Monologue London unveiled its latest exhibition, Passages, timed with PAD and Frieze, exploring how design, art, and architecture preserve memory and moments in time. The show features rugs and ceramics by José María Balmaceda, alongside film photographs by Simone Bossi in collaboration with architecture studio Paraforma. These works were suspended in resin to capture the Barbican Conservatory on its closing evening for renovation.
Artists and Their Works
Balmaceda, who founded his studio in 2017, created the Códices collection drawing from ancestral Mexican architecture. His rugs and ceramics reinterpret pyramids, reliefs, and ancient codices as living forms across time. Three rugs, three ceramic vases, and a Murano glass vase invite viewers to engage with layered history. The work seeks not to reconstruct the past but to reactivate it.
Bossi and Paraforma’s Captiva series transforms photographs into physical objects. Shot on film before the conservatory’s closure, the images preserve fleeting moments suspended in translucent resin, where light creates shifting reflections and refractions.
Curator on Memory and Dialogue
Pavel Klimczak, Monologue London’s founder, describes the exhibition as exploring how the past’s magic carries into the present. He emphasizes that neither Balmaceda’s nor Bossi’s works reconstruct history but carry it forward as lived experiences. “That nostalgia and the stories inside it became the starting point,” he explained.
The dialogue between art and design is central to Passages. Klimczak notes the tension between pieces with artistic presence suitable for domestic spaces. His broader curation balances collectible items, bespoke commissions, and limited editions, curating each showcase as a scene people can project themselves into.
Complementary Pieces and Curation Philosophy
The exhibition also displays Batch, a line of hand-blown glass stools by Italian studio 6:AM. Klimczak, when asked about his curatorial approach, stated there is no single formula. He considers timing, London’s energy, and alignment between ethos and aesthetics.
For additions to his collection, he prioritizes quality, distinctive aesthetics, and narratives beyond mere product launches, tailoring selections to interior designer clients’ tastes. Balmaceda’s studio reimagines ancient forms not as relics but as dynamic entities. The resin-encased photographs by Bossi and Paraforma similarly transform transient moments into enduring objects.
By juxtaposing different practices, Passages highlights how thoughtful curation can reveal deeper, more complex stories. The exhibition runs at Monologue London, 4 Portman Square, Mayfair, London W1H 6LD.
