Max Radford Gallery: Progressive Permanence

Born of mutual respect and a shared interest in assembling exceptional pieces that transcend time, Christopher Farr opened their portfolio to Max Radford to cast his curatorial eye. Both started out in different eras, yet share roots in London and are united in their background in antiques and interest in commissioning emerging artists and designers. Their collective belief is to re-define where fine art meets function and where design provides self-expression as well as demands an emotional response. TUES 15TH: SHOREDITCH LATE NIGHT until 21:00 - RSVP@christopherfarr.co.uk 17:00 DRINKS 17:30 IN CONVERSATION: Max Radford, Matthew Bourne, co-founder of Christopher Farr, chaired by Hugo MacDonald, design critic and founder of Bard 21:00 DRINKS END For this collaboration, Progressive Permanence partners diverse materiality and forms, limited edition and collectible pieces, relevant to those starting to build their own collection or simply seeking an individualistic point of difference. The presentation includes: ‘Door Rug 4031’, 1996 from English painter and sculptor Gary Hume, paired with natural stone ‘Graywacke OffCut Chair’, 2024, from German artist and furniture designer Carsten in der Elst. The ‘Door Rug 4031’ is developed from Hume’s celebrated Door Paintings, a series of institutional hospital doors, demonstrating his modernist abstraction which finds beauty in the mundane, and purposeful use of colour; and in Der Elst’s ‘Graywacke OffCut Chair’, the artist-designer known for his zero-waste and material-led approach, from his most renowned 'Graywacke Series', created from carefully selected discards of rugged ‘Graywacke’ sandstone, largely kept in their raw state. Further pairings are the ‘XR Mesh 2-seater (yellow)’, 2025, by contemporary British-born, Paris-based contemporary artist LS Gomma in PU rubber, metal mesh and stainless steel juxtaposed by the Berber quality rug of the pioneering French-American artist Louise Bourgeois ,‘Has The Day Invaded The Night? Has the Night Invaded The Day?’, 2009. Bourgeois' rug, produced with the artist herself, the year before her death, derives from her incessant diary writing, which she employed as an on-going dialogue with herself and therapeutic tool, using insomnia to fuel her often psychologically inspired creative output. LS Gomma’s work centres on his hybrid use of materials, notably the combination of polyurethane rubber and industrial metal mesh, often reimagining functional pieces further developed into artefacts. Now almost forty years ago, Christopher Farr started out in the 1990s, an era fuelled by post-industrial reinvention, low-fi and DIY attitude to artistic output, when creatives could more easily acquire disused buildings as studios, or business premises in undeveloped parts of the capital. For Radford, this period of invention seemed distant, and he sought out the creative renegades and individuals who embraced this need for material exploration and original sculptural production. Progressive Permanence is a meeting of this different experience, brought together by a shared desire to provide a platform for original thinkers and progressive pieces, which are not derivative, but classics of their era and over time.