Enzo Mari – The Intellectual Work

3.07.2012
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Enzo Mari – The Intellectual Work
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By: Maria Nogueira
06-09-2011
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Last night I had the privilege of seeing and hearing Enzo Mari with my own eyes and ears. Born in
the 1930′s and considered one of the greatest italian and worldwide design theorists, Mari spoke
about the exhibition The Intellectual Work: Enzo Mari with Pavel Bütcher, Jason Dodge, Tim
Rollins + K.O.S., opening today at Tanya Leighton gallery. He described us his exhibited work, but
very briefly in fact. Instead, what he did, was a provocation, from start to end of the talk, but one
that filled the room and our chests with questions, but also with an intense will to go out there and
smash the banal with our voice. And say NO, NO, NO.
No matter how vague this post seemed – I am indeed still trying to digest all the intensity of those
powerful and wise and white-bearded words – sometimes screamed, but nevertheless always
with a subtle smile that revealed the true provocative intention behind them – make sure you don’t
miss the exhibition or, ultimately, his work.
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Seite 136
Ausstellungsansicht »The Intellectual Work: Enzo Mari«
matisieren. Vor allem deshalb wie auch aufgrund ihres leicht verdaulichen illustrativen
Stils haben Museen vom Centre Pompidou
in Paris bis zum MoMA in New York den
Künstler für Wandarbeiten beauftragt.
In dieser präzisen Galerieausstellung
untersucht Perjovschi die Möglichkeit, Linien in skulpturale Dimensionen zu übersetzen und so die Wahrnehmung des Besuchers
auf komplexere Weise einzubinden. Auch
wenn die skulpturale Qualität dieser Arbeiten beschränkt ist und auch deren formale
Nuancen nicht so ausgearbeitet sind wie die
der eigentlichen Thematik des Künstlers, ist
die jüngste Arbeit, »Wire Drawing (Sibiu)«
(2011), besonders vielversprechend. Sie ist
ein Gewebe aus Draht, das am Boden liegt
und dessen lockere Maschen hunderte von
Figuren zeichnen. In dieser Übersetzung von
Linien (inspiriert von der Zeichnung »Urzeala« (1986–1988)) in Maschengewebe verändert sich die Bedeutung. Die gewobenen und
aufgrund der Unregelmäßigkeiten des
Webens und nicht aufgrund der Geste des
Künstlers idiosynkratischen Figuren kommunizieren auf eine neue Art: durch Drehungen und Faltungen des sich nach außen,
herum- und zurückbiegenden Gewebes. ——
JOHN BEESON
Aus dem Amerikanischen von der Redaktion
E N ZO MAR I
»The Intellectual Work«
Tanya Leighton, Berlin
7.9.–19.11.2011
KOPF UND HAND
Die Berliner Galerie Tanya Leighton zeigt
Enzo Maris Sammlung von Briefbeschwerern. Der Kern der Ausstellung, der zuvor
im Kaleidoscope Project Space in Mailand
zu sehen war, wird hier in Kooperation mit
der Kuratorin Barbara Casavecchia von
einem Beiprogramm flankiert: Talks und
Interventionen der Künstler Jason Dodge,
Tim Rollins + K.O.S. und Pavel Büchler.
Enzo Mari ist 79 Jahre alt und eine entscheidende Figur des italienischen Nachkriegsdesigns. Seine Möbel sehen aus, als meinten
sie es gut mit einem, wohlwollend, human(istisch) und passen in den Zeitgeist der
60er/70er Jahre, als sich die Industrie wieder dem Menschen annäherte. In diesen Jahren hat er immer auch als Künstler, nie nur
als Designer denkend und handelnd seine
robuste Formensprache entwickelt.
Maris Briefbeschwerer, in der Galerie auf
großflächigen Sockeln gruppiert, sind Bruchstücke seines beruflichen, häuslichen und
Courtesy the artist and Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin, Photo: Hans-Georg Gaul
künstlerischen Alltags. Ein Türknopf, ein
mechanisches Teil, Überbleibsel aus Werkstätten und auch sehr komplette Dinge wie
Multiples und ein Bildhauerknüpfel. Das
sieht besonders in der Summe verführerisch
aus, und dass sie von ihm über viele Jahrzehnte gesammelt wurden, ist ein schöner
Gedanke. Die Briefbeschwerer haben etwas
von Handschmeichlern und bieten dem
Sammler die Möglichkeit intuitiver Entscheidung. Einen Moment der Zuneigung. In solchen Augenblicken wird nicht zwingend
intellektuelle Arbeit geleistet, sondern Geschmack und Lust dürfen kurz ans Steuer.
Man erfährt etwas über Enzo Mari auf
einer anderen Ebene als der des präzisen
Designers. Der Hinweis auf die intellektuelle Arbeit liegt in Form kopierter Arbeitsblätter großer Köpfe wie J. S. Bachs, Michelangelos oder Galileo Galileis beispielhaft unter
den kleinen massiven Stücken. Bei so großen Referenzen schwingt etwas Kulturkitsch
mit. Doch in seinem Vortrag an der Berliner
Universität der Künste erlebt man Mari als
agilen Kulturkritiker. Er ist enttäuscht, fast
zornig über die heutige Hektik und mangelnde Sinnlichkeit. Auch ist Mari sehr skeptisch
gegenüber der gängigen Idee des Intellektuellen, denn seiner Meinung nach ist dies eine
sehr seltene Spezies. Er selbst zählt sich dazu.
Der Geniebegriff liegt bei all den alten,
bedeutenden Namen unter Gewicht nahe,
wird von Mari aber differenziert und im Titel
der Ausstellung und dem Katalog als »intellectual« angesprochen. Die intellektuelle
Arbeit hat eher mit Konsequenz in Ausführung und Lebensweise zu tun als mit dem in
die Wiege gelegten Plus an Grips. Die Kom-
bination von Hand und Kopf. Außen herum
wimmelt es allerorts von Halbwissen, so sieht
es Mari.
Tatsächlich wird ja gegenwärtig sehr
gleichmäßig viel nützliche und unnütze
Information verbreitet. Ein nostalgisches
Bild also von arbeitsamen Papierstapeln im
Studio, die beschwert sind, damit sie nicht
verwehen. Im September zeigte als erste
Intervention der in Berlin lebende Künstler
Jason Dodge spärlich verteilt im zweiten
Raum der Galerie Stapel von Kissen und
Bettbezügen aus dem Krankenhauskontext.
Sauber gefaltet und mit Bedeutung befüllt.
Ob Mari, Dodge und nachfolgende Künstler sich brauchen, ist nicht sicher, aber man
könnte eine Linie ziehen von den beschwerten Papierblättern zu Dodges auratisch beladenen Stapeln und schließlich zum Ausstellungsprogramm mit dem einen Anker: Enzo
Mari. —— B E N J A M I N H I RT E
Bill Bollinger
ZKM Museum für Neue Kunst, Karlsruhe
28.5.–25.9.2011
THE TRANSCENDENCE OF THE
HARDWARE STORE
The late Noughties wave of Flatpack Conceptualism owes a bow of gratitude to the
forgotten Post-Minimalist Bill Bollinger. An
alumnus of Harald Szeemann’s seminal
When Attitudes Become Form, his retrospective
at ZKM presents a streamlined use of storebought products arranged in rigorous alchemical networks. The practice is a plundering of hardware aesthetics exploring inherent
136
SPIKE 29 — 2011
Spike Art Quarterly, Autumn 2011
Reviews
Interview
Herr Mari, Sie gehören seit Jahrzehnten zu den
profiliertesten Gestaltern in Europa. Was halten
Sie vom Design der Gegenwart?
Nicht viel. Mir fehlt dabei das Utopische.
Als ich in den 50er-Jahren anfing, wollten
die Designer die Welt verändern. Das ist
nicht mehr so. Die Konservativen sagen, die
Welt ist schön, wie sie ist. Aber das stimmt
nicht. Wenn wir so weitermachen, wird sie
untergehen.
Kann das Design von der Kunst lernen?
Selbstverständlich. Aber wenn ich
Kunst sage, meine ich nicht die Masse,
die heute produziert wird. 99 Prozent
davon sind völlig überflüssig und illustrieren in erster Linie individuelle Befindlichkeiten, Träume und Gefühle.
Aber große Kunst, die Kunst der Renaissance zum Beispiel oder auch die
von Robert Rauschenberg, Claes Oldenburg oder Keith Haring, ist in der
Lage, zu allen zu sprechen. Sie reflektiert gesellschaftliche Verhältnisse, und
jeder versteht sie.
aus Anleitungen, mit denen man eine komplette
Wohnungseinrichtung selbst bauen konnte.
Mich erinnert das an Concept-Art.
Damit hat es aber nicht viel zu tun. Die
„Autoprogettazione“-Serie war eine Art
Übung, ein Exerzitium, damit man versteht,
was es heißt, ein Möbel zu bauen, ohne es
tatsächlich zu tun. Viele meiner Projekte
sind im Grunde als Kritik an den Verhältnissen gedacht. Ich gebe Ihnen ein Beispiel:
Was macht die Kunst,
Enzo Mari?
Und was kann die Kunst vom Design lernen?
Was die Kunst vom Design lernen kann?
Gar nichts!
Gibt es einen Designer, den Sie besonders
schätzen?
Schwierige Frage, aber ich kann ihnen
sagen, was einen guten Designer ausmacht. Für mich ist ein guter Designer
ein alter Bauer, der beschließt, einen
Kastanienbaum zu pflanzen. Dabei
weiß er genau, dass er die Kastanien
nicht essen wird, er wird sie nicht einmal wachsen sehen. Er wird auch nicht
im Schatten des Baumes sitzen, wenn
es heiß ist. Aber er weiß, dass seine
Nichten und Neffen das tun werden. Deshalb pflanzt er den Baum.
Sie waren 1968 Teilnehmer der Documenta IV in
Kassel. Was haben Sie damals dort gezeigt?
Abstrakte Werke, Arbeiten der Arte programmata, aus dem Umfeld der Künstlergruppe Zero. Ich nannte sie „Strukturen“.
Es ging mir in jenen Jahren um Phänomene
der visuellen Wahrnehmung. Aber ich war
nie richtig zufrieden damit.
Eines Ihrer berühmtesten Designprojekte hieß
„Proposta per un’autoprogettazione“. Es bestand
Radikal sein, Utopien wagen,
Nein sagen: Der streitlustige
Designer und DocumentaTeilnehmer zeigt in Berlin seine
Sammlung von Briefbeschwerern
Während der Studentenproteste von 1968
kam einmal ein Student zu mir und sah da
mein Bett stehen, ein einfaches, rohes Bett.
Das hat er überhaupt nicht kapiert.
Wie haben Sie reagiert?
Ich fragte ihn, wie er sich denn ein so richtig
schönes Bett vorstellte. Er sagte, es sollte
groß und rund sein, ein Wasserbett mit
einem Marmorsockel und einem kristallenen Kronleuchter darüber. Das war der
Sinn des „Autoprogettazione“-Projekts:
den Leuten zu zeigen, wie konservativ ihr
Geschmack in Wirklichkeit war. Meine
Kollegen an der Hochschule nannten mich
deshalb einen Faschisten.
Und haben Sie auch Geld damit verdient?
Keinen Cent. Ich schätze, es existieren so
um die 500 000 Möbel, die im Zuge der
„Autoprogettazione“-Serie gebaut wurden.
Inzwischen sind es Sammlerobjekte geworden. Und ich hätte nichts dagegen, wenn
diejenigen, die diese Stücke jetzt verkaufen,
sich an mich erinnerten und mich am
Erlös beteiligten.
Sie legen großen Wert auf ethisches Design.
Was darf man sich darunter vorstellen?
Wenn ich mich heute mit Designern
unterhalte, drängt sich mir oft der Eindruck auf, dass sie zwar hochfliegende
Pläne haben, aber rein gar nichts über
die Produktion wissen. Meine Idee war,
in die Fabriken zu gehen und dafür das
nötige Bewusstsein zu schaffen. Man
sagt, Design sei dazu da, ein Bedürfnis
zu befriedigen. Mir ging es aber um die
Bedürfnisse der Arbeiter, die mit ihrer
Tätigkeit nicht glücklich waren, weil sie
sie nicht verstanden.
Das hört sich nach Marxismus der alten
Schule an.
Nicht alles, was neu ist, ist auch gut.
Im Gegenteil: Es ist eine Sucht, die die
Menschen zu Zombies macht. Denn das
Neue ist meist nur dazu da, so schnell
wie möglich wieder weggeworfen zu
werden, weil die meisten Fabrikanten
Ignoranten sind und die meisten Konsumenten auch. Es ist wichtig, dass man
ein Gespür für die Zusammenhänge
entwickelt. Und das erfordert bisweilen
eine gewisse Radikalität.
Momentan präsentieren Sie in der Galerie Tanya
Leighton in Berlin Ihre Sammlung von Briefbeschwerern. Was hat es damit auf sich?
Ich sammle Briefbeschwerer nicht nur, ich
benutze sie auch. Sie halten die Papierstapel,
die Sie hier sehen. Der größte Teil davon ist
Ausschuss. Die Ausstellung ist also ein Manifest meiner intellektuellen Arbeit. Und die
besteht vor allem darin, Ideen zu verwerfen.
Ich denke, wir sagen heutzutage viel zu selten Nein. Interview: Ulrich Clewing
„The Intellectual Work: Enzo Mari with Pavel
Büchler, Jason Dodge, Tim Rollins + K.O.S.“, Galerie Tanya Leighton, Berlin, bis 19. November
Die nächste Ausgabe von Monopol erscheint am 20. Oktober 2011
146
Das Jahresabonnement (12 Ausgaben für 90,00 Euro) können Sie ganz einfach bestellen unter: www.monopol-magazin.de
The Intellectual Work. Enzo Mari @
Tanya Leighton Gallery
Until November 19th the Tanya Leighton Gallery in the Berliner Kurfürstenstrasse is hosting an exhibition of objects collected by the Italian designer and theorist Enzo Mari.
In a similar vein to Achille is Watching Us, the point of the
exhibition is however not necessarily the objects themselves.
But their meaning.
The collection has arisen organically over the years, as Enzo
Mari has come accross discarded objects that have caught his
attention, picked them up, brought them home and kept them.
On his rare forays into commercial product design Mari, by
his own admission, invariably ends up with several thousand
sketches of possible solutions. However he doesn’t throw away
the rejected designs; rather, piles them up on his desk.
Eventually he needs something to stop the piles of paper flying off his desk; and the once outcast objects return to
their intended job as industrial objects. Albeit in a different context to that of their creation.
To Enzo Mari however they are just paperweights.
“The Intellectual Work Enzo Mari” is a display of 60 such
accidental paperweights, each atop a pile of A4 sheets representing the work of a designer/artist/musician admired by
Mari, for example Bach or Stephenson.
Individuals not necessarily admired by Mari because of their
output, but because of their striving for perfection in their
work.
Juxtapositioning as it were the reason he has so many piles
of paper in his studio with the works of those he strives to
emulate.
In addition to the Enzo Mari paperweight collection “The Intellectual Work….” features new projects by three young artists; Jason Dodge, Tim Rollins and K.O.S, Pavel Büchler.
www.minimumblog.com, 9 September 2011
Enzo Mari. Designer. And Barman
23.07.2012
The Intellectual Work: Enzo Mari a Berlino
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The Intellectual Work:
Enzo Mari a Berlino
La vasta collezione di fermacarte, raccolta
da Enzo Mari nel corso della sua prolifica
avventura creativa, viene esposta per la
prima volta a Berlino, facendo della mostra
l’allegoria della stessa pratica progettuale
del designer italiano e l’occasione per
dialogare con artisti e universitari
Caterina Porcellini
arredo urbano e spazi pubblici
ecodesign
colors
education
eventi e mostre design
exhibit design
food design
fuori salone
italian style
high-tech
icons
materiali
progettare il futuro della cucina
recupero e riutilizzo
salone del mobile
flip mags
04 Ottobre 2011
Enzo Mari è andato raccogliendo fermacarte – o creandoli, all’occasione – per
decenni, lungo tutto il corso della sua carriera di artista, designer, insegnante,
teorico: intellettuale, in una parola. E proprio “The Intellectual Work” s’intitola la
mostra in corso a Berlino, presso la Tanya Leighton Gallery, che sotto la
curatela della stessa gallerista e di Barbara Casavecchia offre al pubblico una
selezione – esteticamente eterogenea, concettualmente compatta – di quelli
che sono in buona sostanza object trouvés e sculture ready-made.
Spesso entrambe le cose, perché Mari utilizza regolarmente fossili e scarti della
produzione industriale, campioni per le verifiche e frammenti di sculture per
tenere al loro posto – a bada, verrebbe da dire – le centinaia di pagine
appuntate e disegnate che altrimenti svolazzerebbero per il suo studio.
