Rick Owens Furniture: ‘Rust Never Sleeps’ opens at Carpenters Workshop Gallery

The latest exhibition by Rick Owens Furniture, Rust Never Sleeps, curated by Michèle Lamy, transforms corrosion into poetry. Presented by Carpenters Workshop Gallery at Ladbroke Hall, the show explores decay not as decline, but as endurance — a defiant embrace of time’s transformative power. Borrowing its title from Neil Young’s 1979 anthem, the project reimagines oxidation as an act of resistance, and rust as a metaphor for creative persistence.

For Rick Owens and Michèle Lamy, sculptural furniture becomes a language of survival — primal, architectural, and intensely human. 

Sculptural furniture as living matter

At the heart of the exhibition is Antler Bed (2025), shown publicly for the first time. Carved from recycled elm wood, the piece embodies the cyclical nature of decay and renewal. Its raw, skeletal form feels both ancient and futuristic, bridging myth and modernity. Owens’ fascination with primal materiality is palpable — each fissure in the wood is left exposed, each imperfection becomes part of the work’s integrity.

Another highlight, K Plug Table (2022), reveals Owens’ mastery of scale and composition. A monumental steel structure balanced without attachments, it speaks to the precision within chaos — the way rusted metal and architectural symmetry find equilibrium.

Then there is Pedalò Rust (2025), a curved steel chair softened by camel leather cushions. It blurs the line between utility and art, between an object meant to be used and one meant to be contemplated. For Lamy, such pieces embody the paradox of sculptural furniture — tactile yet untouchable, monumental yet intimate.

Rust as resistance

Across Rust Never Sleeps, corrosion becomes a creative force. Owens and Lamy channel oxidation into beauty, showing that transformation is not a process to resist, but one to revere. Each surface, each scar of time, becomes an inscription of endurance — proof that even decay can be an act of defiance.

In this exhibition, Rick Owens Furniture transcends function to become philosophy: an ode to the persistence of form, the poetry of imperfection, and the quiet heroism of materials that refuse to fade.

Rust Never Sleeps runs at Carpenters Workshop Gallery, Ladbroke Hall, London, from October 14th, 2025, to February 14th, 2026.

Known for her unflinching originality, Michèle Lamy joins Marina Abramović in a conversation about freedom, failure, and the human body as a vessel for creation. Read how they redefine what it means to be an artist today.