Welcome to The Buzz, our monthly roundup of design world news and inspiration for Design Miami’s discerning community of creatives and collectors. Enjoy!

Now showing: In New York, Friedman Benda presents Ettore Sottsass 1947-1947, the gallery’s ninth solo show in an ongoing series dedicated to the groundbreaking Italian architect and designer. As part of the gallery’s continuing commitment to surveying Sottsass’ pioneering investigations across different media, the exhibition features rare works supported by original drawings and publications that offer a window onto the diverse, fertile first half of Sottsass’ career.

Highlights include the large-scale Storage Partition (1965), a unique architectural intervention from one of Sottsass’ most ambitious interiors designed for the Tufarelli residence in Capri (1965), as well as ceramic works reflecting influences from his travels in India and the US. The exhibition also includes the 7-feet-tall Due Menhir e Grande Fallo (1966), one of only four triptych totems created by Sottsass, which is presented for the first time in a gallery setting after showing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the ICA Miami. Until December 16

In Chicago, Volume Gallery presents 1/24th, Light Over Light—the gallery’s third solo exhibition with artistic duo Petra Bachmaier and Sean Gallero of Luftwerk. Known for their atmospheric explorations of color, light, and space, the research-based practice aims to capture the immaterial poetics of natural phenomena. Their latest, minimalist works are inspired by quiet moments in light—evoking the hues of dawn or a passing afternoon hour, framing our days as a collection of moments of light. The show is on view until December 16th.

The 2023 edition of the Sharjah Architecture Triennial opens this month, taking on the theme The Beauty of Impermanence: An Architecture of Adaptability. Curated by Nigerian architect Tosin Oshinowo, the Triennial will feature 30 architects, designers, and studios from 26 countries, who will explore innovative design solutions borne of conditions of scarcity in the Global South. From large-scale installations and exhibitions to critical conversations and wider public programming, the Triennial will examine how cultures of re-use, collaboration, and adaptation can help deliver a more sustainable, resilient, and equitable future. Projects will be displayed across the city, and include works by Asif Khan Studio, Limbo Accra, Olalekan Jeyifous, RUÍNA Architecture,  Miriam Hillawi Abraham, Thao Nguyen Phan, and Formafantasma, among others. November 11, 2023 - March 10, 2024

Now showing: The University of Miami’s Lowe Art Museum presents Iris Eichenberg: Where Words Fail. The mid-career survey of the German artist features 37 works—including jewelry, objects, and installations in an array of materials—that demonstrate Eichenberg’s layered examination of self, including topics such as gender, queer identity, and the impact of place and community. The exhibition, which premiered at the Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco in summer 2022, is guest curated by Davira S. Taragin and open ’til January 13, 2024. (Eichenberg fans can keep an eye out for more of the artist’s work, presented by Ornamentum, at next month’s Design Miami/ 2023 too!)

New York’s R & Company kicks off an exciting winter program with a trio of inspiring exhibitions. The first, Visit to An Extinct City, features new work by Anne Fischer, inspired by the artist’s travels with poet Teresa Carson to the extinct ancient city of Ostia Antica on the outskirts of Rome. The show presents over 75 small-scale plasters and rings, in moments suggesting the landscape of an excavated city, showcasing Fischer’s incredible talent and attention to detail.

In parallel, Sergio Rodrigues: the Heart of Brazil is the latest iteration of the gallery’s exhibition series spotlighting the important designer, who played a critical role in shaping Brazilian Modernism. Iconic and lesser-known furniture are on display, which capture Rodrigues’s remarkable craftsmanship and visionary approach—grounded in an unwavering belief that design should reflect the country’s culture, environment, and lifestyle.

Last but not least, Present Objects, the fifth installment of the gallery's Object Show series, features a selection of small works by the likes of Katie Stout, Joyce Lin, Richard Marquis, and more that defy classification. Useful and decorative, beautiful and provocative, each item proves that good things do come in small packages. All on view until January 5, 2024

In Arlington, Virginia, Friends Artspace’s latest exhibition, Monolithic Forestry, unveils new work by Providence, Rhode Island-based Theju Nimmagadda. The featured collection of wooden seating was conceived both as an ode to the Northern White Cedar as well as an examination of mass-produced U.S. lumber.