Ma non si tratta soltanto di una mostra di fermacarte, per quanto ingegnosi e
persino poetici possano risultare alcuni – penso per esempio al surrealista
battente del portone d’ingresso dello studio in piazzale Baracca, che Enzo Mari
ha “salvato” dalla discarica smontandolo di frodo dopo che ne era stata decisa
la sostituzione.
Allo stesso modo di questo nuovo “vecchio oggetto”, sono molti gli spunti
progettuali di cui il designer non si è ancora liberato, che anzi ha isolato dal
proprio “flusso interiore” riconoscendone una qualche qualità; quella “perfetta
compiutezza formale” che ravvisa nei readymade di Duchamp e che ne fanno il
contrario di un “prelievo a caso dal serbatoio della realtà”.
Racconta Enzo Mari a Barbara Casavecchia, nel saggio riportato sul catalogo
che Kaleidoskope Press aveva già pubblicato per l’edizione milanese della
mostra (13-30 aprile 2010, presso il Kaleidoskope project space) e che ora
accompagna l’evento in corso a Berlino: “Ho raccolte di appunti che girano per
tavoli e cartelle ormai da cinquant’anni: solo i progetti conclusi hanno i loro
dossier. Dovrei gettarli e non li getto, perché ogni volta c’è la memoria di
qualche pensiero giusto e letterale, che sfrutto per il mio mettere i puntini sulle i.
Per evitare che si disperdano, la cosa più semplice è metterci un peso sopra,
scegliendo tra quelli a disposizione. Se la raccolta ha una componente ludica, il
fatto di usarla così non è più un gioco”.
Ecco, dunque, che gli stessi fermacarte si fanno allegoria materiale del lavoro
intellettuale rispetto al quale sono incaricati, non tanto di “porre un freno”,
quanto di trovare la giusta collocazione; allegoria delle possibili trasformazioni
virtuose a cui pensieri – e, dunque, strumenti e oggetti – possono essere
sottoposti.
the intellectual work
scheda evento
titolo: Enzo Mari: The Intellectual
Work
a cura di: Barbara Casavecchia con
Tanya Leighton
inaugurazione: 7 settembre 2011
durata: fino al 19 novembre
città: Berlino (Germania)
luogo: Tanya Leighton Gallery,
Kurfürstenstrasse 156
catalogo: Kaleidoskope Press
e-mail: [email protected]
sito web: www.tanyaleighton.com
Le newsletter di Living24
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Compasso d’Oro 2011:
verso un nuovo design
Enzo Mari a proposito di
design, Cersaie 2010
“C’è dell’altro”, avverte Barbara Casavecchia nel suo saggio. E spiega, quindi,
che in questo prendere tempo (“un lusso sovversivo”), sottraendosi alle
tempistiche del sistema produttivo; in questo “grado infimo di elaborazione di un
oggetto già esistente” – quanto basta perché possa assolvere alla nuova
funzione –, Enzo Mari “individua un antidoto salutare a ciò che stigmatizza,
arrabbiandosi moltissimo, come il profluvio di art pompier e il traboccante
‘ebefrenismo della creatività’ del design contemporaneo”. Termine che,
derivando dal nome di una grave forma di schizofrenia – l’ebefrenia, appunto –,
Mari utilizza per sottintendere (e neppure troppo in fondo) che la “psicosi della
giovinezza” di cui sono affetti oggi i creativi li obblighi a cercare il nuovo per il
www.living24.it/the-intellectual-work-enzo-mari-a-berlino/0,1254,58_ART_4740,00.html
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enzo mari - the art of design
enzo mari the art of design
october 29, 2008 - january 6, 2009
GAM museum of modern and
contemporary art turin, italy
enzo mari is perceived as 'the critical conscience of design',
his work has contributed to the world-wide debate on the
contemporary design profession. on the occasion of the city
of turin's nomination as world design capital 2008,
GAM museum dedicates an extensive retrospective show
to the work of the italian master designer enzo mari.
250 works are on show, created in over 50 years,
from contemporary art pieces to design objects and urban
re-design projects
--in the ‘80ies designboom's editor-in-chief birgit lohmann
has studied industrial design under enzo mari and
after graduation she has collaborated with enzo mari on
multiple design projects over the last 20 years.
and together they run several university courses and design
laboratories in europe.
form and formalism
’mari has taught me to distinguish ‘proper’ and ‘improper’
design and projects. proper projects start from refusal of
‘the existing’ because of their technical, expressive or
social inadequacy. we traveled in europe and hosted
design conferences on how the alchemy of proper design
can be taught and this capacity can be exercised.
while mari closes up to himself, nuturing anger about ‘the state
of things in general’ and the way it remains exactly what it is,
our desire for change collide with obstacles that seem
insurmountable.
since I know him, mari moves within a variety of linguistic
contexts but has never changed his attitudes or tamed his
projects and ideological proposals.
mari is a highly scrupulous researcher, but still he adopts
and maintains a series of schemes as parameters.
at first he created logical models that subtract the practice
of art from caprice and tells us that a project is ‘the whole of
the set of operations performed for the actualization of what
seems useful in the light of the necessities to be recognized
as having priority’, which are undoubtedly the ethical
necessities and this while accepting the constant conflict with
the economicistic logic of industrial production.
enzo mari
portrait © designboom
me running after mari, two days before the exhibition opened.
‘dear birgit,
as you know, the problem today is the only possible project (and young people should complete
an active effort now) is working to ‘decondition’ people from
the god of merchandise.
this seems to be an exaggeration, therefore I will give
a clear example of the current situation:
there are two illnesses that are widely diffused, prevalent in
the bourgeois society people don't often talk about them cancer and AIDS.
neither illness has a secure cure, but there are doctors and
researchers which are constantly working, fighting, studying
to develop antidotes and medicines.
twenty years ago, when cancer was diagnosed, the patient
died after six months. today, people probably survive
twenty-five years.
but nobody ever says 'HOW NICE IS CANCER!'
and ‘what a positive vision for society’.
for design which is actually waste ... well, the design of today
'in future memories' is the wasteland of ignorance and horror.
it's true that design only touches minor sectors of production,
but the activity of designing is perceived as resulting in projects
of quality. meanwhile, almost all design projects lack quality.
it's pure mannerism and the merchandise needs to die quickly
in order to create the need of a new production.
drawing by enzo mari
The Art of Design, 2009
this means it's a non-project and I'm embarrassed to be
categorized as a designer.
... one can sometimes desire a playful object (gadget)...
it's the entire mental system where merchandise is perceived,
not only as objects, but people (including their professions,
their brains).’ E.M.
in the last number of years, I was forced to buy a few
computers, and in my studio I see how they are used.
I am three times faster. rather than looking for data,
uploading something, reconnecting to different programs,
moving folders to the archive...
yes, the computer creates perfect things.
if I need to send somebody a drawing or a photo - it's fine.
when a project is in its final stages, then it is useful to use
the computer to document it.
but it's very wrong to use it as a machine for project making!
--‘introduction to drawing’ /
‘premessa al disegnare’, 2008
(translation of illustration)
if you want to become an architect, you have to learn
how to draw freehand...
the computer is a useful tool ...
you can use it when you finally understood what you
want to do... (this is when the project in itself is concluded).
perhaps something needs to be said regarding the
myths sourrounding the computer you just bought.
as you know, it’s made of two parts 1° the powerful and misterious ‘HARD’ and
2° the ‘SOFT’ ... instructions sold to the oblivious
who think they are able to create form by ignoring the
concrete reasons behind it.
HOWEVER, there is another type of computer
which is a thousands time more efficient...
at no cost, you already have one and it’s still new
as you don’t imagine to own it.
1° the infinitely powerful ‘HARD’.
in fact it’s so powerful that a newborn baby (who still
hasn’t worked out space, sound, it’s own limbs...
in just 1 year will have understood it, and on its own).
HARD turns it into a concious beeing through acts of
interpreting each random movement or sensation.
2° there is no ‘SOFT’. you’ve lost it at age of 6.
at school...... but you can rediscover it ...
it’s knowledge that comes from personal practise,
the only possibility of real comprehension.
--modulo 856, 1967
is a work of which a great deal has been said and written,
but in terms that strikes me as unsatisfying.
mari refers to this work as ‘a somehow hierartic space’,
and surely that’s the case for the viewer who enters it
and sees a narcissistic reflection of himself.
hieratic and uncomfortable. lea vergine, mari’s wife,
is one of italy’s most acclaimed art critics. she says
‘his central intention is to arouse the viewer’s faculties for
reflection and critical reaction with respect to his own
modes of being and behaviour.’
the visitor is invited to consider the figure of his bust
‘study celebrating an anniversary’, 1954
(studio per l’anniversario) painting by enzo mari
as though it were a painting? I guess he is invited to accept
an emptiness in the place where he ordinarily expects to
find the fullness of a work of art.
it is a sort of what musil defiened a ‘concave sensation’,
which is an experience of emptiness and absence,
where the mind encounters the possibility of the difficult
exercise of reflecting upon itself.
drawing of ‘modulo 856’ by enzo mari, 1967
the work is presented like a large minimal sculpture, but in truth it is a dwelling place inside
which the visitor is astonished to unexpectedly discover his own image reflected in a
mirror. the idea behind it is that the visitor can ask the question why he is there ...
well, me ...
--‘allegory of dignity’/
‘allegoria della dignità’, 1988
we are invited to look on ourselves with dignity.
this is to say that we have to find - without the aid of churches
and avoiding banalizations on the respect that human
beings have to show to one another - is a good reason for
facing up a mirror and looking at our reflections within it.
.. there you are, always the very same imbecile, rendered an object by the institutions
that sourround you.
‘allegory of dignity’, 1988
--‘fourty-four evaluations’ /
‘quarantaquattro valutazioni’, 1976
mari’s contribution to the 1976 venice art biennale,
44 marble pieces sculpted into different fluid shapes
that slot together to form a giant hammer and sickle symbol.
the human individually alienates himself from his own particular powers and convince
ourselves that there is no other or beter way of being a human being.
... a participatory project...
‘44 evaluations’, 1976
a giant hammer and sickle, deconstructed into 44 art sculptures.
individual formal expressions form a common point of referment...
every single sculpture is of the same quality as the composed symbol.
a well known symbol.
EYEOUT berlin
The mobile art guide app with infos on over
170 galleries & museums
-70% auf all you can eat
Essen gehen und nur 30% zahlen. Hol dir
den Mega-Rabatt & spare Bares.
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October 22, 2010
MIUCCIA PRADA
Milan’s burden to maintain dominance in the world of high fashion falls partly on the
slim, often fox-covered shoulders of Miuccia Prada, who, together with her husband,
Patrizio Bertelli, transformed her grandfather’s leather-goods company into one of the
rare birds of fashion: a brand that is as acclaimed on the critical circuit as it is with
consumers. Editors, buyers, bloggers, live streamers and gate-crashers alike anticipate
her shows. “I don’t think about it,” she says of her unofficial designation as one of the
city’s leading designers. “I think about doing my work well.” That work also includes
the Prada Foundation, whose exhibitions of art, architecture, film and philosophy give
as much of a kick to the city of Milan as they do to the designer. “I use my work for
doing all of the things I like,” she says. “It’s the perfect instrument, so I will never leave
it.”
DAVIDE OLDANI
A taste of Milan’s most exciting culinary offerings requires a trip outside the city center
to D’O, a spartan trattoria with 36 seats and bad lighting. What the establishment lacks
in decorating, it makes up for in pleasures of the palate, thanks to Davide Oldani, its
43-year-old Milan-born owner and chef. Though his training took place in the kitchens
of Albert Roux, Alain Ducasse and the pastry chef Pierre Hermé, Oldani is committed
to bringing sophisticated food down to earth and into the stomachs of regular people. “I
call it ‘pop cucina,’ ” he says. “It’s for the people, and we have pop prices.” Dishes like
caramelized onion with hot and cold grana Padano cheese, or rice with cinnamon,
capers, olives and watermelon, are sure to please the masses. The eight-month waiting
list for reservations, however, is another story.
MARTINA MONDADORI SARTOGO
The amount of killer art on the walls of Martina Mondadori Sartogo’s home — Robert
Rauschenberg, Julian Schnabel, William Kentridge, Anselm Kiefer and Alighiero Boetti
— would seem like booty suited to a collector twice her age. But at 29, the scion of
Italy’s most famous publishing family is bulldozing through Milan’s normally sedate
contemporary-art scene at breakneck speed. Since 2006, she has run the marketing
firm Memoria, which links brands with art and culture. Her side gigs include editorial
New York Times, October 2010
director (and artist wrangler) at Tar magazine and partner in the Cardi Black Box
gallery in Milan with Nicolò Cardi and Barbara Berlusconi — the daughter of Silvio,
who, ironically, snapped up Mondadori Publishing in the 1980s. “We were criticized
about all of the media attention,” she says of the press tizzy over her unlikely partner.
But the glitter has settled: “We’re there to work.”
GIORGIO ARMANI
It’s no wonder the Italian papers name-check him as “Re Giorgio” (King Giorgio). A
deity among mere mortal fashionistas, Armani began as a determined window dresser
at La Rinascente and single-handedly flipped the pages of fashion history in the 1980s
with his deconstructed suits and beautifully muted palette. Armed with a global vision
and a D.I.Y. mentality, Armani has meticulously built a multibillion-dollar empire,
seamlessly annexing couture, furniture, restaurants and, most recently, hotels. Mention
his name today and even Mom knows you’re talking good taste. Armani says his legacy
is “bringing high fashion down to the normal people on the streets.” But his biggest
ccomplishment may end up on the financial page: his privately owned company is
debt-free and controlled by the 76-year-old designer himself — a model of restraint,
responsibility and, of course, egomania.
THE BUSINESSMEN
Milan’s biggest deals get signed in the office, but they’re hatched a tavola, over a
civilized lunch. “We have good food,” says Marco Tronchetti Provera (center), the
chairman and C.E.O. of Pirelli, “so we try to leverage it.” Provera, who also serves on
countless boards and international advisory councils, has made tires sexy — an unusual
feat that’s in keeping with the country’s inspired thinkers. Similarly, Remo Ruffini
(left), the president of Moncler, has wrestled the world’s chicest women out of their fur
coats and into his cult-status puffer jackets. Boffi, the design shrine helmed by the
C.E.O. Roberto Gavazzi (foreground), has put kitchens and bathrooms on par with
couture, while B&B Italia, the pioneer of high-end designer furniture, produced 75,000
sofas for Saudi Arabia in the ’70s and hasn’t stopped since. “We are slaves to our own
success,” says Giorgio Busnelli (right), the company’s chairman. The same could be said
for his tablemates. But at least they get a civilized lunch.
ROBERTO BOLLE
Roberto Bolle’s first ballet class, at age 6, wasn’t a triumph. “I was a little annoyed
because there were all these little girls and no boys,” says La Scala’s pre-eminent étoile
(or principal) dancer, who grew up in Casale Monferrato, a tiny town in northern Italy.
His tolerance paid off: at 11, he was selected by La Scala and shipped off (alone) to
Milan, where he studied and danced up to nine hours a day. Now, at 35, he has twirled
for every major ballet company in the world, performing as beautifully for Queen
Elizabeth II and Pope John Paul II as he does for thousands of screaming plebes in
Piazza del Duomo. His profession leaves little time for parties or dancing in nightclubs,
but Bolle doesn’t like them anyway. “There’s not enough space, and the music is too
loud,” he says. Well, when you’re used to Tchaikovsky and your own spotlight, who can
blame you?
ENZO MARI
In his 50-year career, Enzo Mari has been an influential industrial designer, an inspired
artist and a passionate teacher — all without a high school diploma. Now 78 and living
without the spoils of celebrity-designer-dom, Mari is gloomy about his profession’s
current craze for marketing: “Design is a stupid thing!” he thunders. He’s happier
holding forth on the topics of essential form and functionality, concepts to which he has
been resolute. The practical genius of his designs — including reversible plastic vases,
wooden children’s puzzles and chairs that can be self-assembled (the latter two are still
in production with Danese and Artek) — has earned him 26 spots in the Museum of
Modern Art collection. None of it came without a fight. “I never obeyed,” he says of the
nearly 2,000 projects he has completed. “I made the object like Michelangelo would’ve
done it.”
FRANCA SOZZANI
On the top step of Milan’s fashion ziggurat stands Franca Sozzani. Beginning as an
assistant at Vogue Bambini, she has risen to editor in chief at L’Uomo Vogue and Vogue
Italia, where she has commissioned controversial and game-changing fashion
photography from the likes of Steven Meisel, Herb Ritts, Peter Lindbergh and Bruce
Weber. The influence of her work ripples across fashion runways, ad campaigns and
designers’ futures (a thumbs-up from her and you’re in), yet her signature is always
changing. “A magazine can’t stand still, or it will get old,” she says, revealing her earlyadapter approach. That explains the popularity of vogue.it, where the petite, highbrow
Sozzani is photographed each day in a new outfit to accompany her name-packed blog
posts. Produced by Carolina Neri. Grooming by Augusto Picerni at Victoria’s.
