Samuel Ross on the Art of “Awakening” Materials

The term “polymath” is unquestionably overused, and often just plain wrong, but it suits the multi-hyphenate British designer, creative director, and artist Samuel Ross, whose hard-to-pin-down practice spans high fashion, streetwear, painting, sculpture, installation, stage design, sound design, product and furniture design, experimental film, and street art. Best known for founding the Brutalism-tinged fashion label A-Cold-Wall, which sits at the nexus of streetwear and high fashion, and for his work, earlier in his career, with the late Virgil Abloh, Ross also runs the industrial design studio SR_A and has collaborated with brands including Nike, Converse, and Timberland. On this week’s episode of Time Sensitive, he talks about notions of ritual, essence, and alchemy; how his work straddles the line between the organic and the synthetic; and why he always thinks in threes.

Special thanks to our Season 7 sponsor, Van Cleef & Arpels.

Show notes: 

[03:59] “Samuel Ross: Coarse” at Friedman Brenda

[06:41] Glenn Adamson

[22:48] Hettie Judah’s Lapidarium: The Secret Lives of Stones

[27:45] Vitsoe 606 Shelving System

[30:46] Virgil Abloh

[37:02] “Samuel Ross: Land” at White Cube

[42:05] Rhea Dillon

[46:24] Sondra Perry’s Typhoon Coming On

[46:43] Christina Sharpe’s In the Wake

[46:46] Saidiya Hartman’s Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments

[50:30] Steve McQueen’s Small Axe

[52:41] John Berger

[58:19] 2wnt4

[58:53] Pyrex Vision

[58:55] Kanye West

[58:56] Donda

[01:04:09] A-Cold-Wall

[01:05:46] Jerry Lorenzo

[01:09:25] Black British Artist Grants

[01:12:22] SR_A

[01:12:50] “Fashion Design: Samuel Ross/A-Cold-Wall” at the V&A Museum

[01:13:22] Grace Wales Bonner

[01:13:54] Mac Collins

[01:13:59] Nifemi Marcus-Bello

[01:20:44] David Drake