Sabine Marcelis Opens First Museum Exhibition at Museum Für Gestaltung Zürich

Sabine Marcelis Brings Light and Color to Museum für Gestaltung Zürich

Dutch designer Sabine Marcelis opens her first museum exhibition, Light and Color, at the Toni-Areal venue of the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich on October 30, 2026, running through April 4, 2027, as reported by Designboom. The exhibition combines key works from recent years with site-specific installations developed for the galleries. Across furniture, lighting, mirrors, and spatial interventions, Marcelis uses glass, resin, stone, and natural materials to manipulate light and reflection. A reduced scenography guides visitors through spaces where translucent materials create an atmosphere that dissolves boundaries between objects and their surrounding environments.

Mathmos Lava Columns Fill a Mirrored Landscape

Eight Mathmos lava columns, each standing 2.56 meters high, occupy a mirrored environment inside the Zürich galleries. Developed through Marcelis’s ongoing collaboration with British manufacturer Mathmos, the installation multiplies the columns into an apparently infinite field of pastel Bubblegum pink lava. Frosted glass bottles contain the rising and falling liquid, while white aluminum bases and caps keep the supporting structures visually quiet. The collaboration translates into a domestic scale in November with the launch of a new limited-edition Astro lamp featuring the same Bubblegum color palette.

IKEA VARMBLIXT Tunnel Meets Sunbeam Captured

Marcelis transforms another mass-produced lighting design into an architectural environment using items from her VARMBLIXT collection created with IKEA. Repetition gives the familiar circular ring lamps a new depth and spatial rhythm. Alongside this glowing corridor, the exhibition features Sunbeam Captured, an installation created with Boris Acket that mimics the interaction between sunlight and water. Mechanically generated waves ripple across a thin layer of water while a moving light source traces the path of the sun. Colored reflections fill the space, amplified by a mirror that transitions from blue to orange in a gradient inspired by shifting color temperatures.

Visitor Guide for the Exhibition Run

The exhibition opens to the public on October 30, 2026, and remains open until April 4, 2027, at the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich Toni-Areal venue. Visitors encounter a mix of individual design objects presented for close inspection of their optical properties alongside room-sized immersive installations. Material samples and study models are displayed alongside the finished works to document the experimental process behind the designs.