Luam Melake’s polyurethane-foam Love Seat.
Before cofounding New York gallery R & Company in 1997, Zesty Meyers and Evan Snyderman were practicing artists themselves and principals of the B Team, which toured the world doing glassblowing performances. That focus on making is not only the foundation of the artists they represent today but also their first triennial, “Objects: USA 2024,” opening this fall and running from September 6 to January 10, 2025. The show features more than 100 works by 55 American creatives—some represented or previously shown by R, some never involved with the gallery before, emerging and established voices among them. That’s the work of independent curators Angelik Vizcarrondo-Laboy and Kellie Riggs. “Part of our vision for having guest curators is to expand the conversation beyond our own relationships,” Meyers and Snyderman note.
Another part of the vision was the original “Objects: USA,” which appeared in 1969 at what’s now the Museum of Arts and Design; this 21st-century version builds on that show, diving into the varied landscape of today’s innovations, motivations, and diversity via Vizcarrondo-Laboy and Riggs’s seven conceptual categories called “archetypes of objecthood.” For instance, Venancio Aragon, a Diné textile artist, is part of Mediators, concentrated on identity and environment; Luam Melake, a Black furniture designer of Eritrean and Ethiopian descent, is in Codebreakers, who mask the meanings of their works, making the seemingly simple more complex; and fellow furniture designer Joyce Lin is a Betatester, engaging in material subversion and boundary pushing.
Preview Works Appearing in “Objects: USA 2024” at R & Company This Fall
Luam Melake’s polyurethane-foam Love Seat.
Misha Kahn’s For Those Who Float chandelier.
Kim Mupangilai’s Bina daybed.
Joyce Lin’s Wood Chair (Ash).
Venancio Aragon’s Rainbow Wedge tapestry.