Taking advantage of Brazil’s large and affordable pool of skilled manual workers, the brothers have installed a workshop on the ground floor of their studio that serves as both a testing ground for new concepts and a minifactory. The latter makes and sells works that are not licensed to their longtime partner Edra or other clients, who include Alessi and Fontana Arte. Under the rubric of Estúdio Campana, a half-dozen artisans sew handmade folkloric Esperança dolls or plush stuffed animals into cartoonish chaises or weave apuí through and around cheap plastic café chairs to create marketable versions of the TransPlastic collection exhibited at London’s Albion Gallery in 2007. (A version of the Albion installation was on show at Design Miami/2008, which honored the brothers with its Designer of the Year award.)

Incredibly, just a decade ago, the Campanas were relatively unknown. They first appeared on the media radar in 1998, when the Museum of Modern Art design curator Paola Antonelli gave them a show with the equally improvisational and affecting German lighting designer Ingo Maurer. At the time, the Campanas’ work seemed especially odd and idiosyncratic. Antonelli even commented on how frequently it was described as "primitive" and "indigenous." Since that watershed show, they’ve gone on to be honored guests and participants at every major design fair, from Milan’s Salone del Mobile to New York’s ICFF, and their work has been featured in some of the world’s most important design museums, from New York’s Cooper-Hewitt to the Victoria & Albert, in London.

Perhaps the most telling sign of their success is the fine-art prices their creations now fetch. (A limited-edition Sonia Diniz chair recently brought $43,000 at auction.) The brothers have proved that down-cycled works need only be rich in concept, wit and elegance to be collectible. And the notion that even the dross of daily life has value has never seemed more captivating than now.

"The Boys from Brazil" originally appeared in the April 2009 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's April 2009 Table of Contents.