Los Angeles – Friedman Benda is pleased to present, Chairs Don’t Cry, Lithuanian designer Barbora Žilinskaitė’s inaugural solo exhibition opening at the gallery’s Los Angeles location.
Stifled by the constraints of a traditional design education at the outset of her career, Žilinskaitė sought to distance herself from boundaried definitions in the field. Investigating relationships between owners and their objects, she questions human-centered worldviews and consumption habits. Seeking to create a bridge between people and things, she urges the user to relate to their objects as if they were entering into a dialogue between two equal parties. Imbuing design with representative figurative shapes as a mode of generating agency, Žilinskaitė experiments with brightly colored dyes and surrealistic organic corporeal forms crafted from her signature medium of reclaimed sawdust.
“Human-like features attract us, evoke emotions and feelings, they create this weird still friendly atmosphere,” she explains, “but also human-like objects become more significant – and that helps me to advocate for them.”
About Barbora Žilinskaitė
Born in 1996 in Kaunas, Lithuania, Barbora Žilinskaitė is a designer living and working in Brussels, Belgium. Seeking to distance herself from boundaried definitions of creative practices, Žilinskaitė’s output approaches design through a sculptural lens with a focus on material experimentation. Žilinskaitė graduated from Vilnius Academy of Arts in Lithuania with a B.A. degree in product and spatial design.
About Friedman Benda
Friedman Benda identifies and advances key narratives that intersect contemporary design, craft, architecture, fine art, and cutting-edge technological research. The gallery promotes synthesis between leading creative thinkers and makers by creating opportunities to advance new connections within the global design community. Friedman Benda is committed to a critical view of design history. We aim to expand the design dialogue from its established sources, exploring perspectives that have previously been marginalized. Spanning five continents and four generations, Friedman Benda represents a roster of seminal established and emerging designers, as well as historically significant estates. With locations in New York, Los Angeles and Paris, the gallery’s exhibitions, publications and collaborations with institutions have played a vital role in the development of the contemporary design market and scholarship since 2007.
BARBORA ŽILINSKAITĖ
CHAIRS DON’T CRY
FEB 20 – MAR 30 2024
Friedman Benda
www.friedmanbenda.com
