This fall, Boym Partners - a New York-based design studio led by Constantin and Laurene Boym - will unveil an exciting body of work inspired by a nature-based approach to readymades. On view as part of a three-week preview at Available Items September 18 - October 3, Artifacts is a hybrid project connecting nature, art, and functional design. Found bark from sycamore and other trees serve as the principal material whose natural camouflage patterns are enhanced with decorations evoking the local Native American tradition of painting on trees and sticks as a means of communication and spiritual healing. The collection includes floor lamps, table lamps, sconces, and other fixtures that seamlessly incorporate LED strip lights, turning the wall behind into a light-washed background.
The readymade entered the history of art in 1916 through the groundbreaking work of Marcel Duchamp. Forty years later, industrial designer Achille Castiglioni used readymades to create a number of Italian design classics. The choice of their readymades reflected the industrial character of the century: they were manufactured products or commercial packaging and containers – man-made familiar items.
“Our current environmental awareness calls for natural readymades: things created by nature itself in the complex processes of growth and adaptation,” says Constantin Boym, co-founder of Boym Partners. “For example, American sycamore trees shed their bark once a year, during the peak growing season. As the tree expands, the brittle outer layer cracks and falls in large, irregularly shaped plates. These intricate pieces do not command anyone’s attention: they get trampled underfoot and disintegrate by the winter.”
Artifacts: Nature’s Readymades will feature over a dozen fixtures from Boym Partners’ collection. It will be shown in the gallery of Available Items, which is open to the public Friday through Sunday from 12-5pm at 64 Broadway in Tivoli, NY. This is Available Items’ third exhibition featuring work by Boym Partners following Ecophilia - a book and exhibition of modern habitats for plants and animals designed by Constantin Boym - and Shelf Life - Laurene Boym’s drawings and three-dimensional constructions inspired by the poetry of packaged goods - both shown in 2023.
