Near-Emergency Late Nite Snake Auction Observer 071: A Tuesday auction with something for everyone

Knoll, Rietveld, severe steal couches under $200, Kita, a few B+ options that are mega cheap

The ides of February—a conjugation of auctions, with some houses selling just a lot of very good stuff; and many other items in Europe which I won’t list. Too far and too good. I’d say this is a 7.5/10 auction week…. good lighting, some super wild cards, lots of Sottsass and Knoll, quieter pieces, aged plastic, a few thoughts on how we all inherently understand good design, and oxidization, with a number of varying options (design, price) after the jump… but first:

Housekeeping:

• New York-based readers may be interested to know that Alix Vollum will be opening at Entrance Gallery on Wednesday with Rhys Gaetano:

  entrance.nyc

  

  A post shared by @entrance.nyc

  The work looks good. For more on AV read this Q&A with her from earlier this summer:

Snake Q&A 011: Alix Vollum

---

Auctions Observed

Fussell for Kartell drawers, NJ, ending Tues.: Let’s call an item with this kind of patina Punished Furniture… items with yellowed plastic is similar to wood degradation on old guitars or slight cracks in old Lightning jackets… things which are unattractive at first and which are impossible to replicate outside of nature taking its course. Such patina is difficult to search for, hard to collect, tougher to amass… sellers don’t really think this stuff is attractive without a definition/market around it (no one liked this type of shit in vintage a decade ago; now these items can highlight an archive), and so don’t display these things front and center. Maybe they toss them. Also these items can get snatched up quick by other sellers or people building an archive. And they’re impossible to replicate, if only for how uneven the oxidization here is. Like an old guitar, it’s only superficially damaged; still a luxury item. And so it’s forgotten. This all comes down to language: there is no agreed-upon way to describe this type of furniture… pissy? Oxidized? Sure, there are ways to describe what happened… but not what it is.

Fussells go for at least a couple hundred for a five-drawer, and don’t sell very often. They were made in a raft of odd shapes and color combinations (yellow, black, red, green; a desk; one with two colors). House not far from New York and has a grip of other items featured in this newsletter. Ends Tuesday morning so register now. Some are highlighted below; some severe deals, some fair ones. $200

Springer table, NJ, ending Tues.: Almost good… almost. Or rather, almost very good; good itself… good I define here as having a point of view and some depth, so it looks a bit better every day. That’s all. It’s a low bar. If you buy a piece of furniture that passes these conditions you’ve succeeded. It’s not a photoshoot. It’s a process. So this thing is good. It’s well made and competently (at the very least) designed… it looks decent: it is brutal (always a positive), and simple. It’s less ugly and gaudy than lots of Springer. Springer feels like a good designer for this age (economically): his work is pretty plentiful, flirts with excellent, not really remarked upon (in… popular zeitgeist design literature, anyways) and, most honorably, can be found at a decent price (he has so many tables… let’s just say don’t spend over $1,000). Will this change? Sure, but not for a while. Right now point of view is easy to get. $500

Rietveld chair, NJ, ending Tues.: I love Gerrit Rietveld, brother, when I think about him the world makes a little more sense. Here is a picture of the inside of his Schroderhuis (Utrecht), from 1924:

Think Schroder is like Smith over there? The outside of the house is a little zany; this is a nice representative photo of the kitchen. One of the ideas that forms the bedrock for this newsletter, that I don’t state explicitly always, is that most/all people have a finely calibrated design compass and know what shit is good and what is not, when they see it. I might be tripping balls. But I don’t think I am. To me it’s an availability thing: just as movie audiences are actually very intelligent and can follow all sorts of narrative permutations and subtle sleight of hands quiete well—but don’t get the chance to because most movies that are produced are incompetently made (always were; not a completely bad thing)—so too for design consumers. There are even very few examples that are easy to access of… really good design. Can you think of like a dozen places in New York, for example, laid out perfectly? That is pretty tough. Many of them are old. That shouldn’t be. I really like Le Dauphin in Paris… there should be 1,000 places like this. There certainly are that many good movies. To be sure, many people have this knowledge. I just suspect they are employed in the industry or are hobbyists. This is all a long way of saying that the things going on in this room here are evidently perfect and don’t need much explanation. That you can look at it and be like, oh yeah, nice, that’s how it works. Off top, to explain—there is contrast (color mostly) and unity (same shapes) and harmony (well, natural light)… perhaps this can be described in terms… it works.

As does this chair. I never get sick of it. It jumps out among the 250 or so auctions ending this week which I leafed through, even with one being on auction about once a month and always for a decent price (under 1 large domestic the past couple years, usually way less). It is very simple and correct (angle-wise)… and, more than that… it isn’t really a cerebral item, despite being difficult. It confounds expectations—this is an uncomfortable chair but a welcoming one? The whole purpose of the chair is on its ear with this thing… unbelievable. I love this thing…from 1989; either an artists’ series, or instructions, or maybe Cassina. Not exactly like the OG but close enough, esp for $50 (will maybe go for $600)

Craft associates sofa, NJ, ending Tues.: Great sofa; most of the work by Craft Assoc. was by Adrian Pearsall, who is like a top 5 couch guy. This one’s from 1980, which is just new enough to be experimental. These things get snagged as low as