The art and design community kicked off Legends week with a special exhibition in L.A.’s La Cienega Design Quarter
Words by MARIE LOOK
On Monday, May 7, the multidisciplinary duo behind Furth Yashar & presented “Peter Shire: Good Taste” — a special exhibition focused on the work, process and personality of the renowned Echo Park-based artist — to coincide with Legends, the annual celebration of Los Angeles’ La Cienega Design Quarter.
At Farrow & Ball’s West Hollywood flagship and showroom, interior designer Oliver M. Furth and creative consultant Sean Yashar mounted the latest iteration of what they like to refer to as their “roving gallery concept,” this time celebrating Shire — their close friend and an inimitable founding member of postmodernist design collective Memphis — who was also present.
In partnership with California Home+Design and Farrow & Ball, Furth Yashar & treated members of the local art and design community, including Kelly Lamb, Beth Rudin DeWoody and Kyle DeWoody, Ben Medansky and Tim Street-Porter, and fashion designers Jenni Kayne and Trina Turk, to a private tour, led by the artist and the exhibition’s curators.
The selection of Shire’s exuberant, highly chromatic works on view included his Cairo, 2018, armchair; Rocket, 1986/1987, shelves; and Ascent of Talcum Powder, 2019, sculpture, each toeing the line between functional and fanciful to varying degrees and representing an always fearless use of color, Shire’s modus operandi.
Unmissable was the central vignette, which Furth and Yashar curated as a glimpse into Shire’s studio to not only provide insights into the iconic L.A. artist’s creativity but also provoke questions surrounding the definitions of art, design and “good taste.”
Attendees marveled at the floor-to-ceiling display, which was bursting with color in every item and detail, such as the front-and-center potter’s wheel, spackled resource cabinet bedecked with personal mementos (including a 1990s black-and-white photo of Shire in his vintage truck outside Echo Park staple Rodeo Mexican Grill) and rolling table laden with brushes and gallons of paint at the ready. Affixed to the canvas backdrop were dozens of Shire’s personal sketches, notes and photographs offering a look at works past, present and perhaps future.
Feature image: “Don’t Jump Until You Get to the Style,” 1989, by PETER SHIRE. Photo by Yoshihiro Makino.
May 17, 2019
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