Saatchi Yates × Isamaya Ffrench: Studio Iron

Saatchi Yates and Isamaya Ffrench open Studio Iron, the first exhibition of Ffrench’s new design gallery, bringing together works that blur the line between art, design and object. Steel and iron dominate the space, forming a stark, post‑industrial landscape where function and non‑function collide.

Jannis Kounellis contributes a heavy steel work rooted in Arte Povera. Paul McCarthy’s reflective inflatable sculpture twists pop culture into something absurd and hollow. Jordan Wolfson’s sticker‑covered chair becomes a chaotic surface of competing messages, while Anne Imhof’s readymade benches evoke the eerie stillness of transitional spaces.

Marina Abramović’s levitating kitchen scene adds a note of domestic surrealism, and Nico Vascellari’s Visita Interiora Terrae pushes the body into physical and psychological extremity. Additional works by Hannah Levy, Kelly Wearstler, Marco Panconesi, Miriam Cahn, Marlene Dumas, Peter John and Anselm Kiefer deepen the exhibition’s atmosphere of unease.

As an opening statement for Studio Iron, the exhibition imagines a world where art and design collapse into one another; brutal, austere and stripped of ornament.