{"id":364979,"date":"2026-03-25T20:54:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T20:54:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/364979\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T20:54:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T20:54:12","slug":"marc-newson-surveys-four-decades-of-innovation-at-chateau-la-coste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/364979\/","title":{"rendered":"Marc Newson Surveys Four Decades of Innovation at Ch\u00e2teau La Coste"},"content":{"rendered":"

By 1995, Marc Newson<\/a> had already established himself as a formidable industrial designer, propelled by the success of his Lockheed Lounge, a riveted aluminum chaise that reflected his early fascinations with aeronautical references and hand-built construction. The Australian designer, who later co-founded LoveFrom with Jony Ive after high-profile roles at Apple, balanced the making of experimental furniture with ambitious commissions, including a large-scale work conceived for a public art program tied to the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games<\/a>. Fabricated and shipped first to Atlanta and later to Sydney, where it was intended to be installed, the project ultimately went unrealized and slipped from the public consciousness.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Man<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMarc Newson.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Phil Poynter<\/p>\n

Decades later, Newson rediscovered the sculpture in storage. \u201cA barn find of sorts,\u201d he tells Galerie. Now titled Electra, the monumental work\u2014a gleaming aluminum totem that tapers upward before splitting into two rounded prongs that curved toward one another\u2014stands at the entrance driveway of his latest solo exhibition, at Ch\u00e2teau La Coste<\/a>, where it is on public view for the first time. Set within the Proven\u00e7al estate\u2019s luminous Oscar Niemeyer\u2013designed pavilion<\/a>, the exhibition<\/a> surveys decades of Newson\u2019s practice through 14 works installed indoors and out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Modern<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tInstallation view of \u201cMarc Newson\u201d at Ch\u00e2teau La Coste.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: St\u00e9phane Aboudaram<\/p>\n

The selection gathers defining pieces that have gone on to shape global conversations around contemporary design while profoundly influencing the objects that populate everyday life, driven largely by Newson\u2019s enduring focus on craft, process, and experimentation. Early breakthroughs such as the Lockheed Lounge appear alongside later works emblematic of his technical mastery and which extended fabrication into new territories. The tessellated Voronoi Shelf, placed on a reflecting pool outside, evokes wavy natural geometries yet was impressively carved from a single slab of Carrara marble. The Cast Glass Chair, composed of two hollow quarter-spheres precisely stacked atop one another, revisits his early training in silversmithing.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Silver<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u201cElectra\u201d (2025) by Marc Newson.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: St\u00e9phane Aboudaram<\/p>\n

Across the show, a four-decade trajectory emerges through sustained material inquiry and an unrelenting drive to extend what those materials can achieve. \u201cI enjoy exploiting (in a positive way) traditional materials in untraditional ways\u2014toying with scale, pushing the boundaries of processes, and seeing what\u2019s technically possible, often shifting the outcome through scale,\u201d Newson says. \u201cThere\u2019s so much to be gained from the evolution of traditional craft.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

His work in cloisonn\u00e9 is a vivid example. Several sinuous chairs and swooping chaises are festooned with intricate spotted and floral patterns realized in cloisonn\u00e9 enamel, an ancient Chinese decorative technique dating to the 13th century. Often used for smaller figurines and vases, the technique was rarely attempted at the scale of furniture. To reinvigorate the tradition, Newson established a workshop in Beijing, where skilled artisans produce each piece by hand. Surfaces bloom with dense fields of color and pattern, including magnolia blossoms that practically sing against white enamel. \u201cMy large-scale cloisonn\u00e9 works required purpose-built processes specific to the pieces,\u201d he says. \u201cI stretched the possibilities of material form and process, the result of which is something both compelling and beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Modern<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tInstallation view of \u201cMarc Newson\u201d at Ch\u00e2teau La Coste.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: St\u00e9phane Aboudaram<\/p>\n

Stretching the process remains central to Newson\u2019s thinking, venturing far beyond the finished object to the knotty stages in between. \u201cI\u2019ve long been interested in what is absent as well as what is present, how form is created by what is not there as much as what is,\u201d he explains. \u201cI remain interested in the spaces you don\u2019t see, and how they inform your perception of an object or product. It\u2019s another way to push the limits of materials, to shift how they\u2019re seen over time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The pavilion\u2019s sweeping curves and otherworldly interior, set aglow by the sylvan Proven\u00e7al landscape, informed the placement of each work. That dialogue also finds clear expression in Electra, which stands sentinel nearby and entices visitors inward. \u201cCelebrating aesthetic and material diversity,\u201d Newson says, \u201cthis show underscores the core motivations of my practice, one which remains non-linear in its approach to problem-solving and attempts to defy cultural expectations.\u201d Put simply, it traces a career defined by the adventure, not the endgame.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\"Floral<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\u201cCloisonn\u00e9 White Magnolia Chair\u201d (2017) by Marc Newson.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto: Courtesy of Marc Newson<\/p>\n

\u201cMarc Newson\u201d will be on view at Ch\u00e2teau La Coste until June 21, 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By 1995, Marc Newson had already established himself as a formidable industrial designer, propelled by the success of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364980,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,164550,23983,308,93,4197,61,60,164551,164552],"class_list":{"0":"post-364979","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-artsdesign","12":"tag-chateau-la-coste","13":"tag-collectible-design","14":"tag-design","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-exhibitions","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-marc-newson","20":"tag-provence"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364979","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364979"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364979\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364979"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}