Art+Auction - March 2016_

London. The work has been featured at

Design Miami/Basel since 2006 and in solo

exhibitions and installations in Europe,

Japan, the Middle East, Australia, and South

America. The studio’s irst exhibition in

China takes place later this year. Since 2007,

Studio Job works have been on the blocks

of Phillips, Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Wright.

“Buyers are an international clientele of

people who value craftsmanship, but it’s

hard to make a deinitive comment [on

the market] since Studio Job pieces come up

so rarely,” says Christie’s New York design

department head Carina Villinger. “When

they come up for sale, they go very well, but

it’s rare that collectors let go of them.”

Some 35 lots of the studio’s limited-edition

pieces have appeared at auction since 2007.

At that time, prices hovered around $15,000;

sale igures now approach or achieve six

igures. A 2007 Robber Baron loor lamp

fetched $110,500 on an estimate of $100,000

to $150,000 at Phillips New York in October

2012; a 2012 Taj Mahal prototype table,

estimated at £30,000 to £40,000 ($46–

62,000), brought £55,000 ($84,900) at

Christie’s London last November; and a 2006

Perished bench sold for $71,500 (est. $60–

80,000) at Sotheby’s New York in December

2012. Of the much-talked-about Perished
      collection, whose original prices averaged
      about $15,000 at its debut in 2006, Murray
      Moss, whose gallery introduced Studio Job
      to the American market roughly 10 years ago,

ARTISTDOSSIER

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: ROBERT KOT; TWO IMAGES, ADRIEN MILLOT

says Smeets. “We don’t feel like

ambassadors of our country. We

move on with our own story.”

Graduates of the prestigious

Design Academy Eindhoven,

45-year-old Smeets, a native of

Hamont, Belgium, and 38-year-

old Tynagel, from the Dutch town

of Bergeijk, met when she was

starting school and he was about to

graduate. Smeets opened Studio

Job in 1998, and Tynagel interned

as a student, becoming a partner

on her graduation in 2000. “We

liked the idea of going on an

adventure together,” says Smeets.

As he explains it, the team’s aim is to “explore the culture of design,”

creating objects that look functional but might not function.

They have little interest, for instance, in the chair form. “We never

saw it as an important item in building a body of work,” says Smeets.

Even so, that body of work is considerable: hundreds of objects

large and small, in which concept and provocation take precedence

over commercial concerns. Each collection begins with a theme,

which takes form through thousands of sketches in the duo’s Antwerp

design studio—Smeets’s by hand, Tynagel’s rendered on screen—

before the meticulous process of fabrication begins in Eindhoven.

Not initially in mass production, Studio Job designs have always

been available through galleries, including Dilmos in Milan,

New York’s Moss, and, since 2009, Carpenters Workshop Gallery in

ART+AUCTION MARCH 2016 (^) | BLOUINARTINFO.COM
The 2006
Perished bench,
above, a marque-
try composition
of bird’s-eye
maple and Indian
rosewood with
brass, brought
$71,500 at
Sotheby’s New
York in 2012. All
designs, such
as 2015’s Train
Crash table in
polished and pati-
nated bronze,
24-karat gold, and
aluminum, right,
start as render-
ings either by
hand or computer.
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