At NOMAD St. Moritz, a Cohesive Vision of Lived Aesthetics
Pure sunshine greeted the return of NOMAD to St. Moritz, Switzerland, and visitors were all the happier for it. The weather brightened the spirits of buyers, curators, gallerists and art enthusiasts who traveled from around the world for the winter edition of the peripatetic and extremely exclusive fair, which also stages editions in Abu Dhabi, Capri and the Hamptons. Among attendees were collector Simon De Pury, interior designer Pierre Yovanovitch, India Mahdavi, Lord Norman Foster and Maja Hoffmann of the LUMA Foundation. With more than 5,000 visitors across the weekend (up 15 percent from last year), this year’s edition was the most popular yet.
Villa Beaulieu (a former wellness clinic) is a surprisingly intimate and cloistered setting for such a world-famous event. Occupying four levels and featuring 26 galleries, the fair offers panoramic views of the Alps across Lake St. Moritz from its windows, where one can enjoy watching amusement rides, horse trekking, ice bathing, mini golf, and cricket matches that take place on its frozen surface at this time of year. Or one could simply make do with a Negroni outside on the villa’s sun terrace, your choice.
This year’s edition is the first without co-founder Giorgio Pace’s involvement. Pace’s co-founder, Nicolas Bellavance-Lecompte, described how, after eight years of building NOMAD together, their parting “felt like a natural moment of evolution. There was no rupture. Rather, it was a transition reflecting the platform’s growth and maturity… The energy of the recent editions, the engagement, and the global resonance suggest that this evolution has brought renewed clarity and direction.”
The direction this year was braided within the fair’s theme of dialogue—the objects, settings and environments that talk to each other and provide significance in constancy rather than incongruity. Many of NOMAD’s previous editions have been about standing out, but this edition felt more about continuity and togetherness. “This year is less about a single protagonist and more about a collective maturity. What moves me most is the coherence across the presentations. Several galleries took risks, constructing immersive environments rather than isolated displays,” Bellavance-Lecompte said. “It is not about individual pieces on pedestals, but about creating an atmosphere. That total vision, where objects construct a world rather than simply occupy space, is very much what NOMAD stands for.”
Gallerist Leopold Thun (who grew up in the area and now runs his Emalin gallery in London) once told me that the gallery experience starts in the five minutes before you enter: queuing outside, feeling the atmosphere, gauging the energy. Stepping through the door of Villa Beaulieu, you enter an antechamber of red velvet curtains and deep carpets, and it is this coquettish entrance that gets the senses primed for the start of the show.
Availing oneself of a thick coat (it is 1,800 m above sea level here, with temperatures to match even with the sun), it is straight into Paris’ Maisonjaune Studios, with its contemporary take on homewares and vintage interior décor. The latter is immediately signposted by a set of Lustra Comporta rattan lights and, just beyond them, Christian LaPie’s striking The Gate of the Isle—a brushed oak console table held aloft and in place by two wooden figures resembling Hebridean druidic stones. This is surrounded by two disconcerting seats in the same faceless human forms: The Throne of Fire and The Throne of the Swamps, both in brushed oak, would be otherworldly in any setting.
Nilufar’s choice selection of mid-century vintage furniture and delicate modern pieces astounded, as always. A perfect Jose Zanine Caldas bar cabinet was adjacent to a classic Gabriella Crespi daybed, Dormeuse Toi et moi from the mid-70s, perfect for those aging Marcello Mastroianni types who will be in the Kulm Hotel’s Sunny Bar later on. The booth still rings true with the contemporary, though, in the form of Maximilian Marchesani’s Famiglia collection from 2025. These delicate lamps see branches, feathers and electrical wiring coalesce into graceful designs that captivate with their bewitching use of materials.
Upstairs is the Nomad Alpine Bistro by Silo. This zero-waste pop-up restaurant was headed up by Douglas McMaster, a climate-conscious chef who created a menu shaped by “refined flavouring, responsible sourcing and contemporary gastronomy.” It smells as good as the pieces Nilufar has chosen to fill the space, curated by Francesca Neri Antonello, founder of FNA Concept.
Finishing level 0 means visiting the Giorgio Armani/Unveiled stand for its exhibition “Through The Looking Glass.” The brand was the main sponsor of this year’s NOMAD, and this booth encapsulates the quiet luxury that Armani/Casa espouses. The bar cabinet at its entrance sets an indulgent domestic tone for the exhibition, which aims to capture the tactile interactions and experiences we have with the objects in our homes and the emotions they evoke. Gallerist Abby Bangser described how the brand wanted to furnish the space with shelves, sideboards and sofas so the works on show would be surrounded by form as much as function. “Armani wanted to make a statement with this setting about how this is a way to live with these pieces and with the art, too, so it speaks to the collectors at NOMAD as well as the artists,” she told Observer. It is a thread embodied in the process of two mid-career artists, Jane Crisp and Yuta Segawa, whose utilitarian pieces are on show here. Crisp’s tactile and oversized wooden baskets, or “trugs” are inspired by her somewhat nomadic period living on a houseboat. Their curved forms were created with the same skilled steam-bending techniques used to make boat hulls. “It’s a traditional boatbuilder’s technique that’s light and strong, working on an anvil, bending the wood and then driving the nails in to hold it,” she added with excitement. “But it also goes back to the aspect of repairing pieces that have taken on value to us and means you interact with a product, so you build up an emotional attachment to it. Also, the trugs are quite functional, which comes from a nomadic life, and it takes on meaning, whereas a lot of other art has become dehumanized in a way.”
