Misha Kahn has never played it safe. The 37-year-old, Brooklyn-based designer made a name with unabashedly colorful furnishings that look as if they’ve been ripped straight from a computer screen; these signature pieces even had a big Hollywood moment over the summer, with a few curvaceous, colorful seats showing up in pivotal scenes in The Devil Wears Prada 2. Rather than cleave to this tried-and-true repertoire, Kahn continues to experiment. The designer now presents these new forays in a show at Friedman Benda’s New York location: “All Intensive Purposes,” which runs through December 12.
The new work stands in stark contrast to the technicolor fantasies that came before. “It looks quite different. It’s not very digital,” says Kahn. “It’s a craft-heavy show. But I do feel like the term craft gets used really superficially. It should be an insane challenge.” No technique was straightforward. For the Arms as Basket chandelier, the team used a stretchy fabric similar to nylon, and electroformed it and turned it into copper—the result is a twisting light fixture that blends the textile’s soft textures with a metallic finish. “There was a lot of research, and then as soon as we finished the first one, I said we had to start over,” he says. “I’ve been very torn about whether or not I want to show it. You see where the thing should go next, and you want to show the next version. But at the same time, no one’s seen this version.”
Plywood was another point of departure. Kahn used leftover material that had slight imperfections, and that the manufacturer could no longer use, to create the Nut in the Studio console. Layering the wood created a striped, psychedelic effect, reinterpreting a once-organic material into something new. “Wood has so much baggage,” he says. “I never felt like I could make it meld with the other work. But this was just so colorful and vibrant, without being familiar.”
The Died in the Wool sofa has a familiar shape to many of Kahn’s other plush seats—akin to the one that Meryl Streep lounged on in Prada—however, it was made using a different upholstery. Rather than a bright technicolor hue, the fabric resembles an artist’s canvas, with brushstrokes running in different directions all across. Other pieces are material subversions, like the Part in Parcel coffee table, where the stone surface is carved to resemble the corrugated edge of cardboard.
The collection and exhibit serve as a sort of homecoming for Kahn, who notes that it’s “been a minute” since he’s shown anything in New York. Friedman Benda showed his work in Milan for last year’s Salone, and in 2023 at their Los Angeles outpost. “To me, everything in the show feels new,” he says. “I think the forms are pushed a lot further. And I love getting to show the newest thing in New York. It feels like home turf.”
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