MASSIMILIANO GIONI
As the artistic director of the Nicola Trussardi Foundation, Massimiliano Gioni is
focused not just on coaxing artists like Paul McCarthy and Maurizio Cattelan to create
large-scale works but also on unearthing buried jewels in the city of Milan. Since 2003,
the foundation has transformed public piazzas, defunct palazzos and even the city’s
oldest oak tree into a public stage for high-concept contemporary art. As Gioni notes a
little incredulously, “Milan doesn’t have a contemporary-art museum, so our concept is
a nomadic museum.” A life-size camper sunk into the earth by Michael Elmgreen and
Ingar Dragset, an animal farm by Paola Pivi and McCarthy’s (literal) “Pig Island” are
just some of the foundation’s original fare. Gioni credits Beatrice Trussardi — the
president and C.E.O. of Trussardi Group, whose father, Nicola, nurtured the idea of an
art-based foundation in 1996 — with its success. “If I had a traditional Italian boss, I
definitely would not have been able to put a giant blow-up ketchup bottle in the center
of an 18th-century palazzo.”
CARLA SOZZANI
The idea that you might like to admire a Louise Dahl-Wolfe photograph, buy a Jean
Prouvé book, sit down for a Caprese salad and then scoop up some Azzedine Alaïa
shoes — all in one place — was radical in the retail world when Carla Sozzani opened
the doors to 10 Corso Como in 1991. Conceived as a three-dimensional magazine, the
Corso Como concept has lit fire to a string of copies around the world. “It’s a
compliment,” says Sozzani, a former magazine editor whose mission is to coddle
anything young and cool (and good). From debut collections of unknown designers to
luxe sex toys, the only thing she won’t tolerate is fast fashion. “Oh. My. God.” is her
frank assessment of the cheap copies snowballing through the industry. “Fast fashion
isn’t fashion. It’s counterintuitive. I like slow fashion.”
LETIZIA MORATTI
Letizia Moratti, the mayor of Milan since 2006, is frequently photographed in sleek
suits by Giorgio Armani and shiny dresses by Dolce & Gabbana. But underneath this
public servant’s cool exterior is serious political muscle, which she flexed most
famously for Milan’s bid — and win — for Expo 2015, an ambitious project that is
expected to generate up to $75 billion in revenue and 70,000 jobs for the Lombardy
region. Moratti fixes the city’s potholes and prostitution problem with equal gusto and
embraces unorthodox (even quirky) measures to boost her city’s image, like her
successful campaign to get Milan included in the Italian anniversary edition of
Monopoly. She’s currently crusading to rename the ill-reputed Malpensa airport after
Caravaggio and to create a designer fragrance named after her city. She is giddiest,
however, when discussing the recent discovery of Leonardo da Vinci’s personal
vineyard in the city center: “We’re trying to reproduce the same grapes,” she reveals.
“We’d love to make Leonardo wine.”
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September 15, 2010
Furniture Takes a Manly Turn
By PENELOPE GREEN
JOOST VAN BLEISWIJK, a 34-year-old Dutch designer, makes domestic objects like
clocks and candlesticks, chessboards and china cabinets out of Cor-Ten (otherwise
known as “weathering”) steel that he sets outside his Eindhoven studio for a month or so,
until it accrues a nice coat of rust.
He used to make shiny, highly polished pieces that gleamed like prerecession bling, or a
Manhattan skyscraper built before the crash. Then he became interested in tougher,
grittier finishes, and he’s been playing with the weather ever since.
“Small raindrops and lots of wind looks best — who knows why?” Mr. van Bleiswijk said
recently, speaking by cellphone outside a restaurant in his hometown. Soon, he said, he’ll
be working his pieces over with a blowtorch. His goal, he said, is to “do even heavier
metal, and do it even more rough. I think, in this time, people are bored with too-perfect
things.”
Thwack! So much for lacy Tyvek garlands, corseted velvet chairs and Swarovski crystal
chandeliers. Or delicate Black Forest woodland imagery — indeed, anything that smacks
of embroidery or the gentle arts is for sissies. So are teddy bear chairs, or even high-tech
chairs designed with computer software and in materials hatched in a test tube.
Rough-looking furniture that carries a whiff of shop class, handmade by guys who have
their own power saws — and know how to use them — is design’s new tack. Art is a
many-gendered thing, but right now it is emphasizing the influence of the Y
chromosome.
“Butch craft” is how Murray Moss, the canny marketer and former fashion entrepreneur,
describes the work of Mr. van Bleiswijk and others, which he has collected in an enticing
show that opened Wednesday night at Moss, his SoHo store. It has a “rough-hewn, virile
and heavy-lifting aesthetic,” Mr. Moss said, albeit one that is sensitively rendered or
considered, a nod to the history and semiotics of the word “butch.” (“Make Me,” reads
the invitation, illustrated by a photo of a shirtless and ambiguously gendered individual
wielding an ax. We’ll get to the queer-studies stuff later.)
New York Times, September 2010
There are boiled-leather vases cinched with wing nuts and riven by brutalist steel shafts
made by Simon Hasan, a British designer. The undulating shapes look like the bubbling
lines of an R. Crumb drawing. Mr. Hasan uses a technique once deployed to soften and
shape the thick hides for medieval body armor; in a photo on his Web site, he wears a
smithy’s apron.
The “keel tables” by Oscar Magnus Narud, a Norwegian designer, have gutsy iron legs
you whack in yourself with a mallet provided by Mr. Narud. He said he liked the idea of
making furniture that was resilient and utilitarian; furniture you could fix yourself, and
even if it was chipped wouldn’t be ruined.
“I’d been looking at old Norwegian pieces that are put together with little fixings,” said
Mr. Narud, who works in London, sharing studio space with his Royal College of Art pal,
Peter Marigold. “A lot of pegs and wedges and things like that that are very simple but
make a very sturdy piece of furniture.” It is in contrast, he noted, to super-modern,
super-slick furniture whose value would plummet if its precious veneer were to be
nicked.
Mr. Narud, who was speaking by cellphone, passed the phone to his studio mate, Mr.
Marigold, whose stunning, blood-red tables and benches dominate the show at Mr.
Moss’s store. Made during a two-month residency in Norway, they were inspired by the
electricity pylons dotted about the woods. Mr. Marigold used a circular saw and a single
piece of wood to put together the tough-looking, archly artless pieces, which resemble
the objects in a Philip Guston painting: the wood grain has been punched up with a sand
blaster; brass screws are lined up, sort of.
“I think today people are very suspicious of a certain kind of ornament,” he said. “Like
when I see laser cut, I think that’s just lazy design. This kind of restraint” — restraint
being the quality he was assigning his own and other semi-tough pieces — “is important
because you try to focus on the idea rather than the form. I think things that are well
finished should come from industry. For me to make something that’s smooth and shiny
would take a lot of unnecessary effort that I think would distract from the content. The
‘butchness’ is a focusing of my effort rather than a lack of focus.”
Mr. Marigold is no mere art school theorist, however. He has serious craft cred and can
wield a power saw with the best of them. Tellingly, he recalled a conversation he had
recently in a pub about English schools and how, he said, “If you’re creative and vaguely
intelligent, you’re pushed into doing art, but if you are — how can I put this? — a bit
thick, you’re pushed into doing craft.”
You mean, like shop?
“Yeah, basically,” he said. “That’s what the troublemaking kids ended up doing, and
that’s what I wanted to do. But I got pushed into doing art.”
Butch craft, as imagined by Mr. Moss, can also include nonfunctional work: four-foot
tall, broken-plane pieces made from Sheetrock by Aaron Raymer, a soft-spoken sculptor
from Louisville, Ky.
Drywall is pretty butch. Certainly, handling the utility knife to slice it up is.
Mr. Raymer, who used to make mechanical, machine-driven pieces, had been installing
Sheetrock for years before he realized he could use the stuff for his own work. Last May,
he was part of a team putting up drywall in Mr. Moss’s store when he caught the eye of
the boss: “I said, ‘That guy is really good,’ ” Mr. Moss recalled.
Mr. Raymer let him know that was no stranger to Sheetrock. “It’s kind of strange to think
of this,” he said the other day. “But it always seems like I apply a blue-collar trade
approach to the art world. A lot of that comes from being in the labor force for a long
time.” (Mr. Raymer, a stay-at-home dad, is 32; he received his M.F.A. from N.Y.U. in
2008.)
When Mr. Moss showed Mr. Raymer’s work to a reporter, he said, “Doesn’t it just put
you right in the construction site, and there’s dust all over and everyone is wearing hard
hats?”
DO tough times call for tough work? “Do people want to be reminded of tough times?”
asked David McFadden, chief curator and vice president of the Museum of Arts and
Design in Manhattan. “A real collector might want pieces that carry the voice of right
now.”
But he added, “If you are looking for a functional piece of furniture, you may not want to
see rough screws.”
Butchness, he continued, is in the eye of the beholder. “One man’s butch is another
man’s femme. We attribute certain characteristics to design objects — they are clues to
personality, but not the whole Freudian session. Marigold’s work is an example of the
juxtaposition of the extremely refined with the extremely crude. It’s the design version of
the raw and the cooked.”
The fathers of butch furniture could be said to be makers like Paul Evans, fomenters of
the studio craft movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Or Tom Dixon in the 1980s.
Mr. Moss draws a line back to a “bowl” made with a slice of an iron I-beam by Enzo Mari
around 1957. (Mr. Moss’s own I-beam bowl is in his shop this week.) “The toughness is
there in the material,” he said. “And in the banality, the humbleness of the material. And
yet the elegance is truly evident.”
For the last 10 years, said Paul Johnson, a gallerist in New York who represents Mr.
Hasan, the boiled-leather man, as well as vintage work by Mr. Evans and other ’70s-era
craft types, “design has been very futuristic, very flashy. I think what’s happened in the
world has allowed the artists who make more affordable things with their hands to gain
market share over someone who has to spend a ton of money to get their work
produced.”
He continued: “It’s sweat equity. Some of these things take months to make. The first
couple can take a year. That’s what I’ve always liked about this kind of work: it’s time and
the hand, plus you get something that can’t be made again.”
As Mr. McFadden observed: “People are really eager to experience process, and
something tangible. We live inside our heads so much. There’s a sensuality to these
designs, and it’s not in terms of comfort, but in a more basic, instinctive sense. The other
part of marketing contemporary design is that everyone is looking for a younger
audience of collectors. I think the butch craft design definitely has a resonance with a
younger person. There’s a humor or a whimsy to the phrase — it sounds cool.”
Andrew Wagner, editor of ReadyMade magazine and a former editor of American Craft
magazine, put out by the American Craft Council, described Mr. Moss as “a master
marketer.”
He added, ruefully: “What the old school craft world needs is a Murray Moss. It needs a
Moss to step up and come up with the language. Murray has an amazing knack of taking
stuff that’s pretty far out there and making it come to life. What he’s showing now, and
what these guys are doing, is nothing new, it’s been happening for decades. But people
got caught up in production furniture, and this idea of making it yourself kind of got lost
and kind of stale.”
In an era defined by an appetite for “conspicuous authenticity,” to borrow a phrase from
Andrew Potter, author of “The Authenticity Hoax: How We Get Lost Finding Ourselves,”
out this year from HarperCollins, it’s easy to be cynical. Butch Craft could be an arts
collective in Bushwick, or maybe a Viking metal band, the phrase peppered with
umlauts, or a reclaimed-wood furniture collection produced by bearded hipsters.
Feh, Mr. Moss swatted the idea away. “This isn’t an inelegant going back to the rough
gesture,” he said. “It’s not a guy going out and making a bed of antlers. It’s a progression
toward a very elegant gesture. It’s just that the materials have this toughness and are an
alternative means of giving an art content form and expression in a functional object.”
What he means is that his artists have thought hard to present rough. Which leads us
back to “butch,” a term hatched years ago by the lesbian community to describe a kind of
hyper-maleness: a woman’s performance of masculinity, as queer theorists like Judith
Halberstam, a professor of gender studies at the University of Southern California, and
author of “Female Masculinity,” will point out.
“It’s an old term, but it’s still brimming with meaning,” Ms. Halberstam said recently.
“Today, I would define it as a counter-gender identity.”
Mr. Moss would agree. “I thought about this a lot,” he said. “I used the term ‘butch,’
versus ‘masculine’ or ‘tough’ or ‘manly,’ because what I mean by this is work that is
stereotypically considered manly, but expressed by a personality that is stereotypically
considered sensitive or feminine.”
In other words, an artist.
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August 29, 2010
An Italian Designer’s Homage to His
Native Country
By ALICE RAWSTHORN
MILAN — When Alessandro Mendini was a student he conducted an experiment by
challenging himself to live with no more than 40 objects. How did it go? He failed.
“It was impossible,” he recalled. “I’d calculated the minimum number of things I thought
I needed to get by so carefully, but hadn’t realized how many pens, pencils and other
drawing instruments I used in my studies.”
Despite that flop, Mr Mendini, now 79, has been obsessed by objects ever since. He has
devoted much of his work, as one of Italy’s leading designers, architects, editors, critics
and curators, to exploring how the things we choose to live with reflect our characters. In
a dazzlingly ambitious exhibition at La Triennale Design Museum in Milan, he has
assembled a collection of objects to illustrate, not his own character, but his country’s.
Entitled “Quali Cose Siamo,” or “The Things We Are,” it presents Mr. Mendini’s choice of
the things that make Italy, well, Italian.
What are they? There are 800 objects in the show, jumbled together as if at a yard sale
on very simple, very elegant plinths made by the French designer Pierre Charpin. To give
you some idea of what you’ll find there, the first group includes: a replica of
Michelangelo’s David; a giant Campari bottle; a car; a grand piano; a giant Ferragamo
sandal (which Mr. Mendini spotted years ago in a photograph of Judy Garland); a sofa by
his fellow Italian designer Gaetano Pesce; and a nude portrait of another, the late Ettore
Sottsass.
That’s for starters. Among the hundreds of other exhibits are: a suit of armor; pieces of
pasta; the original models of E.T. (yes, he was designed by an Italian, too); musical
instruments; a giant cactus; porcelain figurines; one jacket that belonged to (yet another)
national design treasure, Achille Castiglioni, and one worn by the Italian comedian Totò;
debris from the 2009 L’Aquila earthquake; a Giorgio Morandi painting; and a replica of a
white shirt made for the Italian physicist Alessandro Volta.
New York Times, August 2010
It is baffling, thrilling, eccentric, intriguing, thoughtful, mischievous and seductive. So
much so that I have lost count of how many designers have hailed “Quali Cose Siamo” as
one of the best design exhibitions they have ever seen. I have been to the show, which
opened in March and runs through Feb. 27, three times, and felt just as baffled, yet
thrilled on the second and third visits as on the first.
What does it all mean? Unsurprisingly, there have been lots of interpretations. One is
that “Quali Cose Siamo” is Mr. Mendini’s riposte to the textbook history of modern
Italian design, which is dominated by famous pieces by famous designers. Another is that
he is critiquing the celebrification of contemporary design culture. A third is that by
reminding us of the subtlety and vitality of Italy’s recent history, the exhibition is an
implicit attack on Silvio Berlusconi’s prime ministership and his impact on the country.
Mr. Mendini agrees with the first and second interpretations, but laughs off the third. “A
lot of people, especially young people, have suggested that there is a political message,”
he said. “That’s their interpretation, not mine.”
A fourth suggestion (my personal favorite) came from one of his friends, who sees “Quali
Cose Siamo” as Mr. Mendini’s love letter to design and to Italy.
Few people are better equipped to write it. After working for Marcello Nizzoli, one of the
design maestri who helped to revitalize postwar Italian industry, Mr. Mendini became
involved with the Radical Design movement in the late 1960s. He championed that
movement as editor of Casabella in the 1970s, and did the same for post-Modernism at
Domus in the 1980s. As a designer, he is best known for his dizzily ornate products for
Alessi and Swatch, but his most influential pieces are the conceptual projects he
developed in the mid-1970s and, later, with the post-Modernist group Studio Alchymia.
His greatest influence, though, has been in celebrating his vision of design as a humane,
empathetic, expressive medium in essays, books and exhibitions. He has done this since
returning to Domus, where he is guest editor for a year, and again in “Quali Cose Siamo.”
Spectacularly diverse though the exhibits are, they have one thing in common. “They
come from different eras and different typologies, and are cheap, expensive, big, small,
or whatever, but they all have a certain dignity,” explained Mr. Mendini. “And it comes
from being intimately connected to people’s lives.”
This intimacy is the defining theme of the show. Mr. Mendini has based his selection on
the emotional bond that individual objects have fused with him and fellow Italians,
rather than on the conventional design criteria of whether they are exemplars of form,
function, innovation or eco-responsibility.
That’s why he has included personal mementos of designers he admires, such as Mr.
Sottsass’s portrait, Mr. Castiglioni’s jacket and a painting by Domus’s founder, Gio Ponti,
rather than acclaimed examples of their work. There are a few exceptions, but most have
another story to tell, rather than coasting on their “classic” status. One is an Olivetti
Lettera 22 typewriter, which was designed by Mr. Mendini’s old boss, Mr. Nizzoli, but
belonged to the eminent Italian journalist Indro Montanelli. Then there is a concrete
traffic cone, which was designed by Enzo Mari to keep the Milanese traffic at bay. Mr.
