Design is in the business of desire. We are asked to desire objects before we touch them, and to imagine touching them before we possess them. The curve of a car body, the seamless surface of a personal device, polished metal or stone — all employ a language strangely close to that of the body. Smoothness, hardness, softness, skin and curves belong as much to the vocabulary of desire as they do to that of design.

The Sex Appeal of the Inorganic borrows its title from philosopher Mario Perniola, whose thinking unsettles the distinction between the sensing body and supposedly insensible matter. Desire is no longer confined to the human subject but circulates between bodies, surfaces and things. The exhibition takes this ambiguity literally. Aluminium, alabaster, ceramic and glass become bodies, while fragments of bodies become functional objects: ceramic vessels are cast from legs; classical sculptures reappear as images embedded in lamps; stone and metal form vessels and candlesticks.

This attraction between body and matter has a much older history. In the myth of Pygmalion, a sculptor falls in love with the female figure he has carved from ivory. Pygmalion runs his hands over the figure, uncertain whether he is touching ivory or flesh, until the hard material begins to yield beneath his fingers. Desire appears at the moment when the distinction between body and object becomes unstable.

Lesauskas's works move in both directions: the body becomes an object, while the object begins to behave like a body. The familiar categories of lamp, vase or candlestick remain, but their functionality becomes entangled with bodily references, touch and attraction.

Rather than adding sexuality to things, The Sex Appeal of the Inorganic asks whether it was ever absent from design in the first place.

Mantas Lesauskas calls his works design objects, though they might equally be encountered as functional sculptures.

Mantas Lesauskas (b. 1984, Vilnius, Lithuania) is a designer, artist, and researcher working across limited-edition furniture, sculptural objects, and material-based inquiry. He graduated from the Vilnius Academy of Arts, where he is currently an Associate Professor and Head of the MA Design Programme.

His practice combines artisanal craftsmanship with industrial processes, exploring material agency, archetypes, rituals, and the relationships between objects, people, and places. Working with natural, reclaimed, and industrial materials, he investigates how objects carry traces of their geological, cultural, and political histories. His work moves between design, sculpture, and experimental archaeology, questioning established hierarchies between materials, objects, and their makers. His work has been exhibited internationally and is represented in private collections and national museum collections.

Supported by: State Culture Capital Foundation, Lithuanian Council for Culture.