Soft Baroque “Inox Detox”

In contrast with Tara Walters’ works, Nicholas Gardner (b.1988) and Saša Štucin (b.1984) from design duo Soft Baroque will present Inox Detox, a new series of objects inspired by their reflection on the quiet omnipresence of the standard stainless steel tubes. 

The stainless steel handrail has become a ubiquitous silver worm in institutions and homes, it is an object that strives to have no aesthetic, practically and culturally sterile in its function. As material, it represents the pervasiveness of a certain brand of corporate modernism, desperate to create value without offense or provocation, a hollow snake silently constricting stairways and balconies indefinitely. In the Inox Detox series, the standard stainless steel tubes are manipulated, rotary laser cut and bent, to offer a new perspective on its conventional connotations and use, as certain architectural and hardware practices seem to have reached a dead end. 

Soft Baroque’s study of the stainless steel form breathes visual poetry and a new future by interrupting, twisting and reshaping an object we have become so accustomed to that it has seemingly become overlooked and creatively obsolete.