Slice Up Your Life
Blurring the lines between architecture and art, Brooklyn-based collaborative Snarkitecture designs furniture and installations that defy gravity and physics. Lamps float, shelves grow from walls, and the legs of a table corrode and disintegrate while the tabletop remains unblemished and smooth. Most recently the collective, which was established by Alex Mustonen and Daniel Arsham, turned its focus to an object whose value is traditionally recreational rather than aesthetic: the ping-pong table. The table, Slice, will be sold as part of art and design retailer Grey Area’s Artsy sale of game-related art objects. Other items in the sale, which is aptly titled “Game On!,” include Norman Ibarra’s playing cards printed on discarded metro passes and Oliver Clegg’s raunchy foosball table, whose players are statuettes of himself and his wife in the nude.
Tonight, Grey Area will host a private event at The Biergarten at The Standard to fete “Game On!,” specifically showcasing Snarkitecture’s Slice. Athletically inclined guests will have the opportunity to play a match on the $18,000 table.
“We have an all-white table in the studio and have to play with an orange ball for visibility,” says Snarkitecture. “On a certain level, the black table was about wanting to create a monochromatic environment to play in.” Inspired by its materials—rock-hard Richlite and flexible rubber—the table rests on topographic slabs that create an object that is ominous and dense from some vantage points and impossibly light from others.
Grey Area specializes in bridging the gap between mediums and facilitating collaborations between artists, designers and retailers, making it the ideal platform to feature Slice. “There’s an interesting overlap between Snarkitecture and Grey Area,” Mustonen and Arsham explain. “We’re both operating between disciplines.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON “GAME ON!,” VISIT THE ARTSY WEBSITE.