Mendini chose one, which has been painted to resemble a watermelon.
The emphasis on intimacy also explains the references to the sentimental side of Italian
life, in objects such as the kitschy porcelain figurines and replica David, which are hugely
popular, but routinely ignored by the design establishment. The nod to Totò, in the form
of his jacket, achieves the same end by acknowledging that a much-loved comedian can
make an important contribution to national life, alongside great scientists and artists.
The same could be said of the giant Ferragamo sandal, although Mr. Mendini has a
different explanation. “I chose it for a very simple reason,” he said. “It’s fantastic!”
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April 21, 2010
At the Milan Furniture Fair, a Fluid
Design Emerges
By ALICE RAWSTHORN
MILAN
THERE was only one topic of conversation during the final days of the furniture fair last
week: How do we get out of here?
Those dystopian clouds of volcanic ash drifted over Europe at the worst possible time for
fairgoers, preventing thousands from flying in or out of Milan during the city’s busiest
week of the year. No sooner had the first trans-Atlantic flights been grounded than the
talk turned from tables and chairs to who was or wasn’t stranded; whether there really
was one last seat to be bagged on a flight out of Rome or Madrid; and what kind of
stratospheric sums the local car services were charging for the 500-plus-mile drive to
Paris.
To judge just how bad the volcano’s timing was, one has to consider how immensely
important the Salone del Mobile, which ran from April 14 to 19, is to the global furniture
trade. “Milan,” as the furniture industry calls it, is the event of the year — something akin
to the Detroit, Geneva and Tokyo auto shows, or the New York, Paris and Milan fashion
weeks, rolled into one.
Last year, the recession cast a dark cloud over the fair. The number of visitors to the
cavernous Rho complex fell for the first time in years, to 313,385 from a record 348,452
in 2008.
Economic conditions have eased since then, and this year manufacturers seemed, if not
more confident, at least less nervous. The visitor count rose to 335,354, according to the
fair’s organizer, Cosmit, and many exhibitors acknowledged with relief that business was
better than it had been a year ago. “There were signs of improvement,” said Rolf
Fehlbaum, the chairman of Vitra, the Swiss furniture group. “And dealers were willing to
order.”
That said, the recovery is precarious and patchy. Patrizia Moroso, the creative director of
New York Times, April 2010
Moroso, the Italian furniture company, noted: “It’s still a negative situation. Some
markets have huge growth potential, and there are signs of recovery in others, but it will
be a slow process because there is a more cautious approach to spending.”
Hundreds of dinners, lunches, brunches and other liquor-drenched bashes were held in
Milan last week, when the city was at its loveliest in the spring sunshine. But the
splashiest parties were given by fashion houses and carmakers eager to capture the
attention of the news media that had flocked to the city. Furniture manufacturers were
cutting costs ruthlessly.
Fewer companies showed at the fair this year — 2,499, compared with 2,723 in 2009 —
and those that were here introduced fewer new products than usual, most of them less
technically ambitious, to reduce development costs.
“Most manufacturers had clearly made significant cuts and were happy just to be
present,” said Alasdhair Willis, the chief executive of the British furniture company
Established & Sons. “They’ve pulled right back on investment in tooling, with very few
new products requiring any real significant tooling setup.”
Not surprisingly, there weren’t many clear trends or stellar products. The most
interesting development was the emergence of what could be called superleggera —
super light — style. Fluid, lithe and angular, these pieces looked like technocratic takes
on the 1950s work of Italian designers like Franco Albini and Gio Ponti, one of whose
chairs was called Superleggera. Typical were the chairs by Martino Gamper, Konstantin
Grcic and Jerszy Seymour for Magis, as well as one by Industrial Facility for Mattiazzi,
and the elegant copper objects by Aldo Bakker for Thomas Eyck. Other examples
included Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec’s spindly aluminum tables for Magis and their
Lighthouse light for Established & Sons.
“We felt it was time for something gentler and quieter,” Ronan Bouroullec explained. “I
heard a French perfumier talking about how 30 years ago, women wanted powerful
scents to announce their entrance to a room, but now they prefer them to be subtler. I
feel the same way about furniture.”
Another area of innovation was lighting, where advances in energy-efficient LED and
OLED technology are enabling manufacturers and designers to invent new products.
(Traditional LEDs produce a small, intense point of light, but OLEDs, or organic lightemitting diodes, can be fashioned into thin — even flexible — panels.)
Ingo Maurer, the veteran German designer, dedicated his presentation to a love of
old-fashioned incandescent bulbs, but also unveiled several stunning OLED pieces. Flos,
the Italian lighting manufacturer, showed how LEDs can be integrated into walls and
ceilings. The standout was the Israeli Ron Gilad’s beautifully sculptured Wallpiercing.
The company also unveiled a series of OLED lights by Philippe Starck, which the retailer
Murray Moss said he plans to show in his SoHo store, among his “picks” from the fair.
Piero Gandini, the president of Flos, said: “We’re only just beginning to realize the
potential of these technologies. The results are already very exciting.”
There were intriguing presentations on ways to integrate digital technology into the
home. Sony and Matsushita, the Japanese electronics companies, presented
experimental projects — from sound systems to a kitchen — developed with
BarberOsgerby, the British design group, and Naoto Fukasawa, the Japanese designer,
respectively.
But the young Dutch designer Maarten Baas scored the marketing coup of the week with
a less extravagant digital venture — an iPhone app based on his Real Time project, in
which actors physically indicate the time in hours and minutes. By the end of the fair’s
first day, the streets were papered with fly posters advertising “The newest Maarten Baas
for only 99 cents.”
The patchiness of the commercial fair was countered by independent shows of young
designers’ work staged in the industrial suburb of Lambrate by institutions like Design
Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands, the Z33 design gallery in Belgium and the IN
Residence project in Italy. These exhibits used design as a conceptual tool to celebrate
simple pleasures and explore issues like waste, social change and technological overload.
The title of the Eindhoven exhibition — “?” — said it all.
The British designer Ilse Crawford, who is a department head at Eindhoven and
co-curated the show, explained: “We thought it would be interesting to show how
designers take an idea and make it real by asking questions, because that’s how they
make sense of change. Design needs to be seen more as a critical process and less about
making things look good.”
The hero of the “?” generation is the irascible Italian design veteran Enzo Mari, whose
work is increasingly influential. At this year’s fair, he saw a chair he designed in 1974
reissued by Artek, the Finnish company, and staged a wonderful exhibition of 60
paperweights he had collected over the years: chunks of concrete, wood and marble, bits
of machinery, old ink bottles and crystal shards perched on musical scores, with
drawings and notes scrawled in Mr. Mari’s spidery handwriting.
Another septuagenarian Italian designer, Alessandro Mendini, put on what many
considered to be the most memorable event in Milan last week: “Quali Cose Siamo,” a
magical exhibition at La Triennale Design Museum, with some 700 objects — from a
replica of Michelangelo’s David to corkscrews, espresso machines, pieces of pasta and a
giant Campari bottle — jumbled together as if at a flea market. Shamelessly kitschy and
often puzzling, it was also thoughtful, witty and poetic. Fortunately for design buffs who
weren’t in Milan last week, there is still plenty of time to catch Mr. Mendini’s show,
which runs through February of next year — that is, if the mighty Eyjafjallajokull allows
them to get there.
APRIL 16, 2010, 4:22 PM
Milan Report | Rossana Orlandi Presents
By ANDREAS KOKKINO
Over the last few years Spazio Rossana Orlandi has become a must on the the Milan
design circuit. The eight-year-old charmingly ramshackle former factory is not only a
showcase for everything from high-end sofas to plastic forks but also a laboratory for
emerging designers.
This time around, the Finnish company Artek showed a new shelf system by Naoto
Fukasawa and a D.I.Y. pine chair by the Italian master Enzo Mari. And the Dutch
design star Piet Hein Eek showed his signature repurposed wood and metal furniture
and a floor-to-ceiling chandelier made of parts of old lighting fixtures.
Meanwhile, in the warren of tiny basement rooms where young designers show their
work, the T favorites Boaz Cohen and Sayaka Yamamoto of BCXSY presented elegant
wooden screens made of Japanese cypress, which were realized in collaboration with a
master Japanese wood joiner. The Belgian designer Maarten de Ceulaer exhibited a a
trio of blown glass flasks that incorporated water, food coloring and a single L.E.D. to
create mysterious glowing lights. The French designer Constance Guisset, an alumna
of the Bouroullec studio, showed, among other things, a whimsical fishbowl-cum-bird
cage. Formafantasma, a team of two Design Academy Eindhoven graduates, in
partnership with the French bakery Poilane and the broom manufacturer Giuseppe
Brunello, created delicately colored bowls made from a mixture of flour, agricultural
waste and limestone.
In the Orlandi’s central courtyard — a feast of foliage, objects and good food — sits an
old Volkswagen that was transformed by the design studio Bokja with an international
patchwork of brightly colored fabrics. And the French artist Frederique Morrel hung
the courtyard’s entire back wall with taxidermy forms (not made with dead animals)
covered in old embroideries in an effort to highlight the dying art of needlework. This
riot of color and texture perfectly embodies Rossana Orlandi’s unprecious
more-is-more philosophy.
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New York Times, April 2010
April 12, 2010
DESIGN
Furniture Designers Are Shifting Focus
By ALICE RAWSTHORN
LONDON — There is one question that everyone should sensibly ask before designing or making something
to show at the Milan Furniture Fair. Does the world need another chair?
The sensible answer is “no.” The world is already stuffed with chairs, many of which made their debuts at
past Milan fairs. We don’t need more of them, just as we don’t need more tables, lamps, vases, closets, or
any of the other objects that will be exhibited at the 2010 fair opening Wednesday. Unless, of course, they’re
gobstoppingly innovative, beautiful, sustainable, expressive, useful or whatever.
That’s the strength and weakness of “Milan,” as the design world calls it. There won’t be anything special
about most of the stuff that’s shown there. (It will be mediocre at best; a pointless waste of resources, at
worst.) Though there will be a few exceptions, and several hundred thousand people will flock to see them.
Producing something special is getting tougher for the furniture industry. One reason is, of course, the
recession, which cast a cloud over the 2009 fair, when attendance at the cavernous Rho fairground fell for
the first time in years, to 313,385 from a record 348,452 in 2008. Tellingly there will be fewer exhibitors
there this week, just 2,499, compared with 2,723 last year.
The economic pressure is now easing slightly, as the industry’s new markets in Asia, Latin America and
Eastern Europe return to growth. But demand remains weak in the established markets of North America
and Western Europe. “It’s still a negative situation,” said Patrizia Moroso, creative director of Moroso, the
Italian furniture company. “Some markets have huge growth potential, and there are signs of recovery in
others, but it will be a slow process, because there is a more cautious approach to spending.”
The industry is being cautious, too. Hundreds of cocktail parties, dinners, previews and press conferences
will be thrown in Milan this week, but beneath the hullabaloo, manufacturers are quietly presenting fewer
new products, and have pruned their existing ranges, by dropping anything that isn’t selling well. Even the
shiniest design stars have seen their royalties fall sharply.
That said, the furniture industry has weathered recessions before, and will do so again. A knottier problem
is that (and there’s no euphemistic way of saying this) the sort of stuff on show at the fair just isn’t as
interesting as it once was, at least not in terms of design.
First, technology is now more important than furniture in product design. (Odds are that the most
drooled-over objects in Milan this week will be shiny new Apple iPads, not chairs.) Second, design’s
intellectual focus has swung away from producing tangible things, like furniture, toward the abstract
process of applying design thinking to ethical issues, such as social, environmental or humanitarian
problems, and developing sexy new technologies, like data visualization.
The title of the exhibition to be staged by the hot Dutch design school, Design Academy Eindhoven, says it
New York Times, April 2010
all – “?” (It isn’t alone. The Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York has named its forthcoming Design
Triennial, “Why Design Now?”) “We thought it would be interesting to show how designers take an idea and
make it real by asking questions, because that’s how they make sense of change,” explained Ilse Crawford,
the British designer who co-curated the Eindhoven show as a department head there. “Design needs to be
seen more as a critical process, and less about making things look good.”
The hitch is that “making things look good” has traditionally been the Milan fair’s forte, but designers are
expected to deliver more these days. For furniture designers, that means: a) championing sustainability; b)
inventing new ways to use digital technology; and c) producing objects that strike an emotional chord with
the people who will use them. Some of the most promising projects on show in Milan this week will wrestle
with those challenges.
Sustainability has been an embarrassing aspect of past fairs. (Cue cringey memories of woefully
unsustainable products amid splashes of green paint, cheesy eco-slogans and tinkling New Age muzak.)
More manufacturers are now investing in it seriously, including Flos, the Italian lighting company, whose
new products focus on energy-efficient LED and OLED designs.
On the technological front, both Sony and Matsushita, the Japanese consumer electronic companies, are to
present the experimental products they have developed with BarberOsgerby, a British design group, and
Naoto Fukasawa, a Japanese designer, respectively. Design Miami/, the American “design-art” fair, is
showing digital pieces by young designers including rAndom International in London and Beta Tank in
Berlin at Spazio Fendi.
As for tackling the emotional challenge, one approach is to design products that are unique, or seem to be
so. Tokujin Yoshioka, a Japanese designer, has done this in the Memory Chair for Moroso, by developing a
new fabric from recycled aluminum that changes shape whenever anyone sits on or touches it. Z33, the edgy
Belgian design gallery, is to exhibit a series of objects, whose form alters according to where they are and
how they are treated.
Other designers try to make their work appear meaningful through association, by loading it up with
symbolism to make a political point or tell a story. A few years ago, that symbolism tended to be grandiose
and fantastical, now it is bleaker and earthier, even dystopian.
Konstantin Grcic, Front, Martino Gamper and the Bouroullec brothers have all designed new products in
the Spartan style of the irascible Italian design veteran Enzo Mari, as have newcomers like 5.5, Michel
Charlot, Nacho Carbonell, Studio Glithero and Peter Marigold. Other designers have been inspired by
vernacular objects: Formafantasma by rustic Sicilian ceramics; Liliana Ovalle by discarded clothing; and
Alejandro Aravena by the bundles of cloth that the Ayoreo Indians in Paraguay turn into makeshift seats.
Though the (unofficial prize) for the timeliest theme goes to Droog, the Dutch design group. It has
challenged 14 designers to make new objects from stools, towels, dog baskets, flowerpots and other bargains
salvaged from liquidation sales.
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April 6, 2010
There are lots of things I miss about the late, great graphic designer Alan Fletcher, but
the thing I miss the most is arguing with him about design. Some of our most enjoyable
arguments involved how to explain design to the 99 percent of the population that Alan
pityingly described as “civilians” — in other words, those of us who aren’t lucky enough
to be designers.
Alan claimed that design only made sense when it was explained visually, because that
was how the designer would have conceived it. I argued that words and a few facts, like
dates and design movements, could be helpful, too. Wrong, wrong, wrong, Alan
snorted. I’d snort back at him, but leafing through a book on the design collection of the
Museum für Gestaltung (the Museum of Design) in Zurich makes me wonder whether
he was right.
It must be said that such books are often rather dull. You know the drill: an
introductory essay from the museum’s director, followed by pages of neatly captioned
photographs of pieces in the collection, arranged by type, date, whatever. But “Every
Thing Design,” as this book is called, is different.
At five inches wide, six inches long and two and a half inches deep, it is smaller and
chunkier than most books, and looks more like a box. Rather than kicking off with a
directorial essay or some other explanatory text, it begins with a “visual prologue,” in
which some 190 disparate objects are shown, each in a photograph occupying its own
page. After that come a couple of essays, followed by more than 300 pages of objects,
then another essay with a catalog of all 700 pieces in the book and an index, before a
“visual epilogue” of another 190 things. The book is bound in matte black with the
simple outline, in white, of the Rex vegetable peeler — an archetypal Swiss object — on
the cover.
All the objects — chairs, computers, musical instruments, vases, posters, clothing,
corporate logos, cans of food and the rest — were chosen by the museum’s curators and
Irma Boom, the book’s designer. Now, Boom, who is based in Amsterdam, wins my
vote as the finest book designer of our time. Each of her books is a treasure trove of
colors, shapes, textures and even smells. Over the years she has experimented with
everything from scented bindings and inventing her own paper to sculpturing page
edges with a circular saw. She once spent five years working on one book, stopping only
New York Times, April 2010
for an annual month of teaching at Yale. It weighed in at 2,136 pages and included such
intricate detailing as page edges that reveal the words of a Dutch poem when read from
right to left, and the image of a tulip field from left to right.
That book was a private commission from a super-rich Dutch industrialist who loved
books nearly as much as Boom does, but she is equally obsessive when creating
mass-produced books that the rest of us can afford. Among them is “Every Thing
Design,” which costs $45 for 864 pages.
