‘RA’ at Forever Is Now Edition III

Sabine Marcelis’s installation ‘RA’ is now on view at The Pyramids of Giza. 

‘RA’ returns to the birthplace of the sundial, using laminated solar glass, the functional sculpture embodies a symphony of the elements. With an off-grid independence, it harnesses the sun’s energy to illuminate the gnomon after dusk. The artwork produces an ever-changing footprint of light as the day progresses.

Noor Riyadh Festival

Miss Dior

Marcelis created an artwork based on her contemporary vision of the iconic ‘Miss Dior’ fragrance. The perfume stands for love, freedom and the feminine essence, which translates itself in the artwork.

The ‘Miss Dior Exhibition 12 Women Artists’ by Parfums Christian Dior features interpretations of the fragrance in Monsieur Dior’s famed Chateau de la Colle Noire in Provence, as the brand opens the designer’s home for the first time to the public. In this rarefied setting, all artistic interpretations on beauty and femininity come together.

 ‘VARMBLIXT’ IKEA Collection

Sabine Marcelis designs ‘VARMBLIXT’, a luminous new collection that explores the effects of light at home for IKEA.

Simple to the eye, the designs of the two textured, matte, and largely opaque metal lamps in VARMBLIXT are rooted in an idea from Sabine to shape a line of light with a simple gesture. The circular lamp constitutes a complete line, top half curved slightly for light to wash onto the wall from there. To play with its design, its colour also has a particular purpose.

MIRAGE

Sabine Marcelis debuts her serie of mirrors ‘Mirage’ during Dubai Design Week, commissioned for Gallery Collectional Dubai. ‘Mirage’ is inspired by Dubai and it marks the designer’s first time exploring the possibilities of light through mirrors, with the warmth of the desert reflected in rich and vivid hues.

For Gallery Collectional creative director Catalina Ruiz Urquiola, the new space is a chance to take a closer look at the work of individual designers. In the ‘Shape of Things to Come’, new works by independent designers are presented alongside those of more established design houses in a thoughtful showcase that considers the dialogue between function and aestheticism.

The Shapes of Water:
FENDI

Since 2008, FENDI has supported limited edition creativity and design through its partnership with Design Miami/. To mark the 10-year anniversary of this partnership, the luxury Maison partnered with Marcelis to present ‘The Shapes of Water,’ a project by dedicated to rediscover water as a design tool, whose delicate beauty the designer has magnified by realizing ten fountains inspired by ten of the most iconic symbols of the historical Roman house.

Further celebrating the 10th anniversary of the ‘Peekaboo’ bag, FENDI gave Marcelis carte blanche to reinterpret the iconic style, transforming it from a white canvas version into a design masterpiece. Marcelis chose to freeze the design within a resin block, preserving a hint of functionality within this new sculptural object by only encapsulating the lower volume of the bag. The translucent resin colour exaggerated the three-dimensionality of the shape frozen within.

The customized Peekaboo bags customized by Marcelis and four other international artists debuted at the FENDI boutique in the Miami Design District, displayed on special podiums in hues of yellow designed by Marcelis herself.

‘Colour Rush’ Vitra Design Museum

Sabine Marcelis creates a rainbow of furniture installation for the Vitra Design Museum.

For its annual exhibition at the Herzog & de Meuron-designed Schaudepot, Vitra Design Museum invited designer Sabine Marcelis to explore its archives and create a visually arresting, rainbow-inspired immersive installation of furniture. Titled ‘Colour Rush!’, the exhibition (on view until May 2023) is a fitting project for Marcelis, reflective of her trademark approach to design, which entails creating a sensorial experience in static objects by playing with light, color, and transparency. Through the contemporary design objects on display, Marcelis makes us reflect on the ways colour has been used by some of the world’s most influential designers.

IKEA:
Art Event Collection 2021

IKEA launches its latest Art Event Collection, presenting a range of domestic objects that blur the boundaries between art and design. The collection features new work by Marcelis, multidisciplinary creative Daniel Arsham, as well as artists Gelthop, Humans Since 1982 and Stefan Marx.

Marcelis’s pair of wall sconces is based on the interaction between light and color, with a warm chromatic glow elevating the experience of the piece.

Audi Charging Pole

Sabine Marcelis collaborated with Audi to create a charging pole for the city of Amsterdam, designed with materials that make the city.

