As old as civilization, metalworking is at once science, art, and industry. The very advancement of civilization has been defined by its passage from the Stone Age through the successive ages of Metals – Copper, Bronze, Iron – onward into the more recent Steel Age. Freed from the constraints of earlier ages, 20th and 21st-century artists and designers have been able to foray into the metalworking methods and modes of their predecessors at whim, with the advantage of new technologies to embolden their experimentation, and new visions to expand their expression.

Donzella LTD presents Heavy Metals, an exhibition of works curated with an eye towards distinct and imaginative uses of metals. Spanning a century of design history, a rich range of styles will be on view: from the hand-hammered grace of the Hagenauer Werkstätte to the sleek minimalism of Gabriella Crespi; masterworks by Philip & Kelvin LaVerne, classics by Donald Deskey, and contemporary gems by Alexandre Logé, to name a few.

Along with Art Deco, Jugenstil, Minimalist, Brutalist, and Postmodern works are those that defy easy categorization, such as Claire Falkenstein’s powerhouse sculptures, or Ghiora Aharoni’s assemblage sculpture, which incorporates vintage & antique silver. What all the artists in Heavy Metals share is their having achieved new ways of utilizing and displaying metals, iterating, playing on, or altogether transcending design tropes of their period. Representing the gamut of metalworking techniques – forging, hammering, casting, welding, melding, pleating, etching – Heavy Metals offers an equally dynamic breadth of solutions to the challenge of form and function, and the quest for beauty. In total, the exhibition comprises a kind of metallurgical symphony, encompassing the bold and edgy, the exquisitely refined, the whimsical, and of course the ironic.