Blackman, Cruz, and creative director Lika Moore have designed and manufactured their own pieces since 1998. The Blackman Cruz Workshop (BCW), an ever-evolving collection of objects, furniture, and lighting indulges their stylistic predilections, offering a contemporary complement to the decorative arts in the showroom.
These crafted pieces play with the past without becoming pastiche. The plaster Primal Lighting line pays homage to French designers and artists form the 1920s and 1930s, who looked to abstract forms of African art and sculpture. The Molar Stool has a kinetic, teethy quality, and zoomorphic forms entice as the bronze-cast Rattler table slithers into the mix. The Under Pressure Sconce has David Bowie and the ever-feeding multibreasted Roman goddess Diana on the mind. Meanwhile, rococo extravagance is reinterpreted in the hefty bronze-and-glass Deliquescent Table.
BCW designs also take cures from biomorphic forms, delving into functional surrealism. The earthy Peyote Chair in shearling is soft like its spineless namesake cactus, while the limited-edition marble Leary Drip Table (as in Timothy), with its drop formations that mimic water, implies things may not be as they seem, because they never are.
Some pieces are designed to entertain. The Tickler Table Lamp has a playful name and looks a little naughty. The elephantine face of the Ganesh Wall Sconce appears to burst through the wall, and the animated Thieving Monkey Sconce looks as if he might hop into your lap and swipe your popcorn. And why not bring the circus home? These days we could all use a little entertainment.
Stacie Stukin, excerpted from Beauty & Mischief
Adam Blackman and David Cruz officially embarked on their venture, Blackman Cruz, in 1993; in the three decades since, they have created—and helped create—countless worlds, purveying objects of beauty and curiosity (dare we say magic?) culled from around the world. Operating from Los Angeles, the pair first showed their wares in a West Hollywood showroom on La Cienega and, in 2007, moved into their current home on Highland Avenue—an expansive space that was formerly the infamous gay nightclub Probe, known not least for basically playing itself in American Gigolo.
If discussing patina and provenance over a once booze-soaked bar seems incongruous, one might argue that such incongruity is characteristic of both Los Angeles and Blackman Cruz. At the center of the “dream factory,” worlds collide—and collision is perhaps what Blackman and Cruz do best. The pair’s “odd couple partnership,” as the New York Times put it, is the force behind an aesthetic sense that is delightfully difficult to pigeonhole. As the title of their recently released book Beauty & Mischief: The Design Alchemy of Blackman Cruz suggests, Blackman Cruz’s eye together encompasses the serious, sexy, and silly, and the myriad permutations therein. You might find, as one does in this auction, a stunning 1902 Carlo Bugatti chair (itself a treatise on material alchemy) next to an antique drum-playing rabbit automaton (restored to working order by an aerospace engineer), or a painstakingly beaded papoose from Borneo alongside an iconic mid-century modern sofa by Poul Kjærjolm, or a softly glowing snake lamp by Frank Gehry. Or impossibly elegant Gazelle lounges by Dan Johnson, or...Or. Or. Or.
Significantly and much to their credit, Blackman and Cruz have not shied away from certain elements of the archetypal curiosity shop. “We’re merchants,” their website declares. “We sell life enhancers.” In leaning into the longstanding lineage of rarity-purveyors, they show that they recognize the preciousness of curiosity itself—and the adjacent elements of surprise and fantasy. They let themselves be led by the search, and the excitement of the find is gleefully passed to their audience. That said, there are certain figures who serve as touchstones for the pair, designers whose sensibilities mesh well with Blackman Cruz’s vision: Bugatti is among them, as well as Pepe Mendoza and Arturo Pani, both from Mexico City and featured amply in the collection offered here. And then there is the Blackman Cruz Workshop, founded in 1998 by Blackman, Cruz, and creative director Lika Moore, offering limited edition lighting and furniture; among the works selected here are two metalworked lamps by Moore and the uncannily “dripping” Leary marble table.
Design is typically a studied thing, where precision takes precedence. Blackman Cruz breathes a little refreshing chaos into the discipline, finding a comfortable perch amidst a multiplicity of exciting tensions: ancient and contemporary, scientific and spiritual, restrained and resplendent. In our era of ubiquitous quantification and optimization, Blackman Cruz extends an invitation to not be afraid of what draws us in—even if it can’t be named or measured. In other words, to revel in the possibilities of enchantment.
