All Photos By Gail

One of the things I love most about contemporary design is when an object refuses to immediately explain itself. Is it functional? Is it sculpture? Is it furniture? Is it all three? That was exactly my reaction when I encountered this illuminated standing lamp, appropriately called Sail Lamp (2025) by Swiss artist Urs Fischer, which transforms what appears to be crushed or draped material into an elegant glowing tower of light.

Mounted on a dark metal stand, the lamp consists of three softly illuminated white forms that look almost like crumpled sheets of paper suspended in mid-collapse, but on closer inspection are clearly meant to emulate the billowing sails of a ship. The shapes feel spontaneous and accidental, yet at the same time incredibly controlled. Fischer has always excelled at creating work that feels unstable in the most fascinating way possible, and this piece captures a sense of motion –frozen in time — perfectly.

Installation View

What I appreciate about the piece is how emotional it feels despite its minimal materials. There’s something ghostly and poetic about it. Against the rough brick wall of the gallery, the lamp takes on an almost cinematic quality, like illuminated fragments floating in space. It’s the kind of object that changes an entire room without screaming for attention.

Fischer’s work often exists in the blurry territory between art and design. Throughout his career he’s transformed ordinary domestic objects into surreal experiences, creating everything from distorted furniture and oversized everyday items to his famous melting candle sculptures. Even when his pieces are functional, they rarely feel purely utilitarian. They invite curiosity, first.

The Sail Lamp also carries echoes of the radical Italian lighting designs of the late 1960s and 1970s, when designers began treating lighting as sculpture rather than simple home décor. But Fischer filters that history through his own contemporary sensibility, creating something that feels both luxurious and strangely temporary, as though it could collapse back into soft material at any moment.

To me, that tension is what makes the piece so memorable. It doesn’t simply light a room. It creates an atmosphere — one that feels slightly surreal, deeply modern, and quietly beautiful.

Photographed in NYC’s Salon 94 Gallery as Part of the 2025 Exhibit, Shucks & Aww.