Ron Arad on design: 'The difficulty is knowing which ideas to spend your time on'

By Yorgos Mitropoulos & Ioannis Karagiorgas Published on 11/05/2026 - 17:30 GMT+2 Share Comments Share Facebook Twitter Flipboard Send Reddit Linkedin Messenger Telegram VK Bluesky Threads Whatsapp Copy/paste the article video embed link below: Copied

The influential designer and artist is currently presenting a major exhibition of his works from 1992-2026 at the Opera Gallery in Monaco.

Ron Arad is one of the most influential figures in contemporary design, continually pushing the boundaries of form, materials, and function.

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His work is now being celebrated with a solo exhibition “Ron Arad, 1992–2026” at the Opera Gallery in Monaco. It spans 35 years of the British-Israeli artist’s creative career, showcasing several of iconic works.

Renowned for his radical approach, Arad, 75, consistently challenges the lines between art, architecture, and industrial design, defying easy categorization.

His work is distinguished by fluid forms, an innovative use of metal and technology, and a playful yet disciplined exploration of structure, movement, and materiality.

Euronews Culture met the celebrated artist in Monaco who spoke at length about his wide-ranging and diverse career as well as the sources of his inspiration:

"I have a studio and it's like a progressive kindergarten. I mean it's driven by curiosity and we're very lucky to be able to try anything we want. We start with very small things, from jewelry to making skyscrapers. We've designed tall buildings, a hospital, a museum, but also small objects. There is no need to define exactly what we do. We make things that interest us. And fortunately, others are interested in what we do, otherwise we wouldn't be able to survive.

The key elements in my practice are things that excite me, that I look forward to exploring, designing, discussing, modelling, developing, building and seeing. Like here in this exhibition, there are works that I made 30 years ago or more that I am very happy to see again after so long, because I remember the time I made them, I remember that excitement. And then they left and went to live elsewhere. And to come here to Monaco and see them in the window of an art gallery, it's nice. It's very strange that some things that were once avant-garde have become vintage."

Based in London, the artist has collaborated with leading design companies, and his work has been exhibited and acquired by some of the world’s most prestigious museums. Over the course of his expansive career, he has designed not only objects and furniture, but also buildings, monuments, museums, and large-scale public installations. He remains as tireless and pioneering as ever:

"Sometimes I do things on my own, but I'm not a craftsman. I never have been and never will be. Nevertheless, my best tool is a soft-nosed pencil. I would say, not the eraser, I don't use an eraser. My other tool is words. That is, you draw and talk and explain and listen and talk and draw. And then when you're designing a building, when you're doing an 80-story building, you need a lot: the expertise and professionalism of many different professions, from heating engineers to mechanical engineers to whatever, and all of that is part of it. The fact is that you need the cooperation of hundreds of professionals. That's different from something you do alone in your studio. But I don't have to choose, I like both."

The Monaco exhibition features many of Arad’s most celebrated works, including “Linguine” (2020) in stainless steel, which merges sculpture with furniture; “Good Ping Pong Dining Table” (2023) in polished stainless steel; and variations of his iconic “Big Easy” armchair, crafted in both crystal resin and steel.

Also on display are_“Minimalist Rodin’s Thinker”_ (2022), a contemporary homage that transforms historical stillness into a dynamic design object and contemplative seat, and “This Mortal Coil (large)” (1992), an elegant spiral bookcase conceived as a continuous, flowing form.

Together with additional works spanning more than three decades, the exhibition highlights Arad’s ongoing exploration of the relationship between function and sculpture.

Highlights the evolution of his language and practice. It charts the wide range of materials he used, his constant struggle to give them the shape and form he desired, and the starting point of his inspiration:

"Designing or creating art is always a symbiosis between the artist's will, the process and possibilities offered by the materials and the final result. Sometimes other factors are involved, such as the craftsmen. The point is that there are no bad materials or bad colors. It depends on what you do with them. I mean, the dialogue is always there. It's hard to silence it. I mean, people always ask you where do you get your ideas from? Ideas are the easiest thing in the world. There's no shortage of ideas. The difficulty is knowing which ideas to devote your time to, which ones to invest in and which ones to put aside. Even if you let an idea go, it may come back later. But ideas aren't the problem. The problem is choosing them among a huge amount of ideas."

Is there a connecting link, a common denominator between design, furniture and sculpture? What is it that distinguishes these three practices?

"When I did my retrospective at the Pompidou Center (2008-2009) and MoMA (2009) (source in Greek), I called it No Discipline. I don't belong exclusively to one particular category. I mean, I do something and let others say whether it's art or design. For me, I don't care. You know, Oscar Wilde said that art shouldn't be functional. Thanks, but I don't need that advice.

I prefer something else that Oscar Wilde said, that there are two types of people in the world: the charming and the boring. I see the same thing in objects: there are fascinating, charming objects and boring objects. Whether it's art or design, it's not my problem. In my opinion, there are no boundaries, "borders". I don't believe in borders. So there is nothing to break. I am now working on a project that I will present at the Royal Academy, at the summer exhibition. It's a test of vision. I've taken various clips. One of them is by Marcel Duchamp who says there is no solution because there is no problem. I mean, I don't see the boundaries. So there's nothing to break."

The exhibition "Ron Arad, 1992-2026" at the Opera Gallery in Monaco is presented as part of the Principality's Art Week. and runs until 28 May.

Ron Arad: a life in design

Born in Tel Aviv in 1951, Arad studied at the Jerusalem Academy of Fine Arts and the Architectural Association in London.

He co-founded the design and production studio One Off with Caroline Thorman in 1981 and eight years later, founded the architectural and design practice Ron Arad Associates. In 2008 Ron Arad Architects was established alongside Ron Arad Associates. From 1994 to 1999 he founded Ron Arad Studio, a design and production centre in Como, Italy.

He was Professor of Product Design at the Royal College of Art in London from 1997 to 2009, when he was made an honorary professor. He was awarded the London Design Week Medal in 2011 for design excellence and was made a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Arts in 2013.

In 2008, his retrospective exhibition 'No Discipline' opened at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, before moving to the Museum of Contemporary Art in New York in 2009. The following year, he was the subject of "Restless", another retrospective at the Barbican Centre in London.

His installation Curtain Call, consisting of thousands of silicone rods hanging from an overhead ring to create a curtain-like screen, debuted at the Roundhouse in London in 2011, before travelling to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem and later to Singapore and Valencia.

Ron Arad's constant experimentation with the possibilities of materials such as steel, aluminium or polyamide and his radical rethinking of the form and structure of furniture have brought him to the forefront of contemporary design and architecture.

Alongside his limited edition studio work, Arad designs for many leading international companies such as Kartell, Vitra, Moroso, Fiam, Driade, Alessi, Cappellini, Cassina, WMF and Magis, among many others.

Arad's work is in public collections around the world, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Musée d'Art Moderne and Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

He has designed several public installations, some of which can be seen in Tel Aviv, Seoul, Toronto, Japan and London. He has also worked with brands such as Adidas, Samsung, Kenzo, Fiat, LG, Yohji Yamamoto, Ruinart and many others.

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