The base volume is made from 3d printed sand the foundation on which the city is build. The top volume consists of layered glass which reflects its surroundings and draws the city into the sculptural object. Hidden in these layers are solar cells, made using a revolutionary system that makes them completely invisible, allowing the pole to generate its own electricity to give back to the inhabitants of the city.

Boa Pouf:
HEM

Swedish design brand Hem and Marcelis have unveiled their first collaboration, the Boa Pouf, a whimsical furniture piece boasting a familiar rounded, donut shape that Marcelis frequently employs in her work.

The pouf’s effortless appearance took two years of development and roughly a dozen prototypes – the result fits in well with Hem’s progressive and experimental nature, and it’s a perfect debut for Marcelis within the company’s collection. The seat is available in candy-colored hues of yellow, pink and white, upholstered to create a shape that is as perfectly smooth as possible.

Calico Wallpaper

Calico Wallpaper unveiled a new collection of one-of-a-kind wallcoverings called Dawn designed in collaboration with top designers. Nick and Rachel Cope, co-founders of Calico Wallpaper, enlisted Ini Archibong, Marcelis, Dimorestudio and Neri&Hu to expand their signature collection, Aurora, with a series of gradient designs that aim to inspire hope and optimism during these challenging times.

Each design was created during the summer and fall of 2020, right in the middle of the pandemic, requiring the designers to work remotely. Recognizing the impact of the global pandemic on individuals, communities and businesses, Calico Wallpaper is donating a portion of the proceeds to charities that were picked by the designers, like the Environmental Defense Fund and UN Refugee Agency, among others.

24 HOURS:
A. LANGE & SÖHNE

Marcelis transformed an annular Spanish villa into a large-scale installation for luxury watch label, A. Lange & Söhne. Titled ‘24 Hours,’ the piece utilized the circular building and an abundance of natural light to create a luminous and reflective timepiece.

Designed by Belgian architects Kersten Geers and David van Severen of Office KGDVS, the villa is part of Solo Houses, an architectural endeavor in the mountainous region of Matarraña, Spain consisting of 15 buildings to date, each designed by an emerging international architect. Geers and van Severen’s concrete and glass building was designed with environmental harmony in mind, emphasizing the natural surroundings.

The 45-meter diameter of the hollow circular building provided the perfect space for Marcelis’s timepiece, created to celebrate the release of A. Lange & Söhne’s Datograph Up/Down ‘Lumen,’ in collaboration with Openhouse Magazine. ‘24 Hours’ draws together light, color and form in an explorative sundial that works by way of a cleverly placed obelisk. Situated at the center of the courtyard, the colored mirrored glass obelisk tells the time by casting varying gradients of yellow and blue onto the soil throughout the day.

THE GREEN LIFE:
LA RINASCENTE, MILAN

For Milan Design Week 2019, Marcelis collaborated with La Rinascente, Milan’s historic designer department store in Piazza Duomo, on its second edition of The Green Life, a sustainable showing created to make clients reflect on increasingly urgent environmental issues. Marcelis created three activations that engaged the store’s interiors and exteriors:

Marcelis created a boulevard of 16 huge century-old olive trees in the outside area between the store and the Duomo as an homage to Italian vegetation. The Boulevard Installation gifted passersby with a peaceful moment of relaxation amidst the greenery, where Marcelis’s seats in various shades of orange punctuated the often-crowded space.

Marcelis installed eight moving sculptures in La Rinascente’s display windows, called The Plant Ballet, that existed in perfect harmony with the boulevard, featuring plants and trees of diverse species with multicolored plexiglass discs. The discs become brightly colored statues inviting visitors inside, overlapping to contribute to a constant changing and alternating of colors and creating a biological dance led by color and nature.

Marcelis continued the triumphant greenery inside with Plants are in the Air, bringing two in-store installations to the Design Supermarket and to the fourth floor with a curated exhibition area alongside the retail spaces with tropical plants, succulents, aromatics, rare species, and miniature trees that can be both admired and purchased.

Objects

Marcelis is represented by Etage Projects in Copenhagen, Gallery Bensimon in Paris, Mint Gallery in London, Side Gallery in Barcelona, and Victor Hunt Gallery in Brussels.