The World's Foremost Fairs of
Contemporary Decorative Arts & Design

11^th SOFA NEW YORK FAIR:
MORE MUSEUM CALIBER WORK

SOFA NEW YORK 2007

The 11th annual Sculpture Objects & Functional Art fair, best known as SOFA NEW YORK returns May 29-June 1, 2008 to the Park Avenue Armory, Opening Night Wednesday, May 28. 67 leading international galleries will offer masterworks in ceramics, glass, metal, wood and fiber by major artists like George Nakashima, Peter Voulkos, Dale Chihuly, Lino Tagliapietra, Wendell Castle, Lenore Tawney and Anthony Caro, as well as the new generation of emerging artists bound to appeal to both seasoned and new collectors.  Galleries from eleven countries including Japan, Italy, United Kingdom, France, Canada, Denmark, Korea, Argentina, New Zealand, Turkey and the United States, present museum quality work which bridges design, decorative and fine art.

Exhibitors Barry Friedman (left) and Joan Mirviss with her husband at SOFA NEW YORK

"More than two decades ago, I witnessed a host of artists creating work in clay and glass with an unheralded vitality that transcended function," says SOFA founder and director Mark Lyman, Vice President of parent company dmg world media, who won no less than two National Endowment for the Arts fellowships for his own sculptural ceramics.  "Today, their work is in hundreds of museums internationally while continuing to climb the price charts at both Sotheby's and Christie's auction houses." 

In showcasing remarkable artistry from leading artists and designers, museum curators from around the world routinely take in this fair. On view is dazzling contemporary glass art based on centuries old rich Venetian traditions, sculptural Japanese ceramics, superb hollowware by Scandinavian silversmiths, modernist and contemporary furniture, and the most avant-garde European art jewelry. The acclaimed SOFA Lecture Series featuring major museum curators, collectors and artists takes place concurrently. The Designer Champagne Breakfast held prior to the opening of the fair, and an unrivalled, innovative VIP program of exclusive tours to private collectors' homes along with corporate collections and behind the scene curator-led tours of museums enhances this fair.

The SOFA NEW YORK 2008 Opening Night Preview Gala, Wednesday, May 28 has undergone a creative revisioning! This year's gala from 5:30 to 9:00 pm at the Armory will offer VIP card holders first viewing and selection of top quality pieces offered at the fair.VIP cards will be sent by participating galleries to their clients. Non-cardholders may purchase a ticket for $100 online anytime or at the door beginning at 5:30 pm on May 28. Opening Night attendees may also support the Museum of Arts & Design (MAD), New York by purchasing a ticket to attend a private dinner in the Armory's Tiffany Room beginning at 8:30 pm

Superlative galleries participating in the show to date include two late-breaking additions from London, Galerie Besson and Clare Beck at Adrian Sassoon; Barry Friedman Ltd., Joan B. Mirviss Ltd., and Heller Gallery all of New York; and Moderne Gallery, Philadelphia.

When SOFA NEW YORK opens it doors on May 29 to June 1, at the Park Avenue Armory between 66th and 67th Streets, an unrivalled international assemblage of one-of-a-kind contemporary decorative arts, design and jewelry will be on view.  Here are some of the outstanding highlights from the fair:

Hervé Wahlen Bis, 2006 Barry Friedman Ltd., New York, NY

HERVÉ WAHLEN AT BARRY FRIEDMAN LTD., NEW YORK
Billionaire Bill Gates is among the noted collectors taking on the distinctive hand-hammered metal sculpture of Hervé Wahlen. “Collectors, especially those with cutting-edge painting and sculpture, are drawn to the enormous tension between surfaces running from a rich copper patina to the textured gold leaf interiors as well as the precarious appearing stance of Wahlen’s work,” says Friedman. But Wahlen’s sculptural objects are also marked by surprisingly masterful conceits.  Secret compartments, doors and lids mark each work. Wahlen’s sculpture can be found at the Fond National d’Art Contemporain in Paris as well as numerous collections in both Europe and the U.S.  In addition, Friedman represents SOFA artist Wendell Castle whose art/design furniture is sought by collectors here and in Europe as well as Asia.

