the residence, the orientation of its spaces, and the openings to the outside. In fact, its stepped, three-story form “recalls the terraced hills ringing the Piedmont region,” Blengini notes. The roof folds its pitches like origami to create an observatory terrace.

Part of the need for a new home was Berruti’s growing family. “With the birth of our two children, Nina and Zeno, we had to change from the church residence.” (His drawings, paintings, and sculptures, by the way, reproduce images essentially from his everyday life and family affections.) It encompasses three bedrooms and three bathrooms across its three levels and is better separated yet still connected to Berruti’s studio, thanks to Blengini’s thoughtful plan. “My years of training have taught me to dare, not to fear obstacles, and rather find solutions without preconceptions,” the architect says. Berruti adds, “Living and working in contiguous spaces offers great advantages. If I happen to wake up at night pushed by a new idea and the desire to make something happen, going down to my atelier is easy. It also applies to the time I dedicate to my children, since proximity allows me to be with them more easily.”

Materials throughout—local sandstone, concrete, oak—are pure and honest, in step with the natural mediums Berruti employs in his artwork—jute, steel plate, plaster. “With the same cement the mixers produced for the concrete, I created panels to cover the wall that leads from my atelier to our home,” the artist recalls. The large, rectangular panels could be a contemporary art installation themselves. They’re gently illuminated by an asymmetrical skylight, its trapezoidal shape “recalling the geometry of the house,” the architect says, that helps naturally brighten the studio, as it’s partially below-grade. Berruti’s finished and in-progress works are peppered throughout, like Fragments, his site-specific work of 196 reinforced-concrete and fresco tiles that lines the short stairway leading from the studio to the home’s living quarters.

There, the dominant material changes from cast on-site concrete to oak, all of which came from a single batch. It composes the flooring, paneling, and furnishings—the latter, Blengini says, “99 percent of which was designed by Valerio and me.” These include the stools along the kitchen island, the dining area’s oval table and pendant fixtures, the main bathroom’s built-in vanity, and the beds.

It’s all evidence of Berruti’s humanist approach—in his art and his life—that makes him open to new ideas and alliances, whether with chefs, children, or world-class musicians (last year, he and pianist Ludovico Einaudi created The Carousel in Venaria Reale together). A similar alchemy must have occurred when he met Blengini, and what materialized is a courageous architectural work. “It combines taste and needs,” the architect says, “in a decisive way.”

cassina: chairs (dining area)

Doimo: sofa (living area)

elica: hood (kitchen)

carl hansen & søn: chairs (study)

flos: pendant fixtures

Duravit: sink fittings, tub (bathroom)

Gessi: sink

Bianca: bedspread (bedroom)

rubelli: cushions

An Exhibition Showcasing Works by Jaroslava Brychtová and Stanislav Libenský Opens at Heller Gallery in New York

They were the power couple of the studio glass movement: Jaroslava Brychtová and Stanislav Libenský. Innovators of the mold-melting technique, which casts the material into three-dimensional objects, sculptor Brychtová and painter Libenský met in 1954 in what’s now the Czech Republic, a center of glass manufacturing and craftmanship for centuries. Together, with him sketching designs and her producing clay sculptures of those designs, they were able to translate abstract concepts into pioneering colorful and light-capturing works that nod to Czech Cubism and metaphysical philosophy; their trio of large-scale sculptures at Expo ’67 are said to have influenced such American studio glass artists as Dale Chihuly. They and their work certainly influenced Dr. Dudley and Lisa Anderson, who, with the help of Katya and Doug Heller, have amassed a sizeable Brychtová-Libenský collection, several pieces of which are on display for the first time in “Inner Light” this spring at Heller Gallery in New York. The exhibition encompasses 19 sculptures from 1958 to 2002, the year of Libenský’s death, plus four of his drawings made while he and Brychtová, who died in 2020, were teaching at Washington’s Pilchuck Glass School in 1987.