The Dark Starchitect

As the recipient of Design/Miami’s inaugural Design Visionary award this past November, Peter Marino has been celebrated for decades for forward-thinking designs that are the perfect blend of art, fashion, and architectural design. One Way: Peter Marino, an exhibition at the Bass Museum of Art in Miami, opened during Art Basel Miami December 4th and is running through March 29, 2015. The internationally renowned curator Jerome Sans constructed a real journey into the creative world of the famously dark architect- he is recognized as a pioneer of cross-disciplinary practice- that explores his multifaceted relationship with art, featuring a third of Marino’s massive art collection, 136 pieces by the likes of Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, and Richard Serra. In addition, it includes studies of his more recent architecture projects, as well as new work he commissioned from artist friends like Gregor Hildebrandt and Guy Limone.

Having founded his eponymous architecture, planning and design studio in New York in 1978- counting on Andy Warhol and Yves Saint Laurent as his early clients- Marino has built a reputation for creating retail environments that incorporate specially-commissioned, site-specific works of art in boutiques for houses such as Chanel, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Bulgari and Zegna, all around the world. The exhibition resembles Marino’s NY office, where major art pieces cohabit with blueprints and architectural models. It opens with displays of human hearts, and guides visitors through a selection of work from Marino’s personal collection, ending in a room full of specially commissioned skulls, including a skeleton clothed in a leather jacket and hat. Also presented on leather-clad walls, a nod to the architect’s penchant for dressing in serious hard-core biker gear, is Marino’s recent series of cast-bronze boxes. It comes as no surprise that One Way: Peter Marino was generously funded by his clients. They would be Chanel, Dior and Louis Vuitton, of course. www.bassmuseum.org  www.petermarinoarchitect.com