	Dale Chihuly Macchia, 1988 Donna Schneier Fine Arts, Palm Beach, FL

DALE CHIHULY AT DONNA SCHNEIER,
NEW YORK
Rarities by Modern masters are also front and center at SOFA with private dealer Donna Schneier featuring Dale Chihuly’s huge 1988 Macchia in a palette of flaming vermilion and cobalt blue descending in clouds of white.  “Dale’s early work when he first fully developed his own groundbreaking techniques, palette and vision rarely comes to market,” says Schneier.  She has witnessed prices for his work dating from the early 80s jump more than ten times.  “These days, the value of early pieces are bound to increase considerably over time as more collectors with fine arts move into this field,” says Schneier.  She is now seeing major contemporary art collectors seeking examples by the founding fathers of studio glass, wood, fiber and metal.   While primarily dealing in that classic material, Schneier routinely racks up sales to museums including the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and a host of other institutions.  Further proof of her renown by the fine arts institution community, Schneier’s contemporary art jewelry collection is now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Hiroshi Suzuki Aqua-Poesy XI Kin, 2008 Clare Beck at Adrian Sassoon, London, UK

HIROSHI SUZUKI, CLARE BECK AT ADRIAN SASSOON, LONDON
Suzuki claims his preeminent position on the global radar screen as silversmith/goldsmith extraordinarie as more than a dozen museums have acquired his work in a scant three years alone. His museum roster list includes Museum of Fine Arts Houston and the Cambridge University Fitzwilliam Museum, not to mention a slew of prestigious fine art institutions in both France and Australia. Leading collectors include no less than the Duke of Devonshire, whose ancestral home Chatsworth is filled with masterpieces from the 17th century on. “What makes Hiroshi’s vessels so extraordinary is that each is hand hammered sometimes requiring dozens and dozens of different sized and shaped implements from a single flat sheet of silver or gold,” says dealer Clare Beck who works with London dealer Adrian Sassoon, a former Getty Museum curator.  “The delicacy of these art objects is unsurpassed and masks a complexity of skills,” says Beck.

UNRIVALLED CUTTING-EDGE CONTEMPORARY ART JEWELRY
DEBUTS AT 11TH ANNUAL SCULPTURE OBJECTS & FUNCTIONAL ART FAIR:
SOFA NEW YORK, MAY 29 - JUNE 1, 2008 AT PARK AVENUE ARMORY
OPENING NIGHT PREVIEW, WEDNESDAY, MAY 28

Spotlight on Studio Jewelers Featured
in Major Art Museum Shows Dazzling Craftsmanship
and Fast-Paced Triple Digit Growth
Matching the Contemporary Art Market

The David Collection booth at SOFA NEW YORK 2007

CHICAGO, March 17, 2008—The 11th annual SOFA NEW YORK, long the world's leading contemporary decorative arts and design fair, opens May 29-June 1, 2008 at the Park Avenue Armory in New York. This fair features premier international dealers from 11 countries and over a dozen will represent more than 90 studio jewelers whose work is now exhibited in a fast-growing number of fine art museums nationwide.

Of the 67 SOFA NEW YORK exhibitors, jewelry is represented by the world's leading dealers including: Ornamentum, Hudson, NY.; Sienna Gallery, Lenox, MA;, Jewelers’ Werk Galerie, Washington, DC.; Charon Kransen Arts, NY.; Aaron Faber Gallery, NY.; The David Collection, Pound Ridge, NY.; Mobilia Gallery, Cambridge; and Clare Beck at Adrian Sassoon, London. Represented art jewelers hail from the U.S., England, Holland, Germany and Japan, and key ones will speak in the SOFA Lecture Series, free with admission.

Giampaolo Babetto Brooch, 18k gold Represented by Sienna Gallery, Lenox, MA

“With the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and other museums acquiring work by artists represented at SOFA, there's been a sea change of recognition and validation of studio jewelry,” says Mark Lyman, SOFA fair director, who founded the fair in 1994.   Additionally, more and more museums are recruiting contemporary jewelry curators, which further heightens the importance of this field in museum circles, academic communities and the art world at large.  To further confirm the importance of contemporary jewelry on the international scene, London's Victoria & Albert Museum's new jewelry galleries open in May with work reaching back 3,000 years and a staggering one third of their exhibition space is devoted to cutting-edge examples made in the past 20 years.