HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE 2015 COLLECTIVE DESIGN FAIR

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Inside the meandering halls of the haltingly named Skylight Clarkson SQ event space in West Soho, at a booth helmed by the Tribeca showroom R & Company, the young Brooklyn-based artist Thaddeus Wolfe stood, absently gazing out at aisles awash with members of the design world’s demimonde. He was in attendance for the “VIP Preview” of the Collective Design Fair, one of NYCxDesign’s bigger ticket events.

Wolfe, bespectacled and simply dressed, presented a refreshing visual counterpoint to the throngs of natty collectors and dealers who milled about the exhibition booths, kitted out in the current season of Margiela and clutching flutes of twenty-dollar champagne.

“I kind of took a quick spin around, and then eventually wound up here,” Wolfe said quietly, gesturing toward a nearby table populated with his arresting glass sculptures and light fixtures. Wolfe’s easy proximity to his creations recalled a mother duck keeping a sober eye on her brood. Behind him loomed Jorge Zalszupin’s “Three-Level Credenza with Four Doors,” a midcentury Brazilian monolith produced by L’Atelier that exemplifies the kind of deep cuts from Brazilian design with which R & Company normally fills its floors.

The is the third installment of Collective Design, and judging by the sheer volume of “VIPs” who lined up to enter the exhibition hall for Tuesday night’s preview, it is the fair’s most ambitious outing yet, and a bellwether for just what big business design is becoming in this town. The queue stretched down the block, with would-be attendees glued to their Instagram accounts beneath the not-yet-assembled components of People’s Architecture Office’s simply-named “Pop-Up Habitat,” a modular structure apparently meant to be composed of gilded photo reflectors.

Inside, the diversity of wares on display in the exhibition booths were a testament to the ever-expanding breadth of the design universe, and the sophistication of its consumers. At every turn, a different focus or special obsession was in evidence, from the delicate and beautiful antique curios on display at de Vera to the cheeky Fascist undertones of Bo Young Jung & Emmanuel Wolfs’ “A Voice” bronze stools, rendered in the shape of staunchly closed fists, at ammann//gallery.

Desire is always a big part of design, and the offerings on display at Collective ran the gamut from restrained to racy. A suite of Jean Royère’s elegant furniture looked stately installed against a backdrop of thick beige carpet at BAC’s booth, while behind heavy curtains in a dark room helmed by Gufram, outsized polymer-based constructions with gherkin contours were whispered about in the language of BDSM and featured in an accompanying cheeky brochure executed by Toilet Paper honcho Maurizio Cattelan.

Small objects fared well at Collective, with some highlights including Sidsel Hanum’s ombré’d porcelain lattices and Ann Van Hoey’s refined earthenware with an almost lacquer-like glaze at J. Lohmann Gallery, as well as a suite of beautiful Italian glass from the Veneto at Glass Past.

Collective is also populated with pop-ups and special exhibitions, mainly distinguished by the amount of real estate they command on the floor. The highlight of these is a “Secret Garden,” installed by the Queens-based Noguchi Museum. Sparsely furnished with pieces by the late sculptor in stone and paper, the “Garden” is unobtrusively nestled into a service space at the rear of Skylight Clarkson that recalls the industrial simplicity of the museum’s home location on the sleepy outskirts of Long Island City. At 7:30 on the night of the preview, the installation was nearly empty, and provided a pleasant reprieve from the crowds, who seemed to be more interested in the requisite tribute to Memphis located a ways down the hall.

The Collective Design Fair runs through Sunday at Skylight Clarkson SQ, 550 Washington Street, New York. For more information, please visit CollectiveDesignFair.com.