Meetups

The Future Perfect was founded by David Alhadeff in 2003 and has become one of the world’s foremost contemporary design galleries. From its inception, The Future Perfect has been distinguished by its thoroughly creative and ebullient vision and strong curatorial focus, which showcases studio-created works alongside one-of-a-kind and limited edition pieces. In its 17-year history, the gallery, as its name implies, has introduced some of the seminal design talents of our times, including highly-collectible works by Lindsey Adelman, Jason Miller, and Piet Hein Eek. Considered a catalyst as well as an industry authority, The Future Perfect has also forged relationships with some of the world’s most influential artists, designers, and craftspeople. Today, The Future Perfect’s prestigious gallery program is tailored to its unique locations in North America: The original flagship in New York’s NoHo, a new Casa on Manhattan’s West Side; The Complex, in San Francisco; and Casa Perfect, in Beverly Hills, CA. By design, each space offers a highly customized environment that includes exclusive exhibitions from cutting edge contemporary artists complemented by an eclectic mix of contemporary production and gallery pieces, all of which can be discovered under one roof.

For her first solo exhibition with Objects With Narratives, Olivia Cognet began with water. Brussels is a city where fountains tell stories. The most famous, Manneken Pis, transformed a tiny, irreverent sculpture into an enduring monument, an idea that stayed with her.

At the centre of the exhibition is a monumental fountain in black ceramic: a contemporary response to the Brussels tradition of the fountain as a character. Here, however, the figure has disappeared. Only the source remains.

Dense, mineral, and almost brutalist, the fountain becomes an architecture of matter, with water emerging as though from dark rock. Around it, Cognet has developed a new series of furniture forms that are more austere and architectural, shaped through repetition and volumes that respond to one another.

The exhibition also marks a meeting point with Objects With Narratives, whose international community of artists and designers explores the object as a carrier of stories across sculpture, design, and architecture.

While ceramic remains central, Cognet also works with lava, wood, and glass—elemental, almost geological materials shaped into living forms and marked by the hand. Often associated with sun-filled landscapes and a sensual use of matter, her work takes on a denser, more vertical character in Brussels.