Letters Perfect: Pearl Lam

First Pearl Lam bridged the East-West divide. Now she’s connecting the seemingly impractical to the beguilingly functional in furniture that makes you think. Contrasts, Lam’s Shanghai-based decorative-art and design gallery with a global reach, opened a branch in Hong Kong in 1992 and contributed to the burgeoning international interest in Chinese art.

Five years afterward, when a designer couldn’t finish a piece in time for a show, Lam filled the gap with one of her own designs, a shimmering gold Empress Chandelier. She did so quietly, even denying her creative role. Although hardly a shrinking violet—she has been called the Auntie Mame of the design world and has filled her apartments in Shanghai and London with everything from chairs designed by the deconstructionist Chinese artist Shao Fan to a hand-embroidered sofa by the Swiss designer Mattia Bonetti—Lam claimed that the piece had been done by an anonymous design collective called XYZ.

Being a full-time designer wasn’t in the cards for this jet-setting dealer, but she had created a brand, and in 2004 she decided to pour some fresh talent into it. “It’s great to have new energy, and it’s great to be a patron to these young kids,” she says of the four anonymous designers who make up xyz Design. She explains their anonymity by saying it has helped put the work front and center—“I always believe that you have to have a team spirit”—but adds that it will end at this year’s Design Miami/Basel, in June. “That’s when you’ll find out who the leader is.” 

A clear concept has emerged—call it Philosophical Modern, exploring the gray area between form and function. A lacquered metal chair, Artwork No. 2, almost dares you to use it: It has a seat, but its ribbon shape camouflages its structural support. Another chair, constructed from a single sheet of wavy titanium, looks as if it couldn’t possibly support the weight of a puppy, let alone a person, while the carved-wood Fake table manages to reference Chanel handbags, the Chanel logo and the history of what Lam calls the Chinese “copy culture” in one swift move.

Lam says she wants to show work that makes people ask, “What is art?” But plenty of viewers are already past the questioning phase, including visitors to this month’s Milan Furniture Fair, where XYZ is debuting a top-secret collaboration with Fendi. “She’s exuberant, and she’s intelligent, and she’s daring,” says the New York design dealer Cristina Grajales, talking about the deconstructionist element of XYZ’s approach. Lam may be tearing things apart, but she’s taking the pieces and building something big.

"Letters Perfect: Pearl Lam" originally appeared in the April 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's April 2008 Table of Contents.