Snake Auction Observer 060: Weekend auctions, Esherick, Sottsass, two of the best chairs I've seen in weeks; Pesce crucifixion lamp

Plus early internet furniture, a totem lamp, cheap wood kitchenware and an Ferrari update

Snake is a weekly newsletter covering severe deals and knowledge, mostly in furniture. For a representative sample, click here for the most recent full free auction rundown, and here for the most recent designer rundown.

Lots of hits this week, including some prototype chairs, wild Pesce and Sottsass adjacent work and work by Sottsass. Earliest auctions at the top—IHS means in-house shipping—here are instructions on how to actually use LiveAuctioneers to buy and win these auctions. But first,

Housekeeping:

• Wrote about Alvar Aalto’s design philosophy and how it’s reflected in Artek’s 60 stool, for my Legacy column for Dwell Magazine:

• I interviewed Efron Danzig, a model and skateboarder, and Kade Holt, a musician, about their friendship and art for Ssense.

• Ferrari on the podium. What does it really mean?

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Auctions:

Sottsass Summa 19 calculator, LA: More Sottsass, it is wild—he is well-discussed and regarded, especially lately, but his recent coronation is so recent and so tied to technology, esp. IG, that this thin image-based understanding sands a lot of the edges off his work. A decade ago, around the time of the Ro/LU/Halley chairs, mentioned above, Sottsass’ work—everything from his typewriter to the Ultrafragola mirror—was sequestered, really, to severe furniture-only people. Now it is available and known, and he’s understood to have a massive body of work. Which he does. But the relation to his work is still quite shallow—not being demeaning here—in that it is hard to read deep criticism about him; about what his work meant; from someone putting it in context, to say nothing of a school of designers who rebelled against him. (The best type of criticism.) And there’s not much breadth either—we only know a bit about some pieces. This calculator is a good example. What I mean is… this calculator, much like so much of ES’ work, is hidden in plain sight, or sequestered in the mental rolodex of maybe a furniture hillbilly or museum employee. Like so much of his work it’s not out in the world, it’s sans context. It’s no typewriter… but it kicks ass. Like I keep saying, over and over, there is an endless, endless well of design and furniture out there that is a bit hard to imagine. I assure you it is endless. What’s more, it’s fairly available and is a real thing for real life. One sold… in 2014. Seller has canon mid-modern, this Jens Risom table, a set of six very ideal barstools, some auctions above and below. $200

Val Bertoia prototype chair, NJ: Val is Harry’s kid, they worked on the Somnambient stuff together in the ‘70s. This chair is just Val’s and it’s a beautiful one. It is part of, or at least is akin to, in my eyes at least the early internet wave of exciting American design—RO/LU, Peter Halley, shit in the Jim Walrod orbit. These kinds of pieces were really special when they came out; it felt like there wasn’t anything like any of this work out at the time, excepting Rietveld. And, more importantly, that no one, aesthetically, had a taste as distilled as these artists. It still feels that way sometimes; I’m not sure if the design world today has