VIENNA.- The upcoming Design First auction will take place at Dorotheum, Vienna on 27 March 2019. With prototypes, unique pieces and rarities, it offers a journey through time, from early 20th-century design through to the 1950s as well as works by contemporary design stars.

A glass tabletop seems to float on the airy bronze loops, defying the law of gravity. “Nastro” (Italian for ribbon) is the name chosen by multi-talented artist Giacomo Manzù (1908-1991) for this unique piece, which he created for his home. This artwork comes directly from family ownership and is now due to be offered at auction (estimate € 130,000 – 180,000). Manzù “invented”, as he used to say, its sinusoidal shape while working on a sculptural series and would resort to it in the following years for monuments, jewels and tables. Abstract forms are unusual in the artist’s oeuvre. A further example is the bronze branch that forms part of a table (also a unique piece in family ownership) which sold for 271,400 Euro at Dorotheum’s Design First auction last year.

Refined and practical are the furniture creations by one of the most renowned French designers of the 1950s: this auction features Mathieu Matégot’s “Santiago” table from 1954/55, only two examples of which have been executed. With this creation, Matégot abandoned the archetype of the four-legged table, embracing an object with autonomous sculptural design (estimate € 40,000 – 60,000).

Money Does Not Make Me Happy
The New York based graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister created his “Happy Show” at the Museums of Applied Arts in Vienna (2015) and Frankfurt (2016). With that exhibition and a feature film, this Austrian artist, who is famous for his CD cover designs for Lou Reed, the Rolling Stones and Talking Heads, embarked on a search for happiness. His six-part work MONEY DOES NOT MAKE ME HAPPY, digiprint on aluminium, will also be auctioned at the Design First sale (estimate € 12,000 – 20,000). A further highlight is his room installation with a bicycle on an aluminium pedestal and neon signs reading “Actually Doing The Things I Set Out to Do Increases my Overall Level of Satisfaction”, which light up when the pedals are moving (€ 40,000 – 70,000).

The steel wire bench “Sphere” by Thomas Feichtner was presented for the first time at the Dorotheum during Vienna Design Week in 2018. Its spherical surface was created by means of digital production methods and cutting-edge welding techniques. The bench stands on three unequal legs but even so distributes its load equally on the fine wires from which it is made (€ 16,000 – 25,000).