The Oscar Niemeyer Auditorium at Château La Coste is a building that makes you pay attention. It curves in ways that feel inevitable once you see them, white concrete and glass set against the Provençal landscape. This is where Marc Newson‘s exhibition opens March 15, running through June 21, 2026. Château La Coste and Gagosian are presenting it together.
Fourteen works span four decades of Newson’s career. They are installed indoors and outside, scattered through the property in a way that turns the whole site into a gallery. Visitors get to see pieces that shaped how we think about contemporary design, objects that changed the stuff we live with every day.
The Lockheed Lounge is here, the piece that made Newson famous when he was 25. He built it by hand, riveting aluminum panels over a fiberglass form. It sits inside Niemeyer’s architecture now, and the two speak to each other. Both are about fluidity achieved through precision. Both hide their complexity behind surfaces that look simple.
Outside, a new work debuts. Electra stands six meters high at the entrance driveway. Newson conceived it more than 30 years ago, but it has waited until now to become real. It is monumental without being heavy, a sculpture that rises from the ground rather than sitting on it. You pass it on the way in, and it sets the tone for everything that follows.
Marc Newson Cloisonné White Magnolia Chair, 2017
Newson has always worked across disciplines. He started as an art student making jewelry through silversmithing, fascinated by craft and technical ambition. That fascination has not faded. Some pieces in this show took years to realize. He traveled the world researching specialized techniques, then pushed them beyond their limits.
Marc Newson, Blue MN – Tow surfboard
Several chairs and chaise longues feature intricate spotted and floral patterns in cloisonné enamel. It is an ancient method, rarely attempted at this scale. To make it work, Newson set up a dedicated workshop and team in China. Elsewhere, marble and Azul Macaubas stone are carved from single blocks into forms that seem to float. They should be heavy. They should be rigid. Instead they flow, defying the material’s nature. Even a surfboard appears, built with high-tech engineering to handle giant waves.
Marc Newson Voronoi Shelf (grey), 2006
In his artist statement, Newson talks about what exhibitions mean to him. He sees them as opportunities to reflect, to reconsider past work through the lens of the present. He calls it a privilege to have a space to collate, connect and mediate. The Niemeyer Pavilion provides that space: fluid, luminous, surrounded by beauty.
