At TEFAF New York 2026, held at the Park Avenue Armory from 15 to 19 May during NYC Art Week, Friedman Benda presents a wide-ranging reflection on modernism as an evolving language rather than a fixed historical chapter. At Booth 325, the presentation is anchored by an early example of Red Blue Chair (c.1922), an object that captures the balance between formal discipline and radical invention.
The work of Gerrit Rietveld sets the tone for a narrative that moves across time and geography. Alongside it, works by John Chamberlain and Wendell Castle introduce an early extension of modernist thinking, where material becomes structure and intent is clearly articulated. The dialogue continues through ceramics with Suzuki Osamu, whose foundational approach reflects the experimental energy that reshaped the medium and still resonates today in the work of Nicole Cherubini.
Modernism, as the presentation suggests, was never a single coherent movement, but rather a field of overlapping possibilities. This idea is echoed in the inclusion of Shiro Kuramata, whose chairs from the Soseikan Yamaguchi House are shown in New York for the first time, where formal lightness becomes conceptual space. The ongoing relationship between technology and design – central to early modernist thought – is reinterpreted by Joris Laarman through his Ply Loop series, which translates digital processes and craftsmanship into a fluid design system.
The exhibition extends into a broader international field, bringing together artists and designers from Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, the UK and the US, including nendo, Samuel Ross, Faye Toogood and Frida Escobedo. Across these diverse practices, Friedman Benda frames modernism not as a closed canon, but as an active critical tool – one that continues to shape how form, technique and vision are understood today.
