About DNA

DNA is a collaborative project between Friedman Benda, Galerie kreo, and Salon 94 Design that provides a comprehensive approach with 26 designers, and 28 comparative essays by curator and writer Glenn Adamson. DNA is a new online format which reveals a new perspective on contemporary design by exploring the materials, processes, colors, textures, and functionality in over 80 works.

DNA is not just a place to browse and shop for design objects and furniture, it is a platform that highlights the networks which exist within the world of contemporary design, showcasing how these objects exist in tandem with one another. This project, a collective effort between three galleries which substitutes for the missed opportunities to physically showcase work from designers this year. Though nothing can replace the physical, tactile, and visual experiences of art and design, reading about these works though Glenn Adamson’s essays reveals a deeper understanding of objects on an elevated platform of design history.

“This project, DNA, it is far more than the sum of its parts. Three of the world’s leading design galleries have come together, intertwining their programs into a single, generative presentation: a triple helix of creativity. It’s an impressive gathering, and an instructive one. DNA provides a generous cross-section of where design is today, and some of the pathways that have brought it here. What gives it greatest value, though, is the context it provides to each of the designers, by placing them alongside their peers. Individually, the 84 included works are striking, innovative, and provocative by turns. They need no help from anyone to communicate meaning. But seen three by three, in 28 different configurations, they are seen afresh. Even the most replete and self-sufficient of them become part of something bigger, as the groupings accumulate into a single shared story about design.”

— Glenn Adamson