Artists & Designers

Born in Tokyo in 1934, Kuramata graduated from Tokyo polytechnic high school in 1953, where he studied woodworking before being employed by a furniture company. He subsequently enrolled at the Kuwasawa Design School in Tokyo, where he became familiar with Western concepts of interior design, including chairs and seating furnishings.

Trained in architecture (Fernando) and law (Humberto), the Campana brothers began to collaborate on small designs and “ready-mades” in the mid-1980s before developing a series of spiral-form metal chairs in 1988.

Hans J. Wegner was a Danish furniture designer best known for his functional yet elegant chairs. Wegner was trained as a cabinetmaker before attending the Copenhagen School of Arts and Crafts from which he graduated in 1938.

Sam Maloof was one of America's most renowned contemporary furniture craftsman. Born in 1916 in Chino, California to Lebanese immigrants, Maloof was engaged in woodworking even as a child. He served in the U.S. Army beginning in 1941, and was one of 35,000 WWII troops sent to protect Alaska from Japan. After he left the army in 1945, he returned to Southern California and married Alfreda Louise Ward in June of 1948.

This essay is an excerpt from the publication Concentrations 19: Peter Fischli, David Weiss, published in conjunction with the 1988-89 exhibition.

This essay is adapted from the publication Concentrations 55: Karla Black, published in conjunction with the 2012-2013 exhibition.

The radical Memphis Group was formed in Milan by Italian designer Ettore Sottsass on December 11, 1980, and consisted of an international group of designers and architects that challenged mainstream design. The influential group was famous for brightly colored postmodern furniture, lighting, and ceramics that shook up the Milanese design scene.

Donald Judd became a seminal force in sculpture in the early 1960s with a group of floor-based structures that eliminated ambiguity and ornamentation in favor of essential geometries and the straightforward presentation of color, materials, and shape. Pared down to elemental, geometric forms, they were seen at the time as the culmination of the modernist reduction of each medium to its essential characteristics.