November 26th, 2005
New York Times Magazine
Home Is Where the Art Is
A major show of contemporary design opens at Art Basel Miami Beach.
It is not often that you encounter a Gursky hanging on the wall in someone's home above a Naugahyde La-Z-Boy recliner. That is what the creators of design.05 Miami were banking on when they hitched a show of major contemporary design to the star-studded art fair known as Art Basel Miami Beach. "As the boundaries between art and design continue to blur," says Suzanne Demisch from Demisch Denant, who will be showing new work by the artist Maria Pergay, "20th-century design is attracting a new group of collectors." The 15 participating galleries are pulling out the trophy pieces, like Cristina Grajales's Donald Judd desk, a prototype that Judd made for his son, Flavin, and Magen H. Gallery's Howard Meister chair, which is in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum. You might even call some of the pieces art.