"NEO-NARCISSIST" MIRROR & "BABEL" TOWER

Inspired by the story of Narcissus, the Greek god who fell in love with his own reflection, the Neo-Narcissist Mirror is dominated by a striking, dramatic, black crown in the shape of a bird’s wing creating a sense of drama that alters our perception of ourselves, inviting us to consider our mood, not just our reflection, suggesting an identity stripped of preconceived notions of beauty, masculinity or femininity. The structure of the piece fuses the fluid shape of the mirror with the black crown made out of individual leather and suede feathers, beautifully assembled along a pattern resembling that of a bird’s wing. The leather and suede pieces are expertly crafted by the renowned Parisian leather artisans Ateliers Fey, using unique embossing techniques that evoke the texture and visual effect of feathers.

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The Babel Book Tower draws its inspiration from the myth of the same name, a story of collective effort, language and human hubris. In the story, humans speaking a single language endeavor to build a city with a tower “with its top in heaven”. To prevent them from succeeding, God confuses their speech so that they can no longer understand each other, and scatters them around the world. The towers, a collaboration between Hartis and Crina Arghirescu, have been created by the New York-based artist Liz Hopkins and are a dreamy interpretation of the Tower of Babel’s architecture, a ruin of sorts, with openings calling for the quintessential pieces of a collector’s book selection. A totem, the towers and books come together as a symbol of the eternal power of knowledge and language.