THIS TIME TWO YEARS AGO:
DRAW ART FAIR, LONDON, 2019, DESIGNER MATHILDE BRETILLOT AND ARCHITECT MISKA MILLER-LOVEGROVE
May 17th 2021
The design team for DRAW ART FAIR worked magic in the Saatchi gallery. Shout out to Paris-based designer Mathilde Bretillot, London-based architect, Miska Miller-Lovegrove and designer Fernando Gutiérrez created the fair’s architecture, scenography, furniture and visual identity into a minimalist envelope. It was a radical experiment to install a fair for drawing in all its forms with the visual attributes and experience of a museum exhibition. The grand spaces of the Saatchi gallery presented a brilliant backdrop for this brief and viewers had the pleasure of discovering drawing through the fresh eyes of these three internationally acclaimed designers working together for the first time. The fair’s success in large part was based on their clarity of vision and their iconic collaboration.
This unique point of view was captured by Artsy:
Draw Art Fair London designers, Mathilde Bretillot and Miska Miller-Lovegrove are set on reinventing the art fair experience. Their remarkable, pared back design for the first edition of Draw Art Fair London, at Saatchi Gallery 17-19 May 2019, will put art before spectacle. Miska describes the minimalist setting: “From the moment they walk into the exhibition space, viewers will see nothing but art in their sightline. Free standing booths in the centre of the rooms will emphasize a museum like setting so you can really concentrate on drawing.” The designers have created minimalist furniture throughout the fair to accentuate the simplicity of the fair’s structure, giving pride of place to the artworks.
Internationally renowned London-based graphic designer, Fernando Gutíerrez, is the third part of the creative team. He is responsible for the vivid Draw logo and visual identity of the fair. Together the three share a remarkable vision for a new content drive art fair experience at the Saatchi Gallery.
Photo captions:
Photographs of the fair, courtesy by Charles Best and James Harris.
1. Miska Miller-Lovegrove and Mathilde Bretillot looking at the first 3D renderings of their scenographic idea creating an open plan space for the galleries and their artworks. Their approach placed free-standing pavilion structure in the center of the Saatchi Gallery to allow the visitors unobstructed views along the perimeter walls of each grand gallery throughout the three floors of exhibition spaces.