Working with the curators, Boom put the book together by scouring the museum’s
archive and poring over photographs of pieces in the collection. She examined each
image in isolation without seeing any of the information that a museum curator would
usually consider when assessing its significance: what it was; who designed it; when
and how it was made; and from what.
Without this information, Boom could decide which of the collection’s more than
500,000 objects to include based solely on how they looked. She then paired pieces that
bore some sort of relationship to each other in terms of color, shape or symbolism on
adjacent pages, and on sequential ones.
The result is a whistle-stop tour of design history told through intriguing — and often
surprising — juxtapositions. A 1973 Edouard Chapallaz vase and 1961 Electrolux logo
share the same rounded shape. A 1968 Cristóbal Balenciaga cocktail dress and a pair of
1903 Baccarat vases are decorated with similar floral patterns. Even such seemingly
dissimilar objects as Apple’s 1989 Macintosh Classic computer and Enzo Mari’s 1971
Sof-Sof chair turn out to be similar in composition.
“You’re never sure what you’ll see when you turn the pages of this book,” Boom said.
“And that makes you look much more closely at its contents.” Just as Alan Fletcher
would have wanted.
April 6, 2010
In the hippest new design publications, life is, well, messy. Mark Rozzo explores a new
world of interiors.
On a recent Monday afternoon in the East Village, the 32-year-old upstart
photographer Todd Selby — more commonly known as the Selby — was entertaining a
guest in his modest ground-floor studio. One of the two monitors on which he creates
his teeming online gallery, The Selby Is in Your Place, was tuned to a Web site called
Unhappy Hipsters. The idea behind the site — which that week was reaching something
of a viral mass — is pretty straightforward: cut and paste a selection of those placid,
sparsely populated house shots from magazines like Dwell and run the snarkiest
captions imaginable beneath them. “He’d become a caricature of what it meant to be a
young, monied follower” is a typical entry. “Oh, my God,” Selby said, scrolling through
the site with what appeared to be a mixture of astonishment and appreciation, as if
meeting a fellow traveler. After all, Selby’s vérité approach to photographing personal
spaces is precisely in tune with the urge to skewer those magazines that celebrate sleek
minimalism while scorning clutter like the long-suffering mother of a teenage son.
“I guess I’ve always been a maximalist,” Selby cheerfully proclaimed as he began a tour
of the unabashed accumulation around him, the kind of inspired pile-up often
encountered in his own photo essays: a pink plastic phonograph, a baseball bat
inscribed with the words do it my way (“my security system”), an image of a funky
mirrored polka-dot cellphone by the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, an array of his own
childlike watercolors (including one of a cat named Potato) and a hoard of LaCie hard
drives containing the shoots he has been doing around the world since June 2008,
some of which are now included in “The Selby Is in Your Place” — the book — to be
published this month by Abrams.
Selby (who has also photographed for T) is among a new breed of chroniclers less
interested in meticulously composed, Architectural Digest-worthy studies of how
people decorate than on-the-fly snapshots of how people actually live. There are
lingering peeks into closets and under beds. (“I have a license to nose, like 007,” he
said.) Cardboard boxes, dusty paperbacks and remote controls have not been cleared
away by persnickety stylists. Electronic cables snake around floors, as if they were
design features in and of themselves. “I try to focus on humanity and people’s
New York Times, April 2010
creativity, and on spaces that reflect that,” Selby said of his run-and-gun mission. “So
no antiseptic, modern spaces that tell you nothing about the people who live there.”
Those people can be anyone from Karl Lagerfeld or Michael Stipe to the cute bohemian
couple down the street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. But despite the hand-scrawled
questionnaire that accompanies each shoot (“Who’s your favorite Garbage Pail Kid?”),
Selby provides scant information about his quietly fabulous subjects. You wouldn’t
necessarily know that the French actress Lou Doillon is the daughter of Jane Birkin, or
that the filmmaking Neistat Brothers have a show in the works with HBO. “I never want
to shoot someone just because they’re famous,” Selby said. “That’s so boring to me.”
Instead, the focus is on style — in private space, in clothes, in tchotchkes, in the great
drifts of stuff that spill out of closets — and how it an express a person’s substance.
There are considerable voyeuristic pleasures, too: check out that narwhal tusk in the
living room! Wow, a paisley Ping-Pong table! Look who collects prosthetic limbs!
If The Selby Is in Your Place is all about real people (or, at least, real people who like to
decorate with stuffed albino peacocks), Apartamento, the self-described “everyday life
interiors magazine” that premiered during Milan’s 2008 Design Week, is the
burgeoning indie design movement’s official international look book. Published out of
Milan and Barcelona, Spain, on matte paper in an attractively compact format,
Apartamento is how The Paris Review might have turned out had Sottsass been its
guiding light instead of Hemingway. The magazine’s three 20-something founders —
Nacho Alegre, Omar Sosa and Marco Velardi — communicate mostly via Skype and
e-mail, but unlike Selby’s project, the biannual Apartamento (Issue 5 appears this
month) has scant Web presence. The priority is the magazine itself, a humble yet
luminous print object that perfectly embodies the editors’ grass-roots aesthetic.
“Photography is not my main job,” Velardi, who writes and shoots for Apartamento in
addition to being its editor in chief, said from the office of his small design-consulting
business in Milan. “I just do this for fun.” Indeed, the magazine brims over with
youthful brio and mischief, from amusing dossiers on beloved house plants to accounts
of the editors having wild all-night adventures in Basel, Switzerland, to Interview-like Q
& A’s about domestic life. (Interview’s editor at large, Christopher Bollen, pops up in
the second issue.) Sample question, to an Argentine photographer: “You’re 40 years
old. Does it bother you living with your mum?”
There are overlaps between The Selby and Apartamento; both have a fascination with
the artist Terence Koh and the editors of the French underground magazine Purple.
Cult fashion and design zines like Pin-Up, Fantastic Man, Butt and Ether would seem to
be Apartamento’s inspiration, but Velardi has nothing against the envy-inducing, rich
interiors depicted in Casa Vogue: “Yes, we wish we had a castle in the backyard, too.
But this is our reality. We might not have Louis XIV furniture or an Eames white
leather lounger, but we still want to give inspiration.”
That inspiration takes abundant forms. There are first-person essays, recipes, cameos
by the artists Anri Sala and Grillo Demo, arresting still lifes shot by Alegre, chats with
design legends like Enzo Mari and lots of what Velardi calls “random people we fell in
love with.” In a given issue you might find Chloë Sevigny waxing rhapsodic about her
circa 1862 wide-plank floors or Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth
showing off their Peavey amps.
A-list designers like Bertjan Pot and Max Lamb show up to offer D.I.Y. projects for the
particularly ambitious reader. “It’s not really a D.I.Y. magazine,” said the
Netherlands-based Pot, who created Xeroxable potato-patterned wallpaper for Issue 4.
“But it says, ‘Be happy with what you have, and if you can’t buy it, you can make it
yourself. It’s all in your hands.’ ” The designer will contribute pillows fashioned to look
like moldy tomatoes for an Apartamento installation during Milan’s Design Week later
this month.
The interiors blog Homebodies might not offer hands-on home-improvement
instruction, but it is itself the do-it-yourself project of the New York-based design
writer Liz Arnold. Frustrated with writing house features for glossies based on fact
sheets and JPEGs, she wanted to linger longer in personal spaces “to show how people
are really living.” Her subjects — shot on an iPhone or Lumix — tend to be underthe-radar designers, artists and chefs, living in Brooklyn or Echo Park, Los Angeles,
with forays to Iceland and Italy. Copies of Apartamento can sometimes be seen on their
coffee tables, and Arnold is not above snooping her way into armoires or even R.V.’s to
sniff out the ways in which the most private environments can tell universal stories. “To
me, truth is always stranger than fiction,” she said over a glass of Gran Sangre de Toro
at SoHo’s Boqueria restaurant (whose chef, Seamus Mullen, appears on Homebodies),
“and the way most magazines shoot these places is like fiction.”
Arnold’s descriptions of domestic effluvia read like captions for an interiors magazine
that she believes could never exist in a world that encourages aspirational “selfimprovement through objects”: “An iPod is hooked up to a Tivoli near the nub of a
mostly eaten carrot”; “This is where the ambiguously employed trio keeps a breast
implant on the counter to use as a paperweight.”
In an unanticipated twist, Arnold — whose approach is so rough-and-tumble that she’s
been referred to as the “anti-Selby” — has been approached by suitors interested in
acquiring the rights to Homebodies, which she started in February 2009. Similarly,
Apartamento — which is planning a pop-up restaurant during New York’s International
Contemporary Furniture Fair next month — has had success on the advertising front.
Velardi says pages from the likes of Vitra, Iittala and André Balazs Hotels have helped
them scrape by from issue to issue.
Selby, meanwhile, has found himself collaborating with Nike, Habitat and Louis
Vuitton, proving that these slice-of-life passion projects have the potential to make
commercial waves. Back at his East Village studio, the bespectacled photographer kept
scrolling through Unhappy Hipsters. “I guess it’s only a matter of time before someone
does this to me,” he said. After all, Dwell was once the new kid on the block, too. “Mine
won’t be ‘unhappy,’ though. Hopefully it’ll be something else.”
April 19, 2010
DESIGN
Erupting Beauty at Furniture Show
By ALICE RAWSTHORN
MILAN — Little did I know when I began this column a week ago by suggesting that the most sensible
question for anyone to ask at the Milan Furniture Fair — “Does the world need another chair?” — was that it
would soon be ousted by something more urgent: “How can we get out of here?”
Those dystopian clouds of volcanic dust stopped thousands of people from flying in or out of Milan at the
worst possible time — the busiest week of the city’s year. No sooner had the first flights been grounded than
the talk at the fair turned from furniture to who was or wasn’t stranded; whether so-and-so had managed to
nab the last seat on that flight from Rome; and the going rate to be driven to Paris.
What a party pooper that volcano turned out to be, because until it erupted, things were going rather well
(give or take the lingering effects of recession). The Milanese weather gods often greet the 300,000-plus
people who flock to the fair with relentless rain, but this time they were kinder and the weather was
glorious. The city was at its loveliest in the spring sunshine, with budding leaves and blossoms softening the
gnarled stonework.
There were some great things to see. One Italian design grandee, Alessandro Mendini, co-curated a magical
exhibition of his personal take on Italian design at La Triennale Design Museum. Some 700 objects ranging
from a replica of Michelangelo’s “David” to corkscrews, espresso machines, pieces of pasta, original models
of E.T. and a giant bottle of Campari were jumbled on plinths as if at a flea market.
Shamelessly kitschy and often puzzling, the results were also thoughtful, witty and poetic.
Another maestro, Enzo Mari, achieved a similar effect on a smaller scale with a wonderful show of 60
paperweights he has collected over the years at Kaleidoscope, an indie publishing house. Chunks of
concrete, wood and marble, bits of machinery, old ink bottles and crystal shards perched on musical scores,
notes scrawled in Mr. Mari’s spidery handwriting and his drawings.
The young Dutch designer Maarten Baas scored the public relations coup of the week by introducing an
iPhone app based on his Real Time project, an alternative clock for which actors “tell the time” by physically
indicating the number of hours and minutes.
By the end of the opening day, the Milan streets were papered with fly posters advertising “The newest
Maarten Baas for only 99 cents.”
There was even a successful geographic addition to the fair in the industrial suburb of Lambrate, where lots
of young designers showed. Some were a tad pretentious. (One urged us to rediscover the “sensual pleasure”
of washing up. Excuse me?) But Design Academy Eindhoven, the hot Dutch design school, staged a
compelling exhibition of its graduates’ conceptual projects — titled “?” (An apt title at a time when design is
in flux.) Z33, the Belgian contemporary design gallery, put on a “pop-up” version of its current show,
New York Times, April 2010
“Design by Performance.” And the IN Residence project in Turin presented the fruits of its workshops with
intriguing pieces by Pieke Bergmans, Formafantasma, Julia Lohmann and other rising stars.
Back to business, which is, of course, what the Milan Furniture Fair is all about. The global recession has
softened since last year’s fair, and the industry was, if not more confident, at least less nervous about the
outcome this year. Thankfully they were right. The market is still considerably weaker than in its glory days
before the credit crunch, but as Rolf Fehlbaum, chairman of Vitra, the Swiss furniture group, confirmed,
there has been an improvement.
When the recession struck, there were fears that manufacturers would do what they had done in past
downturns, and play it safe by commissioning conservative pieces from established designers, rather than
experiment with new names. Happily this hasn’t happened, although the new names masked the fact that
many companies introduced fewer new products than usual and made them less technically ambitious,
thereby reducing development costs.
An exception was lighting, where advances in energy-efficient LED and OLED technology (apologies to
techie readers, but to be super-simplistic, LED is a tiny, intense spot of light, and OLED a fine layer of light)
are enabling manufacturers and designers to invent new types of products.
Ingo Maurer, the veteran German designer, dedicated his show to the beauty of the old-fashioned
incandescent light bulb, while unveiling some stunning OLED pieces. Flos, the Italian manufacturer,
showed how LEDs could replace individual lights by integrating them into walls and ceilings. The standout
was the Israeli designer Ron Gilad’s beautifully sculpted “Wallpiercing.”
“We’re only just beginning to realize the potential of these technologies,” said Piero Gandini, president of
Flos. “The results are already very exciting.”
An intriguing development in furniture was the emergence of what we’ll call the superleggera (literally,
“super-light”) style of lithe, angular pieces that look like subtly technocratic takes on the 1950s work of
Italian designers like Franco Albini, the Castiglioni brothers and Gio Ponti, one of whose chairs was named
the Superleggera.
This was evident in the new chairs developed by Martino Gamper, Konstantin Grcic and Jerszy Seymour for
Magis, as well as the elegant copper objects made by Aldo Bakker for Thomas Eyck. Among the most
accomplished examples were the slender aluminum Central tables designed by Ronan and Erwan
Bouroullec for Magis and their Lighthouse light for Established & Sons. “We felt it was time for something
gentler and quieter,” Ronan Bouroullec explained. “I heard a French perfumier talking about how 30 years
ago, women wanted powerful scents to announce their entrance to a room, but now they prefer them to be
subtler. I feel the same way about furniture. I’m so bored with the showoff stuff.”
But enticing though those superleggera pieces shows are, the 2010 Milan Furniture Fair will be remembered
for one thing — the after-effects of that volcano, and how everyone finally managed to get away.
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Sedia 1 – Chair by Enzo Mari for Artek
April 16th, 2010
1
Gefällt mir
Milan 2010: a self-assembly chair designed in 1974 by Italian designer Enzo Mari has been put
into production by Finnish furniture brand Artek.
Dezeen, April 2010
Customers purchase pre-cut pine boards, nails and instructions and construct the chair themselves
using just a hammer.
The chair is part of Mari’s 1974 project called Autoprogettazione, a collection of furniture to be
made from the most basic and affordable materials.
Sedia 1 – Chair can be seen on the Artek stand at Spazio Rosana Orlandi in Milan this week.
Artek have also produced a short documentary called Enzo Mari for Artek: Homage to
Autoprogettazione, premiered yesterday at La Triennale di Milano design museum.
See all our stories about Milan 2010 in our special category.
Here’s more info from Artek:
Enzo Mari for Artek: SEDIA 1 – Chair Homage to Autoprogettazione
Sedia 1 – Chair is the rst object from the famous and thought-provoking project
“Autoprogettazione” (1974) to go into production with Artek.
In line with the original idea of the project, customers will purchase a set of pre cut pinewood
boards, nails and instructions for the chair. ”Design is always education,” sums up Mari.
Artek has also produced a 20-minute documentary “Enzo Mari for Artek: Homage to
Autoprogettazione” in which Mari explains the idea behind the concept. The lm will receive its
world premiere at the Triennale Museum during Abitare Talks on Wednesday, April 14, at 6 pm, in
the presence of Enzo Mari.
Enzo Mari is a designer, thinker and provocateur. Determined to develop mass-produced objects
without compromising his belief that the outcome should always be beautiful to look at and feel
while being functional.
Mari developed “16 Animali” (Danese, 1957), “3087 Vase” (Danese, 1969), the chairs “Sof Sof”
and “Box” (Driade, 1971 and Castelli, 1975) and “Smith & Smith” kitchen tools (Zani & Zani,
1987). These are just some of his more than 2000 projects that have marked design history.
See also:
More: Design, Furniture, Milan 2010, all
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enzo mari sixty paperweights
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enzo mari sixty paperweights
a view into 'the intellectual work' exhibition
image © designboom
share and promote your work!
the intellectual work
exhibition curated by barbara casavecchia
kaleidoscope project space
april 13 - 30, 2010
everyone collects something. it is official now - enzo mari collects paperweights.
they serve as anchors in the ocean of sketches.
preventing the flow of ideas from being blown away.
a few times he bought pieces, but it hardly ever happened. usually walking in the streets
or wandering in factories he finds them. designboom's editor in chief (birgit lohmann)
studied industrial design under his mentorship and later collaborated over many years
with mari. during their frequent travels, he picked up little heavy things which he saw
as having an extraordinary inner quality. these very common objects to him are formally
perfect samples of our reality. over the years he gathered them in various places, identifying
them especially among the rejected industrial products, and then restoring their essential
requisites as objects: function and beauty.