Nimmagadda begins each piece with a digital mockup made in the video game Minecraft, and then translates it into a physical model in Legos, before constructing the final piece by hand. Utilizing block-shaped timber that has been grown at an accelerated rate to satisfy supply chain demands, the artist seals the wood with latex paints in Safety Red, Safety Blue, and Safety Yellow, leaving just the end grain planes exposed to showcase the checking, knots, dry rot, and growth rings of each individual cedar, meticulously sanded and polished—resulting in a visual diagram documenting the wood’s manipulated life cycle, a tension between industry and flora, and “a quiet rebellion against its artificially imposed monolithic nature.”  November 4-December 16

Later this month, London’s Gallery FUMI will open Glass Transfigurations, an exhibition of dreamy, sculptural glass work by Jochen Holz and 6:AM Glassworks. The London-based Holz will debut La Belle et la Bête, a body of work inspired by a fantastical, fairy-tale-like chandelier in Jean Cocteau’s 1946 classic film of the same name. Employing borosilicate glass—a material used in scientific industries thanks to its resistance to extreme heat and chemicals—Holz transforms the material in his studio to create unique chandeliers, floor lights, candlesticks, and more. Meanwhile, 6:AM Glassworks, a Milan-based studio run by Edoardo Pandolfo and Francesco Palù, will present 1/1/1, a series consisting of Murano glass imbued with Carrara marble. The sculptures take unpredictable shapes thanks to molds sourced from scrap material found in the studio furnace. Further manipulation enables the works to become a functional series of unique side tables. In conversation, the two practices reinforce the allure—and versatility—of their shared medium. November 23, 2023 - January 9, 2024

This coming week, in the heart of Paris’s Saint Germain des Prés, Galerie Scene Ouverte opens a solo exhibition featuring the work of Brooklyn-based, American ceramic artist William Coggin. Drawing inspiration from nature, Coggin’s functional works often reflect the intricacies of a coral reef or the delicate patterns of moss found on a forest floor. His gorgeously crafted, sculptural pieces explore the possibilities of his medium, combining dramatic, abstracted forms and delicious colors and textures that together feel at once wonderfully familiar and excitingly unexpected. November 8, 2023 - January 13, 2024

Now showing: Atlanta’s High Museum of Art presents Sonya Clark: We Are Each Other, a major traveling exhibition of the pioneering fiber artist that brings together Clark’s large-scale, community-centered and participatory projects for the first time, including The Beaded Prayers Project (1998-ongoing), The Hair Craft Project (2014) and the Monumental Cloth series (2019). Co-organized by the High, Detroit’s Cranbrook Art Museum, and New York’s Museum of Arts and Design, the exhibition debuted summer 2023 in Detroit and travels on to New York next spring. Clark is acclaimed for using everyday fiber materials, such as hair, flags, and found fabric, as well as a range of textile techniques including weaving, braiding, quilting and beading, to examine issues of history, racial injustice, cultural legacies, and reconciliation. We Are Each Other shows how her community-centered projects facilitate new encounters across racial, gender and socioeconomic divisions. In addition to her large-scale installations, the exhibition features a range of her photographs, prints, and sculpture.

The ethos of Clark’s participatory works is embedded in the show’s title, which is inspired by the Gwendolyn Brooks poem Paul Robeson (1970), about the civil rights activist, which closes with, “we are each other’s harvest/we are each other’s business/we are each other’s magnitude and bond.” On view in Atlanta ’til Feb. 18, 2024.

Last but not least, this month in Berlin, Andreas Murkdis’ Store 77 presents an exhibition showcasing the colorful worlds of Belgian design duo Muller Van Severen and Belgian contemporary artist Willem Cole. Both practices are driven by a love of color and research, and consistently blur the traditional boundaries between art and design. The acclaimed design studio’s chairs, lamps, tables, shelves and rugs will be in conversation with Coles’ concrete abstract drawings and new mosaic rods, which will be presented publicly for the first time. November 11, 2023 - January 13, 2024