ili.ad presented Crane Vase in Grateful Dudd, Jonald Dudd’s 2025 NYC Design Week exhibition guest-curated by Chen Chen & Kai Williams. Marking Jonald Dudd’s tenth year, the exhibition took place at the Starrett-Lehigh Building as part of Shelter Design Fair by Afternoon Light, bringing together an expansive roster of independent designers and studios working across furniture, lighting, and collectible objects.
Crane Vase extends ili.ad’s ongoing interest in architectural ornament, tubular form, and sculptural utility. Cast in bronze using the lost-wax process, the piece rises from a bulbous base into a tapered, trefoil throat, shifting between vessel, architectural fragment, and small monument. Its faceted curves draw from a chain of architectural impressions: the sinuous housing complexes of Émile Aillaud, a trefoil bus shelter encountered during a site visit outside Paris, and the decorative tension between crane and serpent forms.
Rather than treating those references as literal quotations, Crane Vase compresses them into a compact bronze object: part vase, part architectural memory, part ornamental apparition. The result is a work that sits comfortably within Grateful Dudd’s loose, irreverent spirit while continuing ili.ad’s broader exploration of how architectural encounters can be translated into intimate domestic forms.
Object Details
Crane Vase
2025
Lost-wax cast bronze
22.5 × 13.5 in