|
Partners-in-crime (and in art) Gabriel Cohen and Jolie Signorile have become known for their functional artworks under their design venture, Fredericks & Mae. From golden bocce balls to arrows intricately formed with thread and feathers, the dynamic duo’s pieces bring the aesthetic and fascinating into the home. Their pieces, Idols for Home Use, a series of painstakingly crafted figures without obvious allusion to usage, thus mark something of a departure from their other works. “So the question is,” says Cohen, “how to make an aesthetic object work for you? Reverence seems like a possible answer.” |
 |
Gabriel Cohen and Jolie Signorile. Idol #1, 2010. Vinyl doll’s head, cotton, nylon, white Nassa shells from the Gulf of Thailand, central secondary tailfeathers of the hyacinth mackaw, spraypaint. Dimensions variable. Courtesy of Fredericks & Mae.
Idols for Home Use
Kate Meng Brassel
Partners-in-crime (and in art) Gabriel Cohen and Jolie Signorile have become known for their functional artworks under their design venture, Fredericks & Mae. From golden bocce balls to arrows intricately formed with thread and feathers, the dynamic duo’s pieces bring the aesthetic and fascinating into the home. Their pieces, Idols for Home Use, a series of painstakingly crafted figures without obvious allusion to usage, thus mark something of a departure from their other works. “So the question is,” says Cohen, “how to make an aesthetic object work for you? Reverence seems like a possible answer.”
Feathers fallen from a peacock’s neck, butterfly wings from Japan, shells from the bottom of the sea, old dolls, beetle wings: each of these materials has a past life and story of its own. Their reconfiguration endows each idol with the sense of having a narrative behind it. The conflation of natural materials makes each Idol and its narrative supernatural. Each piece also carries with it the story of its creation: Cohen and Signorile spend hours of plotting and days of traveling (to aviaries!) in search of their feathers, shells, and insect wings. The creation of an Idol consumes weeks through the diligent application of these most delicate of natural materials. This enormity of labor and devotion invests these objects with a kind of sacredness.
Fredericks and Mae’s pieces are all also thoroughly endowed with imaginative humor, all this care notwithstanding. These dolls, two of which are shown in this issue, trigger flights of fancy and invent their stories every appearance they make. Idols for Home Use will be nestled into your everyday life and still retain a sense of themselves and their stories. Fredericks & Mae’s pieces can be found at design stores from Tokyo to Brussels. In New York, check out Maryam Nassir Zadeh at 123 Norfolk Street. Visit www.fredericksandmae.com for information on purchasing idols for your personal use.
