Fancy-Routine

Among the droves of furniture and interior designers churning out detailed digital renderings and posting them on Instagram — often either as a mood board or prelude to an upcoming project — Supaform’s creations seem to settle most strangely into the realm of the uncanny. Whether it’s an unassuming scuff on the floor, a cleverly placed power cord, or a specific pool of light that prompts a second look, without fail, it takes a few moments to understand whether or not the space in question actually exists (it often doesn’t). This already skewed perception of reality is further muddied when considering Scherbakov’s real-life projects — like the recent seating he showed at Collectible in Brussels, a wavy throne in chromed metal dubbed The Shiny Chair — which take after his digital renderings in their delusory appeal.

The collection — a shelf, chair, coffee table, bench, and lamp called Fancy-Routine and debuting at Sight Unseen Offsite — possess similar characteristics to those in his imagined renderings: clean, curvy lines; off-kilter forms; and a resistance to revealing how exactly they come together. Composed of what he calls “rusty metal” (in reality, powder-coated metal with speckled Kvadrat upholstery), Scherbakov says his starting point for the collection was the idea of degradation — how even a shiny chrome surface can be eaten away if it’s left long enough, a concept he describes as getting rid of the “fancy husk.”