Sixty Paperweights, April 2010
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a view into the exhibition
image © designboom
each of the paperweights has a story and a date.
they're ponderous, from one hectogram to four kilos.
in his milan office, there are lots of piles of notepads and loose sheets of paper
placed on tables, shelves, methodically overflowing onto the floor...
sometimes only a short phrase of four or five words is written on
a single sheet - variations of a theme. all of them are kept together, juxtaposed on
the same surface by a different paperweight.
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2 articles
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doorknocker from the front door of enzo mari's office, 1980s, milan
image © designboom
to mari the paperweights are not a simple collection of mirabilia, nor they are divértissement.
mari has always investigated the role of the intellectual, the cooperation of thinking
and doing, heads and hands. words and things. in fact the title of this exhibition which
features his collection is 'intellectual work'. the expression 'intellectual work' refers to
the marxian-engelsian opposition of 'kopfarbeit' and 'handarbeit' (intellectual and manual labor)
as well as to the 1918 esay of the same title by max weber.
leg of flamingo sculpture, completed with an old drawer knob, 1970s anacapri, naples, italy
image © designboom
analysis is an irrepressible instinct for mari.
to any question one might ask him, he replies with a problem.
he systematizes, divides, draws up diagrams, calculates modules. he seeks out
a solution and verifies it. discarding, cutting. starting over. an exercise, the criticism
mobile units
21 articles
assistive technology
7 articles
LED
23 articles
of variations. the paperweights are rather thinking tools.
latest comments
balls
lekki phones:
the older mobile phones are more
...
John
oyler wu collaborative: the
hyperion project:
There has been a pretty lively d
...
Bross
frank gehry: UTS building - dr
chau chak wing:
Ok now, I’m not a fan of gehry b
...
dhc
kaylene kau: prosthetic arm:
this is completely fascinating. ...
MS
konstantin grcic: black2:
I think comments should be disab
...
beejay
one tenth: PET bottle humidifier:
Hello. Love the design of 'Hollo ...
inox steel sheet , sample by CMF in cinisello balsamo, milan, gift by birgit lohmann
and fragment of the 'pigna' bowl designed by enzo mari for daum
image © designboom
Scudwerth
kaylene kau: prosthetic arm:
This is a fantastic piece of des ...
'I became very interested in the paradigm of science, where you affirm something
and want to prove it, and your only chance is to provide your listeners with the tools
of your research so that they can verify your hypothesis.' - enzo mari
g1nchy
frank gehry: UTS building - dr
chau chak wing:
The building's exterior maybe la
...
dissapointed
frank gehry: UTS building - dr
chau chak wing:
its a shocker. maybe some one
sa ...
cos
matali crasset: le bateau curiosity cabinet:
this is terrible. ...
designboom ' articles
unique random visualization
michael jackson scholten and
baijings
a view on one of the tables in the exhibition
image © designboom
in half a century, mari worked on ca. 2000 projects, but the realized ones are just a 1000 odd.
'in the field of artistic expression - where art, being open to the infinite, is on
the top level - what is lacking is the paradigmatic elements that you need in order
to communicate your message to other people. I think the paradigm, the general reference
of culture and the source for the theoretical framework that defines creativity, has to
be the masterpiece. the possibilities expressed by the most brilliant minds are at
the very core of my self-education.' - enzo mari
paperweight designed by enzo mari for danese, end of 1980s, milan, italy
bikes
sneakers
sebastian
errazuriz
baqueratta
lab[au]
andras rigler
canon
meat
image © designboom
bulb, 2000s, milan, italy, gift by francesco faccin
image © designboom
'answers are always manifold and need to be meticulously verified.
I have attempted to verify them all. and still, verification doesn't put an
end to further questions.' - enzo mari
olivetti multiple, 1960s ivrea, italy, gift by giorgio soavi
image © designboom
mari refers to lévi-strauss in his 'the savage mind':
'he who executes a work with his own hands, using different means from those
used by the professional,' namely the engineer, the symbol of scientific thought.
'the 'bricoleur' is adept at performing a large number of diverse tasks; but, unlike
the engineer, he does not subordinate each of them to the availability of raw materials
and tools conceived and procured for the purpose of the project. his universe of instruments
is closed and the rules of his game are always to make do with 'whatever is at hand',
that is to say with a set of tools and materials which is always finite and is also heterogeneous
because what it contains bears no relation to the current project, or indeed to any particular
project, but is the contingent result of all the occasions there have been to renew or enrich
the stock or to maintain it with the remains of previous constructions and destructions.
the set of the 'bricoleur's' means cannot therefore be defined in terms of a project (which
would presuppose besides, that, as in the case of the engineer, there were, at least in theory,
as many sets of tools and materials or 'instrumental sets', as there are different kinds of projects).
it is to be defined only by its potential use or, putting this another way and in the language
of the 'bricoleur' himself, because the elements are collected or retained on the principle
that 'they may always come in handy'.
sporaarchitects office:
fovam ter - underground
station, budapest
visiondivision: nature's
choice
jun igarashi architects:
layered house
view index
a view of the exhibition
image © designboom
but there is more. granting the papers months and years to mature, to form geological
layers of meditation, also means escaping the oppressive mechanisms of the productive
system, the compulsive logic of efficiency at all costs. it means affording oneself
the subversive luxury of taking all the required time to develop a good project. it means
extending the range of research in order to get an overall picture, acting against
the increasing hyper-specialization that restrains creative expression nowadays.
konstantin grcic: black2
studio ve: manifold clock
yiran qian: eye of the
storm
view index
chris burden: metropolis
II
paola pivi: vitra mini
chair chandelier
di liu: animal regulation
series
view index
a view on one of the tables in the exhibition
image © designboom
in order to get these existing objects to function properly as paperweights, mari makes
only the slightest changes, and in doing so, he suggests a positive alternative to what
he calls ' the current flood of art pompier and hebephrenic creativity' in contemporary design.
junya ishigami
winy maas - MVRDV
ball nogues
view index
Buenos Aires
Luxury Condo
New Condo-Tel
project in Palermo
Great investment
opportunity
www.4955ba.com
a view on one of the tables in the exhibition
image © designboom
mari's piles of sheets, his unfinished projects and his obsession for the unachievable,
imperfectible final version. perhaps the paperweights and the notes are ultimately
talismans, there to exercise the risk of being complacent and giving up the search.
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counterbalance of achille castiglioni's 'parentesi' floor lamp, 1990s milan, italy, gift of a technician
image © designboom
'I could affirm that the intellectual work lies in saying NO.
negation is addressed not only to others, but also to your own goal, because the final
aim is getting to the essence.' - enzo mari
on a blackboard in mari's office he wrote, time ago, 'I must not speak in vein.'
KPM - koenigliche porzellan manufaktur, mid-1990s, berlin, germany, gift by birgit lohmann
image © designboom
collections are infectious.
the paperweight collection was shared by mari's friends and collaborators. this handle
is a gift from birgit to mari. she dismantled it from an old mechanical lathe, during their
collaboration and artistic direction of KPM, the german manufacture of porcelain
in berlin, from 1993 to 1998.
water tap fixed to an iron pulley, 1960s, milan, italy
terracotta and concrete brick, 2008, milan italy
image © designboom
the objets trouvés paperweights correspond perfectly with mari's poetics, his non-stop
search for the essence of form. not in theory, but in practice.
pair of 'boccia', beginning of the 2000s, mariano commense, italy, gift by alessandro marelli
image © designboom
perhaps the paperweights and the notes are ultimately talismans, there to exorcise
the risk of being complacent and giving up the search.
a view into the exhibition
image © designboom
consistently the group of paperweights places on the table looks like a miniaturized
sculpture park.
a catalogue of the exhibition is available via the publishers kaleidoscope
ridhika db 04.19.10
comments:
he is the best, we are very proud and enjoy his work.
mil 04.19.10
milan design week 2010
view also
tokujin yoshioka
for kartell: the
invisibles
ett la benn: malva
claesson koivisto sebastian
massimo iosa
rune: portico
errazuriz: sinapsi ghini : lens for
for HORM
iguzzini
junya ishigami:
family chairs
tokujin yoshioka: formafantasma: 'flex vase' by vij5
'stellar' for
bio-baked
swarovski crystal 'autarchy' design
palace
carlotta de
bevilacqua &
paolo dell'ecle for
artemide
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« Chic Dessin, a new fair for contemporary drawings
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« Che Fare » text by Enzo Mari and Gabriele
Pezzini
January 11, 2010 //
0
Responsible design is the big issue right now, and Enzo Mari and Gabriele Pezzini have come in
Duende PR, January 2010
strong with the exhibition ‘Che fare’ (what to do) at the Gutharc Gallery (Paris), their search for
the standard as the one creative stance that is aware and civic-minded. What they seek is perfect
balance between constraints of marketing, production and manufacturer’s culture, in an attempt to
evolve a form that is efcient and durable – a standard that survives passing fads and decorative
caprices to impose a reference. The line they take is direct, unassuming and exacting, moving
counter to the constant clamouring for ‘something new’. Let us invite you to an exclusive preview,
put together by the designers themselves (also available in italiano and japanese).
Che Fare
Enzo Mari and Gabriele Pezzini
This small exhibit stems from the idea of comparing the work of two authors who agree upon
several aspects of their working practices in spite of having been formed in very different periods
of time.
Design was originally conceived by a dozen authors (architects, artists, entrepreneurs) in the ‘30s
in Germany, and by the same amount of people in the ‘50s in Italy. All were permeated by the
utopian ideology of Socialism and humanistic culture, like the public, that understood and
appreciated their works. It was a small avant-garde group, horried by the “art pompier” and in
pursuit of the utopia of labour as a means for the transformation of man. Thus, each design was
meant to convey the idea of standard (from the French “etandard”), as an allegory of the values of
a society still to be transformed. And they naively thought that the honest intelligence of a product
could positively affect the needs and therefore the market. This utopian stance was in line with the
material and ideal post-war atmosphere of reconstruction, shared by all Europeans. By the mid
‘60s, the rst signs appeared of mismatch with a society which was barbarized by weak thinking
and made obtuse by the “global exploitation” of the domination of commodities. By the ‘70s, that
kind of poetics was almost incomprehensible.
All those who are proximate to the essence of design today are aware of the unstoppable decay of
what is produced. However, even in non-market driven contexts, such as the realization of
museums, essays, ambitious exhibitions, objective criticism does not emerge.
This is also due to the excessive proliferation of radical or traditional mannerism, contaminated by
unconscious individual precepts or by cynicism. Things are still being produced and they are still
being called “design” even when they should be called “art pompier” instead, or, more generously,
“decorative art”. Things don’t have to be, they should only appear to be, thus corresponding to the
innite induced needs imposed by the domination of goods. Design entails the contemporary
presence of three entities: the author, the entrepreneur, the public. But, where are Mart Stam and
Achille Castiglioni today? Where are Adriano Olivetti and Bruno Danese? And the people? Most
of them watch “big brother”. One may object that this is notorious, that others have already
described it better and that I should restrict myself to carrying out my job as a designer…but
nowadays this is almost impossible if I refuse to produce “art pompier”. So, I know of around a
million realized “designs” per type (of chair or lamp, it doesn’t matter). Each “design” had to be or
appear different. This implied different project approaches (“well-to-do”, “radical”, “protesting”,
for interiors, for exteriors, ofce, home, cheap, luxury, etcetera).
Each of these approaches was realized with alternative technologies (iron, plastic type A, B, C, D,
E, F, etc., wood, lamellar, bamboo, etc., forging, deep-drawing, presswork, etc., aluminium,
carbon, titanium, etc….That’s enough. Every single choice was only put in place to achieve a
different appearance….This obsession explains, with no rhetoric on the poetics, the reason for art
pompier and decorative art. A part of the products seems to be almost decent, but it is only a
mannerist reproduction of pre-existing projects….I’m often asked to come up with a new project.
Yet, if it has to be new, how can it be done? I know thousands of pre-existing examples for each
approach and relatively to each technique. It is impossible to do it! When someone asks me for a
new project, I always reply that I accept so long as I’m not paid with an unlikely 1% rights on the
sales price (in Italy). I ask to be acknowledged an hourly fee, like any technician or consultant, and
have always been denied this.
I have often proposed to dedicate 10% of the yearly investments companies spend on their foolish
experimentations to a strategic project entailing a decent realization time, not limited to just a few
weeks. I’ve always been denied this. I have often proposed…That’s enough. So, whoever calls me
appreciates my competence but I can only work if I give that up…
Does this emptiness refer to my person only? What are the other million “designers”, most of them
young, doing? Those that schools are incessantly graduating, with the same industrial methods as
goods are constantly produced? All of them, maybe unclearly, wanted a non-alienated job but the
majority doesn’t nd one…Some think that ”art pompier” is the avant-garde of a new
culture…Others, on the contrary, dream of a possible transformation, working on essential
simplicity, but everything has already been projected and those specialized in “Big Brother” are
not fond of simplicity.
Gabriele Pezzini is also permeated by the idea of “standard” (unfashionable today) and
hard-headedly intends operating in that direction. In our conversations, we have agreed upon the
fact that a product comes to life in the dialogue between a “designer” and an entrepreneur. The
“designer” is responsible for the shape, and the quality of this always emerges from a global
project which, particularly today, corresponds to Utopia. Entrepreneurs are not just responsible for
the economic aspects of the product’s realization, but also of how to impose it on a ercely
competitive market. A good product can be realized when a practical and efcient entrepreneur
embraces at least 20% of Utopia….Gabriele Pezzini knows well that this happens very rarely
so…But we have reached such a state of abjection that some kind of change, at least behavioural
at rst, may seem possible.
Enzo Mari, August 2009
Enzo Mari used to hold the Planning/design course when I attended ISIA in Florence, but he
wasn’t one of my professors, so I was only able to follow some of his lessons secretly, by sneaking
out of other courses. We met in 2006 when we were both members of a jury in a competition for
young designers and, facing the void we were both ascertaining, we started considering what to
do. We said goodbye with the commitment to try and do something.
What drew us together is undoubtedly the determination to defend the principles we believe in, at
all costs. We are both drastic in our vision of the projects but in the two cases it structures on
deeply differing premises. Enzo Mari, to whom very few can be compared, is he who exactly
dened the perimeter of what is called Design, an abused term today that justies all sorts of
mannerism.
He has been a radical and coherent self-educated person since the beginnings; I belong to that
new generation of designers which, as Enzo Mari says, has been unlucky enough to go to Design
school. In my way, I have followed my own self-made education, away from courses, trying to
understand the justness of the project through the most diverse experiences. This approach has
lead me to become radical through subtraction.
The parallelism that we trace in this small exhibit goes beyond the exposed products. These
represent us and are a pretext to compare two generations that share a vision and discuss over the
same issues. CHE FARE (WHAT TO DO), the title of the exhibition, poses a clear question,
although it does so without using the question mark, as we probably know there is no answer. The
uncertainty on what the project will be and on the drift of society, on the future of many young
people who are facing this profession/passion today, is evident enough and cannot be hidden away
any more.
Gabriele Pezzini, September 2009
“Che fare”
Enzo Mari / Gabriele Pezzini
from 9 january 9th to 20th february 2010
Galerie Alain Gutharc
7 rue Saint-Claude
75003 PARIS
+33 (0)1 47 00 32 10.
www.alaingutharc.com
www.gabriele-pezzini.com
Interviews, High Res and captions on request
December 23, 2009
ON LOCATION
Old Country Aesthetic in Germany
By GISELA WILLIAMS
CAPUTH, Germany — Ten years ago, in his first few weeks in Berlin, Jett Rodgers, a New Zealander who at
the time was working in video set production, found love and his dream home. Hans-Peter Jochum, a
midcentury-modern furniture dealer, was his love, and the home was here in this lakeside village about 30
minutes west of Berlin.
The property, which is actually two tiny one-bedroom houses of wood and glass, separated by a courtyard, is
next door to what was Albert Einstein’s summer home. But the journey to buying the home took almost a
decade, as Mr. Rodgers and Mr. Jochum had to deal with very nostalgic owners who had become attached to
the place.
The 180-square-meter (2,000-square-foot) home and terrace on 2,000 square meters (22,000 square feet)
of property was built in 1968 by Heinz Böhme and Gerhardt Böhme, two brothers. But a few years after they
built the houses, the brothers escaped what was then Eastern Germany to the West and the property was
taken over by high-ranking Stasi officers as a sort of holiday getaway.
In 1989, when the Berlin Wall came down, the Böhmes successfully reclaimed their home and soon
afterward put the property on the market for 800,000 Deutsche marks (around 600,000 dollars). “They
wanted a lot of money,” Mr. Jochum said. “They had a very emotional attachment to the house.” But the
inflated price, a handwritten for-sale sign and jungle-like overgrowth managed to keep the house on the
market for 18 years.
