The short film Warren S Fenzi (I Dream Chairs) by Clarkson University Professor Stephen Farina is an official selection of the Architecture Art Design Film Festival to be held during Modernism Week in Palm Springs, California in February 2019.
Earlier in 2018, the film had been named as a Semi-Finalist for the Craft in Focus (Ambacht in Beeld) Film Festival in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
This work profiles master craftsman Warren S Fenzi who has been creating his own version of modernist furniture and cabinetry for nearly forty years. Fenzi has crafted pieces for collectors in New York City, Los Angeles, and Phoenix and his work has been exhibited in a variety of locations including The Architectural League of New York, the Museum of Fine Art, Santa Fe, The Phoenix Art Museum, The Contemporary Arts Forum of Santa Barbara, and The Gallery of Functional Art, Santa Monica, CA.
Farina’s short film shows Fenzi working in 2018 on new cabinetry while also reviewing the breadth of his creations over the decades.
While illustrating the work of a furniture and cabinet maker was a new topic for Farina, his previous books and films have all explored how complex work gets done, whether it was scientists and engineers designing an artificial heart, entrepreneurs starting a new software company at the beginning of the age of personal computers, communities building the first Internet-based social networks, utility workers trying to rebuild a damaged electric infrastructure after a natural disaster, or musicians creating a completely new kind of music.
“Focusing on the handcrafted expertise of a master builder like Warren felt like a natural extension of the kind of thing I’ve been doing my whole career,” said Farina.
The film festival in Palm Springs is part of the annual Modernism Week which organizers describe as an event that celebrates midcentury architecture and design “as well as contemporary thinking in these fields” and encourages “education, preservation, and sustainable modern living.”
