Works by Heatherwick Studio, Paul Cocksedge and Nendo feature in an exhibition at New York gallery Friedman Benda, which pools together artists and designers from Generation X.
The An Accelerated Culture exhibition focuses on the cohort of creatives born between the 1960s and 1980s. The name is a reference to Douglas Coupland's 1991 novel Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture, which ended up defining the term for the entire generation.
The show features many pieces of sculptural furniture
"In the mid 1990s, and early 2000s, when there was a lot more investment for young designers and particularly for European designers, the government offered grants and funds, and all sorts of support systems, exhibitions, and publications that accelerated their careers beyond that perhaps of their international peers," she said.
A number of sculptural pieces of furniture are included in the show, such as an aluminum seat that Heatherwick created with the world's largest metal extrusion machine.
Nendo , Bertjan Pot and Maarten Baas also feature
The curators commissioned London's Studio Frith to design the typeface and infographic to brand the exhibit's wall labels and lettering. The hand-drawn style is intended to capture the transition from analog to digital that defined the Generation X era.
"When you look at the letter form, aside from being just beautiful letters, they've got this sort of clunkiness as they're moving towards linearity and the sharpness of a digi...