2011

Located across the street from the New Museum, this design-focused gallery quietly resides above a busy home-supply store with only a banner hanging outside its second-story window advertising its existence. Cofounders Rebecca Kong and Jon Tomlinson both worked as contemporary art dealers before they started Artware Editions in 2006 to challenge visual artists to produce limited-edition, functional design objects, such as Christopher Kurtz's circle-motif armchair and ottoman set ($1,500)...

Artist Sol Lewitt first created his Geometric Figures tiles while he lived near Deruta, an Italian city renowned for it ceramics. Relaunched three decades later, the hand-painted majolica tiles ($150 each) measure 9.5" sq. and are available in five designs and eight color combinations.

German magazine, MONOPOL features Christian Marclays's Untitled Music box.“Silent” on the box’s exterior, “Listen” on the interior, and “Tinsel," the name of the composition, are anagrams of one another. Untitled (Music Box) was made in Sainte-Croix by Reuge, the last remaining manufacturer of music boxes in Switzerland. For this project, Marclay composed “Tinsel,” a seamless melodic loop that incorporates the gradual slowing of the unwinding mechanism within the box.

“I keep a kind of mental notebook of phrases that resonate in my mind,” said Rob Wynne, an artist who lives in Manhattan. “Some are made up, some come from reading or from being overheard.” Although most of Mr. Wynne’s work — drawings and sculptures made with materials like poured glass and thread — is shown in galleries, he recently produced a line of 19 dishwasher-safe plates. “I started making them as long as eight or nine years ago,” he said, “because I thought it would be nice to eat off them.” Each plate features one of those phrases, like “As I have already said, I had no real childhood,” pictured, “a snowstorm of flowers,” “the sound of butterflies” and “open your mouth and shut your eyes.” The 10 1/2-inch-diameter plates are $125 each; there is also a 12-by-16-inch platter for $225. Available in a limited edition at Artware Editions, 270 Bowery (Houston Street), (212) 463-7490 or artwareeditions.com.

When Michele Oka Doner was a teenager, her favorite book was “Microbe Hunters” by Paul de Kruif. “I loved the microscope,” said Ms. Doner, a Manhattan artist known for sculpture, furniture and home accessories that celebrate nature. “My heroine was Madame Marie Curie.” Microscopic, one of the designs in her newest wallpaper collection for Studio Printworks, a manufacturer in Hoboken, N.J., depicts things that float in the sea — “life forms, hidden until the microscope came,” Ms. Doner said. The branchlike pieces (top left) are abstract renderings of kelp, which isn’t hard to see with the naked eye, but the circular forms in the larger design (bottom left) include diatoms (aquatic microfossils with silica shells) and foraminifera (single-celled protists). The paper, which comes in six background colors, is $450 a roll at Artware Editions, 270 Bowery (Houston Street); (212) 463-7490 or artwareeditions.com.

For modern birds, a new birdhouse and bird feeder offer streamlined style at different price points. On the higher end, Peter Eudenbach, an artist based in Norfolk, Va., created a birdhouse with a pared-down look and name — Birdhouse — for Artware Editions. The design was partly inspired by Vermont’s covered bridges, Mr. Eudenbach said, which “almost look like Donald Judd sculptures.” The house is $350 and comes in red or yellow, in a limited edition of 50 each, signed and numbered by the artist; (212) 463-7490 or artwareeditions.com.

Artware Editions is a store specializing in many forms of art that can be acquired online...

After five years in the West Village, Artware Editions has moved to a 2,300-square-foot space on the Bowery — one large enough to display the range of products offered by the gallery, which specializes in functional designs by visual artists. “The space allows us to show pieces in the context of each other,” said Rebecca Kong, a founder of the company. “We can show the Klein table with a couch, so you can see it’s something you can live with.” Works by Kiki Smith, Roy McMakin, Helen Mirra and others are on display in the light-filled space, upstairs from Bowery Home Supplies. The location was chosen for its proximity to the worlds of art and commerce that Artware straddles, said Jon Tomlinson, the other founder: “We have SoHo on one side, which has plenty of commerce, and the galleries are on the Lower East Side — we are literally and figuratively in that middle ground.” Prices range from $20 for an E for Effort tote bag to $24,750 for a gold table by Yves Klein (Donald Judd’s Corner bench, above center, is $6,250)

Steve Kesiter's creations may be dishwasher and microwave-friendly, and coloured with food-safe glazes, but there the similarity with other everyday pottery ends. His are moulded from 'voids or cavities found in Styrofoam cartons and plastic bottles', while the colours and material reflect the sculptor's interest in Mexican culture...

Pennsylvania artist Steve Keister was inspired by Mexican culture when he created these vibrant pieces. Best of all, he used a mold fashioned from recycled materials (Styrofoam cartons and plastic bottles), so eco-minded shoppers can snag them in good conscience...

Rarely reproduced since it was first exhibited in 1981, Sol Lewitt's Coffee Table has returned to the market, courtesy of Artware Editions. Fabricated by the original craftsman, the 48"-square table features a glass top and a base of either black walnut or white-painted poplar.

Ever since Duchamp debuted his readymades in 1913 the line between form and function has been blurred with tis collector of fine art objects. A set of four ceramic candlesticks of Vladimir Lenin created in 1992 by Russian artists.

Damien Hirst Deck Chairs featured in German Monopol Magazine