The sprawling International Contemporary Furniture Fair (which runs May 19 to 22 at the Javits Center) may contain a wealth of contemporary design. But what it doesn’t do is represent how design, art, and fashion have mixed together so completely that, well, who knows what to call that thing hanging on your wall? Nothing makes this point of perplexity more brilliantly than the pop-up shop the Wrong Store, the brainchild of artist-designer Tobias Wong and Gregory Krum, retail director of the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum. Opening this Saturday in a six-by-ten-foot space at 259 Tenth Ave (nr. 25th St.; 212-982-1475) in West Chelsea, the Wrong Store blurs design/fashion/art works by Richard Prince, Marcel Wanders, Herzog & de Meuron, Rodarte, Douglas Coupland, Maison Martin Margiela, Hella Jongerius, and others. Wong said the idea of the shop was to create something “small but pungent.” That certainly describes the merchandise, like this Marcel Wanders “One Minute Sculpture,” a ceramic dog-bunny-thing that the designer formed in, yes, one minute and finished with a gold metallic glaze. What to call it? How about “knickknack”?
Conceptual, Yet Approachable
If the weird, abstract beauty of Joseph Beuys’s famed felt pieces don’t appeal, his almost-Pop 1974 piece Noiseless Blackboard Eraser, made of felt and sealed under glass, may be the ticket ($3,000).
Hugh Hefner Not Included
Richard Prince, who has made art icons out of sexy nurses, stale jokes, and Marlboro Men, turned his extra-dry eye on the Playboy mansion with this 2003 multiple, Untitled (Key to the Second House) ($750).
Bowl+Gun=Colander
Tim Dubitsky’s project demonstrates the creative potential of brute force; he took a shotgun and blew holes in stainless-steel bowls (colander, three sizes, $100 to $300).
A Hat-Mask Mash-up
Hella Jongerius, best known for her witty ceramic pieces and merging of handicraft with high-tech fabrication, created this 2005 piece, Helmet. It’s a crocheted gas mask attached to a helmet (no price at press time).
From the Master’s Playroom
Using the pieces of a children’s modular-play system he designed but never saw manufactured, Verner Panton made a small number of toy animals in the early seventies, including this 1975 Camel ($4,000).
Strictly for Spectators
Belgian avant-garde fashion company Maison Martin Margiela contributed Sporting Goods, a soccer ball, football, and tennis ball, each clad in white cotton (no price at press time).
Smell, Memory
This limited- edition fragrance, “Rotterdam” by architects Herzog & de Meuron, is concocted based on the odors from one of their buildings in Rotterdam ($95).
It Won’t Bite
Designer Yves Béhar took two little bits of plastic from the famed $100-laptop project he’s working on to make the ears for Monster, a 2007 sculpture ($2,000).
The Messenger and the Message
In the hands of artist Jenny Holzer even a toy has a slogan. This model Formula 1–style racer, BMW V12 LMR, is a 1:18 scale replica of a real-life one she made as a 1999 project with BMW ($500).