For American creative director Alexander May – featured 2024’s Wallpaper* USA 400, as well as in an accompanying photographic portfolio by Inez & Vinoodh – creativity is a fluid concept.
May’s work has encompassed large-scale exhibitions, brand strategy, set design and creative direction. After working with brands from Yola Mezcal to Skims, it felt natural to set up on his own, and May launched creative studio Sized, which also boasts a multifunctional 5,000 sq ft event space, in Los Angeles, in 2021. He has since also established Sized Selects, an ongoing curation of design, furniture and art pieces from around the world.
‘I think today everyone's quite familiar with creatives who dabble, or who are quite proficient in many different fields,’ says May. ‘When I was coming into [the creative arena], it felt quite polarising in terms of interactions. Design as a whole was this other world that no one from the art world or fashion world really coalesced with, although they were inspired by it and bought and collected from it. But it wasn’t part of the same conversation.’
May eschewed this rigidity between the disciplines early on in his career, cementing his multidisciplinary style of practice during time based in Milan, where he set up the Fondazione Converso in 2017. Located in the 16th-century San Paolo Converso church, the space celebrates an alternative approach to the showcasing and curation of art, design and performance. ‘I was utilising the front of the church, which is the most ornate part, as a space to curate, and populate with emerging performance talent and artists that I knew,’ says May. ‘I started developing this programme, basically connecting artists, designers and performers inside the church, in a new context that was very city specific.’
This interweaving of creativity and connections is something he took with him upon his return to the US. ‘It was a little bit of a leap because I came to LA and I started the agency that today is Sized. It all started off with this moment, this large conversation around an exhibition, which is what I knew how to do.
‘It's definitely been a bit of carving my own path, which is something I've always done instinctively. I built Sized to be an umbrella so we can collaborate – collaboration is really at the core of everything I do. Sized is an umbrella brand for anyone coming in, so if you're buying from us or if you're collaborating with us, if you're a client or operating a pop-up inside of the studio, your autonomy remains the same, but you become part of a larger context, part of the bigger framework which I've created.’
With so many collaborations throughout the world of art, design, architecture and culture under his belt, what’s next for May? ‘I'm also now venturing more formally into doing design work under my own name; a couple of collaborations will be coming out in the fall. It's fun. It's an exciting thing to be able to hone in and push what I want to see, and what I think is important.’
Alexander May is featured in the US-focused August 2024 issue of Wallpaper*, available to download free when you sign up to our daily newsletter; in print on newsstands; on the Wallpaper* app on Apple iOS; and to subscribers of Apple News +. Subscribe to Wallpaper* today
