Collective Design Kicks Off NYCxDESIGN

With a focus on 20th- and 21st-century design; established and emerging creatives; and a synthesis of design, art and craft, both rare and affordable, Collective Design presents a range of boundary-pushing work alongside vintage collectible pieces. Last year, it made sales to New York’s Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, among others.

“We reflect the changes in our culture, which has become less defined by boundaries,” says founder Steven Learner, who produces the fair with a global council of thought leaders from the interior design, art, and architecture worlds, and is looking to foster the next generation of design enthusiasts. “Today we’ve lost the ‘design art’ title, which is messy and silos our output. This new permeable membrane is really positive. Our culture has become polygamous, and our aesthetic reflects that.”

Promoting sustainable design (the fair even recycles its display panels each year), Collective has invited Stickbulb lighting and landscape designer Brook Klausing to exhibit, and has teamed up with OTHR, an emerging 3D-printed limited-edition design label, to introduce new talent to the show.

Community input has helped the event evolve. Learner explains that the incentive to create Collective Concept last year—capsule presentations about material process—was to introduce unsung midcareer designers to the gallery system and public. Also returning will be Collective Influence, celebrating Swiss designer Mattia Bonetti.

Collective will have a new layout to increase visibility and offer more paths for exploration, while maintaining the fair’s tight curation and intimacy. “Most fairs still follow an 18th-century ‘booth and aisle’ gridded plan and focus on luxury shopping,” Learner says. “We’re not interested in luxury shopping. Collective is the antithesis of the feeding frenzy so often associated with fairs.”

May 3–7
Skylight Clarkson Sq
550 Washington St.
collectivedesignfair.com