A version of the bed, of which only 15 were made, sold last September for €114,300 ($186,700). The Pulp lads aren’t saying what their version – kept in immaculate condition by its owners in Sicily – fetched this time around, but think supply, demand and scarcity and you get the picture.
A lot of the 1990s work on show at PAD was a roll-out of ideas that had begun bubbling in the ’80s (much as Sinéad’s smash hit was an iteration of Prince’s 1985 original).
The W.W. stool by Starck designed for the office of German film director Wim Wenders in 1990.
“Ten years ago, the clients and collectors for 1980s pieces were the happy few,” says Valérie Bouvier of Remix Gallery, which also has a permanent stall at the Clignancourt flea market where they have built up a reputation as purveyors of perfect work that was produced during the heady days of François Mitterrand’s presidential reign, which ran from 1981 to 1995. “They were fashion designers, art directors, people with highly refined eyes,” she says, noting that this same kind of collector is now directing their gaze at work from the 1990s.
As well as that wheelbarrow armchair, at PAD they showcased other Starck pieces, including a sinuous mint-green W.W. high stool designed for German film director Wim Wenders in 1990 and a Boboolo picnic table and bench (1995) that incorporate sections of beech tree trunks into the structure. “It’s work that sits between design and art,” says Remix Gallery’s Antoine Nouvet.
Back in Sydney, Mike Dawborn, who imports European design to his 506070 gallery in Elizabeth Bay, admits he’s considered adding “80” and “90” to its name.
“As people mature and gain wealth, they often develop a nostalgia for things of their youth,” he says. “There’s been a noticeable uptick in interest in the work of Gaetano Pesce for a year or so. Of course, this has accelerated exponentially since his death. There’s something about the wackiness, the anti-design ethos of Pesce that is resonating with interior designers and their clients right now.”