Galerie Patrick Seguin by India Mahdavi: Scenography for Prouvé, Royère and Jeanneret
Between 2006 and 2012, India Mahdavi devised a succession of exhibition environments for Galerie Patrick Seguin, presenting twentieth-century furniture in Basel, Miami and New York. Rather than treating each fair booth as a neutral container, the designer worked with the gallery's historical material as the starting point for a spatial conversation. The resulting installations reveal how curatorial scenography can sharpen the identity of collectible objects without allowing the exhibition architecture to become the principal attraction.
An exhibition language for modernist masters
Galerie Patrick Seguin is closely associated with the work of Jean Prouvé, Pierre Jeanneret and Jean Royère. Mahdavi's official project archive describes her collaboration as a series of imagined dialogues with these makers, developing a different vocabulary for each. The design challenge is therefore not simply one of arrangement. Prouvé's construction-led furniture, Jeanneret's forms associated with Chandigarh, and Royère's expressive silhouettes call for different rhythms, degrees of visual density and relationships between objects and surrounding space.
From Basel to New York and Miami
The partnership unfolded across several settings, including Art Basel in Basel, Design Miami and presentations associated with New York's Sonnabend Gallery. A particularly documented example is Galerie Patrick Seguin's 2012 Design Miami presentation, devoted to furniture conceived by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret for Chandigarh. The gallery credits India Mahdavi with the booth design. That precise acknowledgement matters: an exhibition environment is an authored design project, not just a backdrop for the works it displays.
The design of attention
Furniture exhibitions ask visitors to move between two readings of an object: close scrutiny of material, structure and proportion, and an understanding of the cultural setting from which it came. Scenography can create intervals between these encounters. A wall becomes a framing device; the apparent distance between two pieces suggests a relationship; the overall sequence gives the visitor time to understand distinctions. These are editorial decisions translated into architecture.
A lasting lesson in exhibition design
The Galerie Patrick Seguin commissions remain instructive for contemporary galleries and design fairs because they connect historical research with a contemporary sensibility. Mahdavi did not need to imitate the period of every piece to respect its provenance. The value of the project lies in making historical furniture legible to a present-day audience, through deliberate relationships between display, movement and architectural context.
Project credits and sources
Project: Galerie Patrick Seguin scenography, 2006–2012. Designer: India Mahdavi. Locations: Basel, Miami and New York.
Primary references: https://india-mahdavi.com/en/projects/interiors/79-galerie-patrick-seguin | https://www.patrickseguin.com/en/expositions/2012/design-miami-11/
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