Chamber Opens in Chelsea with Studio Job’s Collection #1

All collections have a steward, most have a director, and Mosqueda’s premise is to enlist a creative power player to select an unmistakably refined group of objects for each of his selling seasons, that right now, isn’t quite defined. He’s not sure who’ll man the flag next but for his inaugural effort, Mosqueda lured Job Smeets of Studio Job, the quirky design lab based in Amsterdam and Antwerp, which currently still reign as hubs for the evocative and provocative. Case in point, Mosqueda’s favorite object in Chamber Collection #1, as he so catalogues each effort, is Job’s No. 80 Horse Bust (Chess Piece), which in fact is a vacuum with a large equine head whose eyes alight when on and extinguishes the machine’s hot air through its nostrils as if the noble beast were alive while sucking up dirt.

Not that there’s any dust or detritus to be found in the spotless store, where the objects are placed upon pedestals for display. Many are even kept behind acrylic vitrines denoting their museum-quality caliber, such as Formafantasma’s mid-century oyster salt-and-pepper pots paired with their Austrian hand-blown crystal pitchers. From the tiny to the tony, Chamber’s first output also includes a copper bike by Van Heesch Design, leather paintings by Esther Janssen, an original T 1000 World Receiver by Dieter Rams, and a signature “Chamber No.1” fragrance in an edition of 1000 preserved in a antique poison bottle by Buenos Aires-based rogue perfumer Julian Bedel that scents the store. What’s the smell of Chamber? Naturally, concrete, travertine marble, glass, grass, and solar light. Just as one might expect.

Chamber opens tomorrow, September 24.