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Object Timeline

2011

  • Work on this object began.

2013

2024

  • You found it!

Drawing, Design for "Scatter Shelf"

This is a Drawing. It was designed by nendo and Oki Sato. It is dated 2011 and we acquired it in 2013. Its medium is pen and black ink on white vellum paper. It is a part of the Drawings, Prints, and Graphic Design department.

This drawing is a preparatory work for the design of the Scatter Shelf, a storage unit designed by the Japanese studio, Nendo. The piece is composed of 5mm glossy black acrylic shelves that have been arranged as a grid and stacked in three—slightly off-kilter—layers. This creates a kaleidoscopic visual effect, in which the individual shelves appear to increase and decrease in volume depending on the viewer’s vantage point. Nendo’s founder, Oki Sato, has referred to the experience of this effect as appearing to be “caught in a spider’s web.”[1]
Sato executed this drawing in preparation for the exhibition of a group of 35 Scatter Shelves at Friedman Benda Gallery in New York City. The drawing was reproduced on the wall at the entrance to the exhibition. With its simple ink lines, the drawing lyrically depicts the layering of the grid structures to form the complete shelving unit.
[1] "Nendo: Scatter Shelf," Friedman Benda, http://www.friedmanbenda.com/exhibitions/nendo-scatter-shelf

This object was donated by Barry Friedman. It is credited Gift of Marc Benda and Barry Friedman, courtesy of the artist.

Its dimensions are

22 x 30.7 cm (8 11/16 x 12 1/16 in.)

It is signed

Signed in black ink, lower right: FRIEDMAN BENDA

It is inscribed

Inscribed in black ink, lower right: NENDO ['O' contains a smiley face]. SCAttER SHELF.

Cite this object as

Drawing, Design for "Scatter Shelf"; Designed by nendo (Japan), Oki Sato (Canadian, b. 1977); Japan; pen and black ink on white vellum paper; 22 x 30.7 cm (8 11/16 x 12 1/16 in.); Gift of Marc Benda and Barry Friedman, courtesy of the artist; 2013-24-10

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<ref name=CH>{{cite web |url=https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/35520879/ |title=Drawing, Design for "Scatter Shelf" |author=Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |accessdate=26 April 2024 |publisher=Smithsonian Institution}}</ref>