About Pearl Lam Design

Pearl Lam Design has tirelessly promoted design as an art form in China. Pearl Lam has funded an artist-in-residence programme for artists and designers across the globe. Pearl Lam Design shows works by established and emerging international designers including André Dubreuil, Maarten Baas, Mattia Bonetti, and Studio Makkink & Bey. They are invited to push the boundaries of traditional Chinese art and craft techniques and create new works that reflect their experiences in China.

Pearl Lam Design aim to illustrate the absence of segregation between fine art and design in traditional Chinese culture, where decorative art assimilates into fine art, modernity merges with traditions, and traditional values are still revered. The Gallery seeks to cultivate the philosophy and aesthetics of Chinese craftsmanship while simultaneously exploring Western perspectives of these techniques.

Pearl Lam Design will open a new gallery space in Shanghai in 2013.

Current Exhibitions in Pearl Lam Galleries

Featuring works by herself, French designer André Dubreuil and Pearl Lam's own collective XYZ Design, the exhibition embraces traditional Chinese arts and craft techniques such as cloisonné, woodwork and porcelain.

The event aims to redefine the relevance of China’s craft in the context of twenty-first century as design art, Chinese artist Danful Yang told ARTINFO. “China has no design history. We only have craftsmen – the word ‘designer’ didn't emerge until the 1970s, when Western design influenced China,” she explained.

The exhibition also unveils new designs for Yang's Packing Me Softly series, which was first shown at PAD London earlier in October last year. Painstakingly sewn to imitate scribbled-on packaging cartons, the fine silk embroidery is so lifelike that visitors to PAD didn’t recognise them as art, kicking the pieces out of the way when visiting the booth. One of the pieces in this collection — modelled after the box Yang used for packing when she moved house — has also been donated to the Hong Kong Ambassadors of Design for auction.