Nikolas Bentel | |
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| Born | Nikolas Gregory Bentel November 23, 1993 |
| Nationality |
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| Education | Brown University (BA) Rhode Island School of Design (BFA) Columbia University (MArch) |
| Occupation(s) | Designer, Artist |
| Website | nikbentel |
Nikolas Gregory Bentel (born 1993) is an artist and designer based in New York. [1] He is the founder of Nik Bentel Studio.
Bentel was born in 1993 to architects Carol Bentel and Paul Bentel. [2] He was raised in Queens and Long Island, New York. [2]
Bentel attended Montessori and Waldorf schools before enrolling in a dual-degree program at Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). [2] [3] In 2017, he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Modern Culture and Media from Brown and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Industrial Design from RISD. He later received a Master of Architecture from the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation in 2022. [4]
Bentel founded Nik Bentel Studio in 2017 to design limited-edition objects. [5]
In 2018, Bentel launched The Erased Rauschenberg. For the project, he purchased a 1973 print by Robert Rauschenberg and sold one-inch squares of its surface as advertisement space, using the funds to acquire the artwork. [6] [7] The final piece was auctioned in March 2018. [8] [9] That same year, he produced a project titled All Purpose Nik, in which he created a series of patented poses to function as human furniture. [10] This "Corpus Collection" was exhibited at the International Contemporary Furniture Fair in New York. [10]
In 2021, Bentel released the Pasta Bag, a leather handbag designed to replicate a blue box of Barilla penne pasta. [11] It was done for trompe-l’oeill purposes and later he received a cease-and-desist letter regarding the purposeful unauthorized use of its branding. [4] [12] In 2022, he released a handbag fashioned to look like a generic brown shipping box covered in mailing labels. [13] Later that year, he collaborated with Absolut Vodka on a set of Espresso Martini-themed handbags. [14]
In 2024, Bentel designed the Orb Bag, a spherical, mirrored handbag modeled on a Dupin cyclide geometric form. [13] In September 2024, Bentel collaborated with the retailer Lidl and released the Croissant Bag during London Fashion Week, with proceeds from the sale donated to charity. [15] [16]
In 2025, Bentel released the Mixer and speaker handbag, acrylic handbags with an integrated Bluetooth speaker and four-channel DJ mixer, and the RC Car Bag, a leather purse mounted on a remote-controlled chassis capable of speeds up to nine mph. [17] [18]
His other work includes the Loopy Chair, a sculptural aluminum piece constructed from modular industrial parts [19] , a handbag based on an electrical extension cord [14] , and work with Areaware on a set of whimsically shaped Doodle Crayons. [20]