On March 1, when Marianne Goebl steps down from her position as director of Design Miami, Art Basel’s design-focused sister fair in both Florida and Switzerland, an unusual replacement will be stepping up: Rodman Primack, 39, a practicing interior and textile designer with an uncannily varied—and very lengthy—resumé.
Whereas Austrian-born Goebl specialized in design in her previous role as head of public relations at Vitra, Primack—a California native whose appointment was announced on Monday—has a decidedly more diverse professional history. Past positions include chairman of Phillips de Pury London, director of Gagosian L.A., head specialist in Latin American art at Christie’s in New York, and a designer at New York-based firm Peter Marino Architect. As a former partner at the Manhattan art and design gallery Salon 94, he’s even been a Design Miami exhibitor himself.
This range of experience gives Primack a remarkably broad insider’s take on the design and art industries, and on the characters that drive them. “Peter [Marino] was really hard [as an employer], but he is an incredible talent,” he told ARTINFO in an interview at the Carlyle Tea Room (following a thorough assessment of the décor). “Working for Larry is like—he’s just a huge visionary. He would pick up the phone and bug me every day, all day long, which he does do everybody. But I couldn’t have done the next things without him. It was such an important way of learning to see how he runs the gallery, the way he manages both clients and artists.”
In the decade since he left Gagosian, Primack noted, he’s watched the market operations of the art world change dramatically, as the big galleries and auction houses have solidified control over pricing, now at an all-time high. “That’s part of the reason that I’m so interested in design,” he said. “The design market isn’t so solidified… The most expensive things in [it] are a couple million dollars, if that. So there’s more experimentation, much more room for young galleries and designers.”
Primack is the first American (and the first man) to lead Design Miami. Unlike his European predecessors, the fair’s Greek-born, Italian-bred co-founder Ambra Medda and Goebl, he developed his design sensibility in the American West—particularly Southern California, a place he describes as “touchstone.”
“I spent every summer in a home my grandparents commissioned from one of the Case Study architects, Carl Maston, a really beautiful, kind of Japanese-inspired house,” he said. “I would imagine that because that’s my DNA, it will somehow come into the fair.” He has also been influenced by professional exposure to Latin America. He and his husband are avid collectors of Brazilian art and design (right down to a Rivane Neuenschwander ribbon from a 2010 New Museum show, miraculously still tied around his wrist). Whether this augers a shift away from the French dominance in Design Miami’s booths, however, remains to be seen.
“It doesn’t all have to do with me,” Primack said. “It also has to do with the market, and the market is still interested in French furniture. If anything, I see more and more clients who are interested in Prouvé and Perriand.” (He and his husband are themselves collectors of Perriand, as well as of other European heavyweights like Ettore Sottsass and Michele de Lucchi.)
It’s too early, Primack said, to talk about what changes may lie ahead for the fair; at the moment, he’s just learning the ropes from Goebl. His real test, he said, will come when Design Miami/Basel rolls around in June.
Our full interview with Rodman Primack will be featured in design issue of Art + Auction in April.
