Reflecting on an overwhelming year of beauty and wonder

In the perpetual race to see, ingest, interpret and share our thoughts on art and design openings, some powerful exhibitions and installations are often lost to a breakdown in the process—and stories, our attempts at amplifying what we find meaningful, do not come together. Rather, our experiences are left as sentences, or fragments of visions. A few openings, long after their pieces have been sold or redistributed or stashed away for another day or decade, linger within us. They transform into memories to be called upon for inspiration. With the following six 2024 debuts, we wish we’d had more time to pause and put something together earlier so that even more people could have seen them in person—but, with 2025 upon us, there will be more opportunities to engage with these artists and designers or the galleries and fairs where they were discovered.

ScanLAB Projects’ FRAMERATE: Rhythms Around Us in the 2024 Tribeca Festival at Mercer Labs

In 2024, the Tribeca Festival’s immersive section found a home within the state-of-the-art, floor-to-ceiling LED exhibition spaces of Mercer Labs. From the slate of pioneering pieces, we were on-hand to experience London-based ScanLAB Projects‘ spatial masterpiece, FRAMERATE: Rhythms Around Us, which documents landscapes as they shift over time. “Together we see the beautiful, creative and destructive forces of nature and humanity,” ScanLAB co-founder Matt Shaw told COOL HUNTING. “It was important to us that people explore this together, and see other people seeing the work. We are a part of this rhythm, we contribute to the cacophony, we are in sync and we catastrophically collide with the beating pulse of our planet.” As we’ve noted before, ScanLAB uses LiDAR scanners to map landscapes in 3D, with each scan “collecting millions of precisely measured and beautifully colored pixels placed perfectly in 3D space.” Through time-lapse, this data transforms into a story. To step into FRAMERATE: Rhythms Around Us at Mercer Labs was to be enveloped in the future of storytelling, photography and technology.

Doug Wheeler: Day Night Day at David Zwirner

From 12 September to 19 October 2024, David Zwirner hosted the exhibition Day Night Day featuring the work of American artist Doug Wheeler. The astonishing large-scale centerpiece, “DN ND WD 180 EN – NY 24” (2024), utilized light to create an illusion of limitlessness, where visitors were tasked with exploring the physical boundaries of the moody, immersive installation. As a phone-free environment, “DN ND WD 180 EN – NY 24” asked attendees to be present and to probe their understanding of perception.

NUOVA’s Time Travel, 1971 at Design Miami

During Design Miami this December, the installation Time Travel, 1971 pieced furniture, lighting and textiles together with performance, fragrance and gastronomy for a theatrical immersion into ’70s style. From Los Angeles-based design group NUOVA (an acronym for “New Understanding of Various Artifacts”), founded by Rodrigo Caula and Enrico Pietra, the two-part portal not only tapped into the colors and materials of the past (including the yellow palette of the plush carpeting and modular sofa, as well as the low table) but elicited nostalgic sensations of Americana.

Piet Hein Eek’s Masterworks at The Future Perfect New York

When the stunning Masterworks exhibition opened at The Future Perfect townhouse in NYC in September, it presented boundary-pushing furniture pieces and decorative wares by beloved Dutch designer Piet Hein Eek. Eek took three years to develop the works with his studio, and all of them reference or are directly drawn from his most significant collections. “The idea for this show was to make masterpieces. If you think about a masterpiece, it’s often one craftsperson who makes something extraordinary that sits above everything else in the world at that moment,” Eek told COOL HUNTING at his opening. “In our case, it’s our whole organization. I am the designer, but I manufacture my products in my own space with a team that is extremely efficient and though the concept is mine they bring something.” In sharing our observation that no side or angle was left unconsidered, even the parts that are rarely, if ever, seen, Eek adds, “we always make backs and bottoms as beautiful as the top.”

Liliana Porter: The Task at Dia Bridgehampton

Open until 26 May 2025 at Dia Bridgehampton, The Task (2024) is a whimsical feast of the unexpected that toys with the concepts of time and perspective. From conceptual artist Liliana Porter, the exhibition pairs her photographic works with a sprawling iteration of her Forced Labor installation series, composed of found items, figurines and other ephemera. Situations are born that question circumstance and scale, and leave room for interpretation. The entire exhibition can be enjoyed with its aesthetic wonder, or dissected for the meaning behind each detail.

Jacques Doucet Furniture at Invisible Collection New York

An exquisite representation of the elegance that made Jacques Doucet so sought after in the late 1800s, Invisible Collection‘s current exhibition dedicated to the couturier and noted furniture and art collector features furnishings and design pieces that embolden his aesthetic spirit. Housed in the contemporary design marketplace’s New York townhouse, the Doucet exhibition—which runs through 25 January—sets stunning tables alongside lighting, sofas, carpets and more. The exhibition was done in partnership with Arnaud de Lummen, the founder and managing director of Luvanis, which owns the Jacques Doucet brand. To bring this collection to life in their townhouse , Invisible Collection commissioned French design duo Garcé & Dimofski, from their roster of talent.