Raider Of The Lost Art

Industrial designer Marc Newson has revived an ancient art and translated it spectacularly to his minimalist furniture. He talks to Christina Ko on the occasion of his first solo exhibition in Hong Kong

Marc Newson, often described as the most influential designer of his generation, says his work accounts for something like 28 per cent of the entire auction market for design items. The 55-year-old Australian tends to speak softly, matter-of-factly and without much inflection, so when he makes statements like this—or that he is the only designer to have been represented by the elite Gagosian gallery, or that he’s “done a hell of a lot of things, more than most designers”—it’s hard to tell whether he’s bragging or simply stating fact.

Facts they are—facts that illustrate just how prolific and influential Newson is in the world of design. He has worked with every brand, from Louis Vuitton to Nike, Apple to Dom Pérignon, in any capacity that he or they have ever wanted, to the point that he can barely list or remember everything he’s working on now, let alone everything he’s ever done. “Name a project and I’ll tell you if I’ve done it; that’s easier,” he says, not joking, at Gagosian in Hong Kong, where his current exhibition goes back to basics, if you can call an almost lost ancient artisanal craft “basic.”