[Exhibition]
Borek Sipek: A Baroque Soirée

About This Event

Celebrated Czech designer, artist and architect, Borek Sipek will have his first US solo exhibition with new work at INDUSTRY Gallery in Washington, DC from September 8th to October 13th, 2012. Said to be the father of "neo-baroque", Sipek is renowned for his individual, colorful and rich style, often experimenting with the unexpected. His nature-inspired witty designs, unconventional materials and opulent shapes have won him several prestigious awards and an international reputation as an imaginative and versatile artist.

Famous for his Postmodernist furniture designs and glass objects--often executed by master glassblowers in Murano, Northern Italy and Novy Bor, a town in the Liberec Region of the Czech Republic--Sipek rejects the functionalist approach to design, and feels that striving for technical perfection in industrial mass production should not lead to disregard of the individual personality.

Sipek's work can be at once layered philosophy, art and entertainment. His Facelift collection reflects his special relationship with chairs. It bothers him to see them thrown out, used and disregarded. In his eyes, some call out to again be beautiful and youthful, and so he has given them a "facelift". For some, the procedures were simple--a little "nip and tuck." For others more serious surgical steps were needed. During the process of changes it became noticeable how the chairs began to come to life again and how their energy can tie us to them forever. Look twice...are they possibly fashioned after various celebrities? You may have to guess who.

Sipek also achieved global recognition as an architect. Two of many projects of note...in 1994 the Sipek-designed Kyoto Opera House structure was completed in Japan, and in 1995 Sipek designed a Paris boutique for Karl Lagerfeld.

Borek Sipek's work can be found in important private collections and major international museums including the Museum for Decorative Art in Prague; The Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Museum for Decorative Art in Lyon and Paris, France; The Corning Museum of Glass in New York; The Hague Municipal Museum, The Netherlands; the Design Museum in London; Denver Art Museum and the Museo Internazionale delle Ceramiche, Faenza, Italy. Under the presidency of Vaclav Havel he served as Prague Castle Court Architect of the Czech Republic. Borek Sipek is a Knight of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Borek Sipek is currently working on the design of a memorial dedicated to the victims of slavery in Senegal. This project is under the patronage of Barack Obama, Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey.