Telephone stand c. 1927

This telephone stand was crafted in France by Abel Faidy, who lived until 1965. The way those triangles converge and radiate outward, it's like a sonic bloom made solid, frozen in wood. Faidy’s embrace of sharp angles and bold contrasts feels very contemporary. I imagine him in the workshop, carefully arranging each piece to create these striking graphic patterns. Look at how the light and dark woods play off each other, almost vibrating. It's hard to resist the impulse to reach out and feel the surface. You can imagine the texture of the wood, the precision of the cuts, and the joinery. It makes you think about how the object exists in space, and how someone, someday, would reach out to touch it. When I look at it, I am reminded of Josef Albers and his Homage to the Square series. There's a similar exploration of form and color, though here it's translated into the realm of functional art. This piece reminds us that art is an ongoing conversation, a dialogue across time.