Finally in 2007, Mr. Jochum, Mr. Rodgers and the brothers’ real estate agent, managed to convince the
brothers to reduce the asking price.
Once they closed on the home, Mr. Jochum and Mr. Rodgers were hesitant to bring in an architect because
they knew that anyone with any architectural training would tell them to tear them down and rebuild,
thanks to the outdated power and heating systems.
“We know it might not be rational,” said Mr. Jochum, wearing several layers to keep warm (they keep the
house at around 50 degrees so that the walls won’t sweat), “but we want to keep this as a sort of memorial.
Something that still exists from the GDR,” or German Democratic Republic, he added, referring to the what
was Eastern Germany. It makes sense that a couple that deals in 20th-century objects would value such a
property. “The aesthetic of living in something perfect doesn’t appeal to us,” Mr. Rodgers said.
The only things they changed was to update the electrics, add hot running water and take down a wall in the
house they use in the winter, which they refer to as no. 11, its street address number. The other house (No.
9), which they use as their bedroom in the summer, they shut down for the season because it would be too
expensive to heat.
The couple also added a small custom kitchen, designed by the Berlin-based architect Thomas Kroeger who
created compact wooden drawers, a wooden covering for the refrigerator blue-and-white checkered
New York Times, December 2009
shelving. When he first saw it, Mr. Jochun said, “I was totally shocked. It looked like a Barbie kitchen.” But
he was appeased when the architect explained that the blue-and-white scheme was inspired by a wall
decorated with blue-and-white paper in one of the tea houses at the Katsura Imperial Villa in Japan.
The blue color was also derived from the blue tiles used for Communist-era bathrooms. (East Germany only
used blue and green colored tiles for its public bathrooms). “I like it now,” Mr. Jochum said. “A lot of our
guests think it belongs to the original house.”
The furniture, too, looks like it was always there. The couple managed to move in and arrange all the
furniture in less than a day. In No. 11, the showpiece is a simple wooden table designed by Enzo Mari in
1972. The chairs don’t match and there’s a small Danish fireplace that hangs on the wall. “We put it on the
wall instead of a television,” Mr. Rodgers said.
Even the iconic and extremely rare sideboard designed by the Swiss architect Hans Gugelot has a Stasi look
to it within the space. But step outside onto the courtyard that overlooks a steeply terraced garden, and you
think you’re somewhere in California. “Visitors from the U.S. always say the garden looks like it belongs in
Los Angeles,” Mr. Jochum said.
That might be because Mr. Rodgers brought in as many exotic plants as possible, especially those that
reminded him of New Zealand. Even in the garden, though, one can’t escape the former Eastern-bloc
references. Hidden in the foliage are two boxy-looking cameras. “They’re birdhouses,” Mr. Jochun said,
“made from Stassi spy cameras.”
Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company
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enzo mari - the art of design
enzo mari the art of design
october 29, 2008 - january 6, 2009
GAM museum of modern and
contemporary art turin, italy
enzo mari is perceived as 'the critical conscience of design',
his work has contributed to the world-wide debate on the
contemporary design profession. on the occasion of the city
of turin's nomination as world design capital 2008,
GAM museum dedicates an extensive retrospective show
to the work of the italian master designer enzo mari.
250 works are on show, created in over 50 years,
from contemporary art pieces to design objects and urban
re-design projects
--in the ‘80ies designboom's editor-in-chief birgit lohmann
has studied industrial design under enzo mari and
after graduation she has collaborated with enzo mari on
multiple design projects over the last 20 years.
and together they run several university courses and design
laboratories in europe.
form and formalism
’mari has taught me to distinguish ‘proper’ and ‘improper’
design and projects. proper projects start from refusal of
‘the existing’ because of their technical, expressive or
social inadequacy. we traveled in europe and hosted
design conferences on how the alchemy of proper design
can be taught and this capacity can be exercised.
while mari closes up to himself, nuturing anger about ‘the state
of things in general’ and the way it remains exactly what it is,
our desire for change collide with obstacles that seem
insurmountable.
since I know him, mari moves within a variety of linguistic
contexts but has never changed his attitudes or tamed his
projects and ideological proposals.
mari is a highly scrupulous researcher, but still he adopts
and maintains a series of schemes as parameters.
at first he created logical models that subtract the practice
of art from caprice and tells us that a project is ‘the whole of
the set of operations performed for the actualization of what
seems useful in the light of the necessities to be recognized
as having priority’, which are undoubtedly the ethical
necessities and this while accepting the constant conflict with
the economicistic logic of industrial production.
enzo mari
portrait © designboom
me running after mari, two days before the exhibition opened.
‘dear birgit,
as you know, the problem today is the only possible project (and young people should complete
an active effort now) is working to ‘decondition’ people from
the god of merchandise.
this seems to be an exaggeration, therefore I will give
a clear example of the current situation:
there are two illnesses that are widely diffused, prevalent in
the bourgeois society people don't often talk about them cancer and AIDS.
neither illness has a secure cure, but there are doctors and
researchers which are constantly working, fighting, studying
to develop antidotes and medicines.
twenty years ago, when cancer was diagnosed, the patient
died after six months. today, people probably survive
twenty-five years.
but nobody ever says 'HOW NICE IS CANCER!'
and ‘what a positive vision for society’.
for design which is actually waste ... well, the design of today
'in future memories' is the wasteland of ignorance and horror.
it's true that design only touches minor sectors of production,
but the activity of designing is perceived as resulting in projects
of quality. meanwhile, almost all design projects lack quality.
it's pure mannerism and the merchandise needs to die quickly
in order to create the need of a new production.
drawing by enzo mari
The Art of Design, 2009
this means it's a non-project and I'm embarrassed to be
categorized as a designer.
... one can sometimes desire a playful object (gadget)...
it's the entire mental system where merchandise is perceived,
not only as objects, but people (including their professions,
their brains).’ E.M.
in the last number of years, I was forced to buy a few
computers, and in my studio I see how they are used.
I am three times faster. rather than looking for data,
uploading something, reconnecting to different programs,
moving folders to the archive...
yes, the computer creates perfect things.
if I need to send somebody a drawing or a photo - it's fine.
when a project is in its final stages, then it is useful to use
the computer to document it.
but it's very wrong to use it as a machine for project making!
--‘introduction to drawing’ /
‘premessa al disegnare’, 2008
(translation of illustration)
if you want to become an architect, you have to learn
how to draw freehand...
the computer is a useful tool ...
you can use it when you finally understood what you
want to do... (this is when the project in itself is concluded).
perhaps something needs to be said regarding the
myths sourrounding the computer you just bought.
as you know, it’s made of two parts 1° the powerful and misterious ‘HARD’ and
2° the ‘SOFT’ ... instructions sold to the oblivious
who think they are able to create form by ignoring the
concrete reasons behind it.
HOWEVER, there is another type of computer
which is a thousands time more efficient...
at no cost, you already have one and it’s still new
as you don’t imagine to own it.
1° the infinitely powerful ‘HARD’.
in fact it’s so powerful that a newborn baby (who still
hasn’t worked out space, sound, it’s own limbs...
in just 1 year will have understood it, and on its own).
HARD turns it into a concious beeing through acts of
interpreting each random movement or sensation.
2° there is no ‘SOFT’. you’ve lost it at age of 6.
at school...... but you can rediscover it ...
it’s knowledge that comes from personal practise,
the only possibility of real comprehension.
--modulo 856, 1967
is a work of which a great deal has been said and written,
but in terms that strikes me as unsatisfying.
mari refers to this work as ‘a somehow hierartic space’,
and surely that’s the case for the viewer who enters it
and sees a narcissistic reflection of himself.
hieratic and uncomfortable. lea vergine, mari’s wife,
is one of italy’s most acclaimed art critics. she says
‘his central intention is to arouse the viewer’s faculties for
reflection and critical reaction with respect to his own
modes of being and behaviour.’
the visitor is invited to consider the figure of his bust
‘study celebrating an anniversary’, 1954
(studio per l’anniversario) painting by enzo mari
as though it were a painting? I guess he is invited to accept
an emptiness in the place where he ordinarily expects to
find the fullness of a work of art.
it is a sort of what musil defiened a ‘concave sensation’,
which is an experience of emptiness and absence,
where the mind encounters the possibility of the difficult
exercise of reflecting upon itself.
drawing of ‘modulo 856’ by enzo mari, 1967
the work is presented like a large minimal sculpture, but in truth it is a dwelling place inside
which the visitor is astonished to unexpectedly discover his own image reflected in a
mirror. the idea behind it is that the visitor can ask the question why he is there ...
well, me ...
--‘allegory of dignity’/
‘allegoria della dignità’, 1988
we are invited to look on ourselves with dignity.
this is to say that we have to find - without the aid of churches
and avoiding banalizations on the respect that human
beings have to show to one another - is a good reason for
facing up a mirror and looking at our reflections within it.
.. there you are, always the very same imbecile, rendered an object by the institutions
that sourround you.
‘allegory of dignity’, 1988
--‘fourty-four evaluations’ /
‘quarantaquattro valutazioni’, 1976
mari’s contribution to the 1976 venice art biennale,
44 marble pieces sculpted into different fluid shapes
that slot together to form a giant hammer and sickle symbol.
the human individually alienates himself from his own particular powers and convince
ourselves that there is no other or beter way of being a human being.
... a participatory project...
‘44 evaluations’, 1976
a giant hammer and sickle, deconstructed into 44 art sculptures.
individual formal expressions form a common point of referment...
every single sculpture is of the same quality as the composed symbol.
a well known symbol.
EYEOUT berlin
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Friday 17 December 2010
Interiors
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Enzo Mari's original table plans, which date back to the mid 1950s, the era of mass production which so
fueled Mari's project
Enzo Mari's Autoprogettazione Revisited, London
INTERIORS
Autoprogettazione (translated as
self-made) is a concept, thought up by
Italian design godfather Enzo Mari in the
1950s, of producing superior quality,
functional furniture from ubiquitous
materials in your own home.
Conceived in reaction to the glut of mass
produced furniture around at the time, Mari
formulated a free catalogue explaining in
intricate detail how best to produce 19
pieces of furniture from scratch.
Originally he encouraged his followers to
send in photos of the nished articles to
his studio, and the latest exhibition to take
residence in Londons Architectural
Association pays homage to Maris
autonomous take on his craft.
INFORMATION
Event dates
3 October 2009 to 27 October 2009
Website
http://aaschool.ac.uk
Telephone
44.20 7887 4031
Address
Architectural Association
36 Bedford Square
London
WC1B 3ES
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See more from when Mari revisited his
Autoprogettazione concept with
contemporary designers/a>
Wallpaper, Autoprogettazione Revisited, October 2009
Pulled together by furniture gallerist Philip
Sharatt in collaboration with Mari himself,
Autoprogettazione Revisted has invited a
host of contemporary artists and designers
to produce their own pieces of self-made
furniture in adherence with Maris exacting
agenda.
In
J
With disjointed, hybrid work from the likes
of sculptor Phyllida Barlow, furniture
designerJoe Pipal, product designer Travis
Broussard and artist Graham Hudson, the
work traces Maris philosophical approach
to design whilst exposing some exciting
new takes on the form.
Il
H
V
7
A
s
s
From Pipals indolent bookshelf, leaning up
against a wall, to the heady range of chairs
on show – including Ryan Ganders take
on Konstantin Grcics One Chair (featuring
an Ikea foam pad and a attened
cardboard box) and Martino Gampers
simple crate chair – each piece comes
imbued with a sense of creative intimacy –
an accolade of which Mari is undoubtedly
proud.
T
W
S
s
'S

C
7 October 2009 | Interiors
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Im Gespräch
Enzo Mari
03.12.2008
Autor: Norman Kietzmann
Enzo Mari hat die italienische Designszene grundlegend geprägt. Geboren 1932 im norditalienischen Novara
studiert er von 1952 bis 1956 Kunst und Literatur an der Mailänder Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera. 1963 schließt
er sich der freien Künstlergruppe „Nuove Tendenze“ an und beginnt seine Forschungen über die Psychologie der
visuellen Wahrnehmung. Dem Design wendet sich Enzo Mari Ende der Fünfziger Jahre zu und beginnt als
Autodidakt für das Unternehmen Danese zahlreiche Vasen, Kalender, Schalen und andere Gegenstände zu
entwerfen. Was seine Entwürfe verbindet, ist das Gespür für einfache, praktische Lösungen, die jedoch über einen
reinen Funktionalismus stets hinauseichen. Insgesamt dreimal wird Enzo Mari mit dem italienischen Design-Oscar
„Compasso d‘Oro“ geehrt und entwirft weit mehr als 1.600 Produkte für Unternehmen wie Zanotta, Olivetti,
Artemide, Alessi, Rosenthal, KPM und Driade. Im November 2008 wird sein Werk mit einer umfassenden
Retrospektive in der Galleria Civica d‘Arte Moderna in Turin gewürdigt. Wir trafen Enzo Mari in seiner Mailänder
Wohnung und sprachen mit ihm – umgeben von seinen Zeichnungen, Skulpturen, Büchern und Produkten – über
das Design als Symbol, die Seele der Objekte und das Genie von Kindern.
Herr Mari, Sie gelten als einer der einflussreichsten Gestalter des 20. Jahrhunderts und Mitbegründer der
italienische Designszene. Ein berühmter Ausspruch von Ihnen lautet, dass „jeder Designer sein Bild einer idealen
Welt zeichnen solle.“ Wie würden Sie Ihre ideale Welt beschreiben?
Ich denke, dass die Objekte, die mir gelungen sind, nicht die waren, die ich für Unternehmen entworfen habe, sondern für
eine Gesellschaft, die noch gar nicht existiert. Das Problem des Design ist, das alle Welt glaubt, mit dem Begriff verbände
sich automatisch das Maximum an industrieller Qualität. Dabei ist es das genaue Gegenteil. Für mich ist es offensichtlich,
dass die Objekte des Designs nicht real, sondern rein symbolisch sind. Sie stellen die Würde des Menschen und die Arbeit
DesignLine, December 2008
dar.
Können Sie das ein wenig genauer erklären?
Wenn ich ein Produkt entwerfe, bin ich nicht so professionell in dem Sinne, dass ich einfach nur ausführe. Ich habe die
Dinge immer nur dann gemacht, wenn ich das Gefühl hatte, dass es notwendig war. Was mich stört an der Industrie, ist die
Idee, dass die Dinge möglichst schnell altern und sterben müssen, damit sich die Menschen etwas Neues kaufen. Die alten
Griechen hatten einst die Idee einer Kontinuität der Dinge, bei der es darum ging, für die Unendlichkeit zu leben. Eine
möglichst einfache und perfekte Form muss man nicht mehr verändern. Viele der von ihnen entwickelten geometrischen
Körper sind bis heute aktuell. Ich denke, wir sollten in diese Richtung arbeiten. Darum habe ich nun schon seit 50 Jahren
versucht, Objekte zu machen, die nicht sterben, sondern bleiben. Produkte sollten nicht nur aus rein kommerziellen Ideen
heraus entstehen.
Wie würden Sie die von Ihnen entworfenen Produkte beschreiben?
Sie sind kleine, einfache Dinge, die ich zumeist bei mir auf meinem Schreibtisch stehen habe. Nicht alle Objekte, die ich
gemacht habe, sind besonders bedeutend. In den vergangenen 55 Jahren habe ich eine – wie man im Französischen sagt
– „recherche totale“ unternommen – ob in der Schule, an der Universität oder später im Leben. Ich kann vielleicht sagen,
dass die Skulpturen von Brancusi so oder so gemacht sind. Und ich kann sagen, dass er womöglich der größte Bildhauer
des 20. Jahrhunderts ist. Aber über mich selbst kann ich das nicht sagen, denn wie soll ich mir auch sicher sein? Ich
versuche, gut zu arbeiten. Aber ich kann nicht über mich behaupten, dass meine Entwürfe große Werke seien.
Worin liegt die Herausforderung, wenn Sie ein neues Produkt entwerfen?
Die richtige Form zu finden, ist keine einfache Angelegenheit, denn sie bedeutet alles andere als Formalismus. Dafür
braucht man sich nur aus einem Katalog von Millionen von Formen zu bedienen, und fertig ist das Objekt. Alle Dummköpfe
dieser Welt arbeiten auf diese Weise. Doch eine Form ist eine essentielle Angelegenheit. Sie ist die Seele der Objekte.
Anders als für die Künstler der Renaissance, die vollkommen frei und lösgelost von der Gesellschaft gearbeitet haben,
spielen heute auch soziale Faktoren eine Rolle. Ich denke, um eine Form zu schaffen, muss man vor allem lernen, die Welt
zu verstehen.
Wie gehen Sie an Ihre Projekte heran?
