Design luminary Ron Arad, 50, takes a provocative new direction with “Guarded Thoughts,” on view through December 20 at Friedman Benda gallery, in New York’s Chelsea.

The Israeli-born Arad’s latest pieces retain his characteristic biomorphic shapes and are executed in his medium of choice, steel, but are markedly more ambitious in scale and sophistication. Reflective forms that twist, torque and cantilever to create dynamic variations of light and movement, they cross the boundary between design and art to land assertively in the latter camp.

With his works achieving six figures at auction—a D sofa, 2003, from an edition of 20, brought $409,000 at Phillips de Pury & Company in December 2007—plus a current retrospective at the Centre Pom­pidou, in Paris, Arad’s star is riding high in the firmament.

"Curves Ahead" originally appeared in the December 2008 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's December 2008 Table of Contents.