By the second day of the fair, Crisp had already sold out of her collection and was taking orders for more. Next were Segawa’s miniature vases, too small for practical use but still compelling to look at for their special mix of glazes and tactility. The two artists encapsulate the brand’s focus on craftsmanship and an engagement with our homewares that speaks to themes that are much bigger than the pieces themselves.
Making one’s way to Rajan Bijlani’s stand, with fine Lucy Rie mid-century furniture and Frank Auerbach paintings, meant passing through Monica De Cardenas’ space. This gallery, with outposts in Milan and nearby Zuoz, presented arresting works by Thomas Huber, whose landscape paintings bear the influence of his former teacher at the Royal College of London, David Hockney. Also on show are Gianluca Di Pasquale’s pared-back but intriguing landscapes, some of them depicting matchstick skiers in the Engadin Valley, the area where NOMAD currently sits.
Von Bartha’s capacious space hosted Imi Knoebel’s acrylic on aluminum etcetera CxxxIx, which dominated one wall, and Erin Shirreff’s Alpha 2021 dominating another. Nestled between were Barbara Stauffacher Solomon’s Green Land with Wall #1 and Green Land with Wall #2, leading to more sculptural works by Barry Flanagan and a piece by Konrad Klapheck in the foreground, with a view of Lake St. Moritz in the background. Quality is a term constantly twinned with the gallery, so it was no surprise that it sold several pieces on the very first day, including works by Landon Metz and Anna Dickinson.
There was Italian elegance and refined lounge-lizard vibes aplenty in the majestic, indulgent setting of Mondovilli Scagliola. A Gio Ponti sofa commandeered the room, as works by Paolo Buffa and Carlo Mollino added to a lively conversation, which was capped off by the solid interjections of a Lavinia Fuksas piece and the spectral and elemental sculptures of Michela Cattai.
Belgium’s Spazio Nobile gallery brought Isaac Monté’s Crystallized Ice Pink (sold for €9,500) and Crystallized Pink vase (sold for €7,000), which stood out for hardened, mineral-esque constructions that created tension between the material and the soft flowers they were built to display. Meanwhile, on an out-of-shot windowsill was Kiki van Eijk’s wonderfully fun and characterful Sprout 2 table lamp for €6,000. Didi Ng Wing Yin’s Pleats Vase Cinnabar Red, €6,000, was only slightly overshadowed by its neighbor Pleats Vase Saffron in height and price of €9,000, but was no less spectacular for it.
Poland’s Craftica Gallery presented some distinct outliers among the plethora of outliers at the fair. It doubled down on metallic, silvery and reflective materials to embody its preoccupation with space, light and human perception. One of these was Lopi by Formsophy, a metal bench covered in sheep’s hair that sold for €13,200. The deeply sculptural Flow Bench II Dark by Cyryl Zakrzewski would make a surprisingly comfortable place to sit and take off those ski boots, even with its rolling undulations. Sonia Dubois’ lamps, including Argent (Lueur series) and Marron (Lueur series), sold very quickly for €3,800 and €3,200 respectively, which would have twinned perfectly with Palucki Studio’s cute one-legged console Sirène, 2026, made from ash wood and goatskin parchment.
The final call was at Studio Soius, which occupied a space in the fair and the wider art world where form, use and craftsmanship intersected to produce pieces that reveal their significance through simple everyday use. It was in this spirit that curator Karin Stüssi graciously invited us to take a seat and absorb its “Amar – Silent Companions” exhibition, taken from amar, the Mongolian word for peace and silence (and the Portuguese and Spanish for love, too). Like so much of this year’s themes of connection, cohesion and dialogue, the artists and pieces here spoke to the past and present, inviting collectors to ruminate on the “lifelong companions” in our lives and to focus on the permanence of roots, tradition, heritage and culture.
Stüssi explained that the antique felt carpets from Altai—the Namad Felt and Anatolian Felt from early-20th-century Afghanistan, which had taken 25 years to source—were among the last collections of primitive nomadic carpets in the world. Alongside these were Kizli’s Mush lights, with their diaphanous, ethereal quality, produced using a paper-thin fiberglass spun technique, which tapped into the themes of peace, tranquility and elevated domesticity, putting NOMAD in contention for one of the standout fairs of the year.
Next year will be the 10th edition of the fair. Does Bellavance-Lecompte have any ideas for marking the anniversary? “What I can say is that NOMAD never replicates itself. Each edition responds to its environment, to its architecture, to its cultural moment. That sense of unpredictability is not accidental. It is part of the DNA.” Viva la evolution, indeed.