Most design wants to be liked. Sebastian Errazuriz seems to want a reaction instead — and for two decades he has reliably got one.
Born in Santiago, Chile in 1977 and raised in London, Errazuriz trained as an industrial designer at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile before taking a master’s in fine arts at New York University, where he is now based. At twenty-eight he became the second living South American to have work auctioned in Sotheby’s Important Twentieth Century Design; in 2014 the Carnegie Museum of Art gave him a full retrospective.
Objects that argue
What sits behind the accolades is a refusal to keep design and argument apart. His Porcupine Cabinet bristles with spines; other pieces have built handgun storage into their bases, or folded protest into furniture — chairs carrying Occupy Wall Street slogans. His kinetic Wave Cabinet and the viral series 12 Shoes for 12 Lovers drew tens of millions of views online, proving that an object can carry a story as efficiently as an essay.
Between art, design and technology
Errazuriz moves deliberately across disciplines — functional sculpture, public installation, political artwork, technology. In 2017 he founded Cross Lab, a studio probing how emerging technologies reshape culture. The through-line is consistent: design, in his hands, is never only decoration. It is a way of making an argument you can sit on.