Natürlich frage ich mich immer bei einem Projekt, was man Neues machen soll. Was will das Objekt sagen, dass ich
entwerfe? Ich fange also an, zu experimentieren und kleine Modelle mit meinen Händen zu entwickeln. Dann beginne ich,
all die Dinge wieder zu zerstören. Ich habe der Industrie nie vorgeschlagen, bestimmte Produkte zu entwickeln. Denn wenn
ich ihnen gewisse Dinge vorschlagen würde, müsste ich mich auch darum kümmern, sie zu verkaufen. Als die Industrie auf
mich zugekommen ist, habe ich gesagt: „In Ordnung, es seid ihr, die die Idee habt. Es seid ihr, die festlegt, ob die Dinge
aus Holz oder Metall gearbeitet werden sollen oder für die Reichen oder die Armen sind." In Italien nennt man das: den
Punkt auf das „i“ setzen. Ich habe versucht, die Dinge ein wenig zu verbessern.
Noch bevor Sie sich dem Design gewidmet haben, haben Sie an der Mailänder Accademia di Brera Kunst studiert...
Als ich sehr jung war, ging ich nur auf eine einfache Schule. Meine Familie war sehr arm und so musste ich mit 13 Jahren
anfangen zu arbeiten – nicht für mich, sondern für meine ganze Familie. Auf die Universität zu gehen, war mir nicht
möglich, da ich keinen Abschluss hatte. Ich habe dann herausgefunden, dass ich an einer Kunstschule trotzdem
aufgenommen werden konnte. Also musste ich Künstler werden. (lacht) Mit dem Design kam ich in Berührung, als ich
bemerkte, wie banal die Produkte waren, die im Italien der Fünfziger Jahre oder noch während des Krieges hergestellt
wurden. Ich habe mich gefragt, warum die Industrie nicht dazu in der Lage war, den Dingen die richtige Form zu geben, wo
ihr doch all die Technologien und das Wissen zur Verfügung standen.
Als Sie in den Fünfziger und Sechziger Jahren begonnen haben, für die Industrie zu entwerfen, war vielen der
Begriff Design noch weitestgehend unbekannt...
Ja, und ich selbst war noch sehr jung. Mein Glück war, dass ich zu diesem Zeitpunkt fast alleine war. Also kamen die
Unternehmer zu mir, was einem natürlich sehr schmeichelt, wenn man Mitte Zwanzig ist. Bezahlt haben sie mich deswegen
aber noch nicht. Das war schon damals die Regel. Bei Schriftstellern oder Musikern sind es normalerweise zehn Prozent
des Verkaufspreises für ein Buch oder eine Schallplatte, wie er im Laden bezahlt wird. Mir wollten sie aber nur ein einziges
Prozent geben. Das fand ich schon damals ungerecht.
Lässt sich über Design streiten?
Über die Form zu reden ist, wie über Religion zu reden. Es gibt eine Menge verschiedener Wahrheiten. Die Katholiken
sagen, ihr Gott sei besser als der der Moslems. Die Moslems sagen, Allah sei größer als der Gott der Katholiken. Darin
liegt das Problem der Form. Die Form ist ein Modell. In der Architektur gab es bis ins frühe 20. Jahrhundert eine klar
erkennbare Ordnung von Stütze und Last. Natürlich sind die Variationen dessen unendlich und auch die Qualität der
jeweiligen Gebäude. Doch es war möglich, über die Architektur zu sprechen, da es in jeder Sprache einen Begriff für
denselben Gegenstand gab, seinen es Säulen, Träger oder Pfeiler. Heute gibt es keine kollektiven Regeln mehr sondern
nur noch Redundanz, die vor allem dem Ego ihrer Entwerfer geschuldet ist. Für das Design gilt das umso mehr. Es gibt
keine verbindlichen Regeln mehr, nach denen man die Dinge beurteilen könnte.
Sie sind über die Kunst zum Design gekommen. Wie sehen Sie das Verhältnis zwischen diesen beiden Disziplinen?
Ein Widerspruch oder doch auch getragen von Gemeinsamkeiten?
Ich weiß mittlerweile sehr gut, was Kunst ist. Aber ich denke schon mein ganzes Leben darüber nach, was das Design ist,
und ich weiß es bis heute immer noch nicht. Das ist sehr widersprüchlich. Viele meiner Kollegen sind der Meinung, sie
müssten Kunst machen. Aber was sie machen, sind höchstens Kopien des Art-Déco. Die Kunst des Designs ist etwas
vollkommen anderes: nämlich keine Dekoration. Ich bin nicht prinzipiell gegen dekorative Kunst – in der Geschichte nimmt
sie schließlich einen wichtigen Platz ein. Aber sie ist etwas vollkommen anderes als das Design. Denn das Design wird
nicht wie ein Kunstwerk von einer einzelnen Person gemacht. In einem Unternehmen gibt es interdisziplinären Gruppen
von bis zu 40 Personen, die miteinander arbeiten müssen. Mit der Freiheit der Kunst hat dies nichts gemeinsam.
Neben Ihren zahlreichen Lehraufträgen an internationalen Hochschulen haben Sie immer wieder auch zahlreiche
Ausstellungen zum Thema Design kuratiert. Eine davon in der Galleria Danese in Mailand war ausschließlich
Werkzeugen wie Sicheln oder Sensen gewidmet. Was fasziniert Sie an diesen Objekten?
Ich habe sie ausgewählt, um zu zeigen, welche Intelligenz in der Arbeit mit der Hand steckt. Es sind sehr nützliche
Werkzeuge, die auf der ganzen Welt in der Landwirtschaft zum Einsatz kamen. Heute gibt es kaum noch Orte, an denen
sie produziert werden. Eine Fabrik ist in Österreich, eine in Italien im Piemont – diese wurde gerade geschlossen – und
eine dritte in Brasilien. Die Art und Weise, wie die Klingen hergestellt werden, ist überaus faszinierend. Sie werden in einem
Stück aus Eisen gegossen und anschließend von einem einzelnen Mann in nur fünf Minuten in ihre spätere Form
geschlagen. Perfekt. Die Arbeiter folgen allein ihrem Wissen und ihrer Intuition und brauchen keine Kataloge, die ihnen von
Ingenieuren geschrieben wurden. Ich wollte mit dieser Ausstellung zeigen, dass es nicht stimmt, dass Menschen, die mit
ihrer Hand arbeiten, nicht denken müssen. Das Schmieden von Klingen erfordert eine besondere Intelligenz. Doch genau
darin liegt auch das Problem: Die, die es machen könnten, sitzen heute viel lieber vor dem Computer. Das Wissen über die
Herstellung solcher Werkzeuge geht Stück für Stück verloren.
Von archaischer Wirkung ist auch die aus einer Eisenbahnschiene geformte Schale „la putrella“, die Sie 1958
entworfen haben.
Ich habe dieses Objekt gemacht, weil mich Schienen schon immer fasziniert haben. Sie entspringen einer reellen
Technologie und nicht der Technologie des Designs. Sie sind ein Objekt, das zudem die Geschichte der Menschen perfekt
wiedergibt. Ich finde es immer ein wenig seltsam, wenn in den Bildern für die Kataloge Birnen oder irgendwelches anderes
Obst in diese Schale gelegt wird. Denn darum ging es nicht. Der Entwurf ist vor allem eine Idee, die in den Jahren entstand,
als ich mich mit der Technologie moderner Maschinen auseinandergesetzt habe. Zur selben Zeit habe ich auch mit Marmor
gearbeitet, da mir verschiedene Architekten damals gesagt hatten, dass diese oder jene Formen nicht aus Marmor
herzustellen wären. Also habe ich sehr einfache Objekte gemacht, die mit den gängigen Maschinen produziert wurden, nur
um ihnen zu zeigen, dass es dennoch geht. Diese Entwürfe sind für mich vor allem Objekte der Demonstration. Lehrstücke.
Sie haben auch zahlreiche Bücher und Spiele für Kinder verfasst, in denen Sie zum Beispiel die Verwandlung einer
Raupe in einen Schmetterling zeigen...
Ja, es ist gar nicht so einfach, etwas für Kinder zu entwerfen. Denn die meisten Spielsachen schauen sie sich vielleicht eine
halbe Stunde an und danach in ihr Interesse vorbei. Aber das ist normal. Denn Kinder spielen keine Spiele. Sie machen
wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen. Sie wollen durch das Spielen die Welt verstehen. Ich glaube, man müsste all die
Nobelpreise dieser Welt den Kindern verleihen, da sie intelligenter sind als Einstein. Ohne Nachzudenken verstehen sie
selbst die komplizierten Dinge. Ich habe auch einen kleinen Neffen, er ist heute eineinhalb Jahre alt. Er kann noch nicht
sprechen und doch interessiert er sich für all die Dinge, die um ihn herum passieren. Er schaut, ob etwas leicht zu greifen,
zu öffnen oder zu demontieren ist. Das ist seine Form der Recherche. Ich denke, dass in gewisser Weise auch meine
Arbeit das Spielen ist – aus absoluter Leidenschaft. Etwas anderes habe ich nie gemacht. (lächelt) Vielleicht bin ich selbst
noch ein kleines Kind, weil ich noch immer meine Spiele spiele. Ich denke, Spielen ist die intelligenteste Aufgabe, die
Menschen machen können.
Vielen Dank für das Gespräch.
TURIN — with an obsession for form and beauty
The first time I met Enzo Mari, he was giving a talk at the Serpentine Gallery in London.
It turned out to be more of a rant, as the great Italian designer railed scornfully against
his pet hates. Design - dead. Architecture - dead too. Western civilization - ditto.
Spotting the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas among the audience, he denounced him as "a
pornographic window dresser."
Afterward I asked Mari if there was any aspect of contemporary life that pleased him. A
lengthy silence followed, until he said: "Bread and terrorism." Why terrorism? "Why
not?" snorted Mari. "People think it's bad, but if they thought about it, they'd realize it
isn't all bad. It changes things."
Now 76, Mari is hardly a household name, even in Italy, but he and his volcanic rages are
infamous in design circles. Designers enjoy swapping (possibly apocryphal) stories of
how he's hurled insults or obscenities, sometimes both, at would-be clients. Former
students recall Mari's very long, very loud, unrelentingly nihilistic lectures, and his eerie
ability to spot whatever was wrong with their work after the briefest of glances.
A cruel irony of Mari's career, not least as he reserves special scorn for what he calls
"publicity whores" - the designers who have allowed their public images to overshadow
their work - is that the extremes of his personality often threaten to dwarf his. An
exhibition that opened last week at Galleria Civica d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in
Turin as part of the city's World Design Capital celebrations offers a timely reminder of
what a gifted designer he is, as does a book of interviews with Mari conducted by the
Swiss curator and co-director of the Serpentine, Hans-Ulrich Obrist, which is to be
published later this month.
"Many of Mari's works are masterpieces - rare combinations of intellectual puzzles and
beautiful lines," said the British product designer Jasper Morrison. "Most designers who
analyze problems to the extent that he does end up with rather dry, systemized solutions.
His works are highly original and uncompromising, with a kind of poetic and heroically
human touch."
All of these qualities are evident in the Turin retrospective, which features some 250
examples of Mari's work in design and art, chosen by 20 of his friends. It begins with the
New York Times, October 2008
experimental paintings he produced in the early 1950s after leaving art school, and is
dominated visually by his spectacular contribution to the 1976 Venice Art Biennale, some
44 marble pieces sculpted into seductively fluid shapes that slot together to form a giant
hammer and sickle (Mari is a veteran communist) like a children's puzzle. But, whether
or not he likes it, Mari's work as an artist looks like a rarefied warm-up for the beautifully
resolved furniture, objects, ceramics, books and games he has designed for Danese and
other manufacturers in the last 50 years.
To Mari, design is all about creating forms, or shapes. "Form is everything" comes a close
second to "design is dead" in his top two sayings, and he is exceptionally good at it.
Object after object in the show, whether it's a chair, table, glass, vase, teapot or paper
knife is stripped down to the simplest possible shape, yet perfectly proportioned and
detailed. It's a cheesy cliché to describe design as sculptural, but Mari's is. It also seems
so tactile, that you long to pick up each object and use it, rather than simply looking at it.
The objective, as Mari explained to Obrist, is less about pleasing the user, than the
factory workers who make his products. One of his pet theories (a typically idiosyncratic
conflation of the Communist Manifesto and Arts and Crafts Movement idealism) is that
designers have a responsibility to liberate workers from the drudgery of what Mari calls
their "alienated labor" by creating inspiring products for them to make in
"transformative work."
Laudable though this is, it seems rather quaint in a post-industrial era when the
European factory workers whom Mari seeks to liberate are already an endangered
species. The same can be said for his obsession with form at a time when combating
environmental crisis is the overwhelming challenge in design and our perceptions of
form have been transformed by the emergence of digital products like laptops and
cellphones, whose appearance bears no relation to their multifarious functions.
But Mari has no truck with technology, which he sees as a potentially dangerous
diversion from the manual skills that are essential to a designer. (While the snowyhaired designer was inspecting his exhibition last week, a sharpened pencil peeped up
from his jacket pocket as if ready for action.) Yet other aspects of his approach to design
seem strikingly contemporary.
One is Mari's refusal to discriminate between his work in art and design. (The exhibition
is entitled "The Art of Design.") Another is a fascination, shared with his contemporary,
the late Achille Castiglioni, for everyday objects, like tools, whose beauty is often
neglected. Among the loveliest pieces in the exhibition are some scythes that Mari found
and framed. He also pioneered many now-fashionable concepts in furniture design, such
as multifunctionality. One of his pet rants is the failure of the original manufacturer to
put his 1970 design for a sofa-cum-bed into production. The following year he designed
guidelines for wooden furniture that consumers could assemble themselves and
customize to suit their needs. Mari believed that they would be more appreciative of
something they had made.
The only disappointment with the Turin show is that its design is rather conventional,
especially compared to the ingenious exhibition concepts that Mari dreamt up for
Danese in the 1960s, including one built in cardboard. His chief indulgence is the
recreation of an installation originally made for a 1987 exhibition in San Marino
consisting of three gravestones. One bears the symbol of a cross, another a hammer and
sickle, and the third a swastika. "The cross symbolizes the promise of paradise after
death and the hammer and sickle paradise in this life," explained Mari. "The swastika
represents reality."
July 23, 2006
POSSESSED
The Wood Menagerie
By DAVID COLMAN
WHEN you think about it, isn’t the vaunted search for meaning a bit overrated? Heaven knows, there is
plenty around. To a child, for example, a stop sign means little more than a pretty red octagon to admire. To
an adult, it has layers of meaning: warning, direction, authority, history, memory, impatience. Even a stop
sign comes with baggage.
The industrial designer Yves Behar appreciates the process by which a thing acquires meaning, having
worked for companies like Apple and Hewlett-Packard, transforming the beige plastic machines into
intriguing objects emitting status, ease and, above all else, the future. His work is a strong reflection of the
fact that when it comes to design, that mighty 20th-century line between home and office has eroded so
much as to be almost meaningless.
Consider his new Leaf task lamp for Herman Miller: it is two hinged pieces of twisted metal tipped with a
cluster of light-emitting diodes that change from a high-intensity work light to romantic mood light, from
coffee to Chianti with the adman’s touch of a finger.
The lamp underscores how that line has eroded between not just home and office but also work and play.
That is certainly true of one of Mr. Behar’s favorite possessions, a children’s puzzle designed in solid oak in
1960 by the Italian modernist Enzo Mari.
“I’ve been collecting products and cartoon books that the Italians were making for kids in the 1950’s,” Mr.
Behar said, noting how thoughtfully designed many of the toys are. “They really celebrate the intelligence of
kids.”
If not adults. The Enzo Mari zoo-nigma, still in production 46 years later, is made up of 16 individual
animals — hippo, python, giraffe, pig — that interlock in what appears to be a kindergarten-simple puzzle.
Once freed, however, the animals are difficult to put neatly back in the box. Even after 10 years of play, Mr.
Behar frequently finds himself bested.
“I don’t always succeed in getting it together,” he said. “It’s beautiful as a zoo. You have all these
possibilities, playing with the animals. It’s different than playing with something and having a single
purpose.”
As a youngster, Mr. Behar was “completely a Lego fanatic, building entire landscapes,” he said, but the
puzzle is not something he plays with for hours. Rather, it is a plaything and object of contemplation, sitting
out
onday.
a coffee
table
hiskinds
houseofinwork
Oakland
Hills, easy
Calif.,
to toy
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For
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“There
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in design,
and
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heabsently.
said. “The
easy
has
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with
bought
the
companion
puzzle
—
all
fish
—
that
Mr.
Mari
designed
in
1974.
styling and form.”
Unlike
Mr.simple,
Behar’sthe
work,
which
for
all into
its imagination
involves
weighing
any
number
mind-numbing
Naïve and
puzzle
lulls
him
a childlike world
in which
pure
form
takes of
over
and more driving
practical
concerns
and
details,
the
zoo
puzzle,
$478
at
Design
Within
Reach,
represents
an
escape at the end
concerns slip away. “That’s why I like it,” he said. “It’s never stuck in being one thing.”
So why look for meaning when it’s so good at finding you? Far better to find a way to let your search engine
idle.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
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