PDF - Marcel Wanders

Interview by Lise Coirier
MARceL WAnDeRS
& eRWIn oLAF
tHe DReAM teAM
© Marcel Wanders
SuRREAL PHOTOgRAPHY
AnD DESign
Photography / design
Marcel Wanders is back a year
after designing the special
Milan cover for TL, which
featured a selection of his then
recent creations, visualised as
a 3 dimensional haiku. It could
have been a photograph, but it
appeared in print, another way
to freeze a moment in time for
posterity. Our discussion with
Marcel continues …
© Marcel Wanders
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Moooi, Haikus
Alessi
Alessi
© Marcel Wanders
© Marcel Wanders
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This article continues on our blog :
http://blog.tlmagazine.be
What is the relevance of photography in design
and vice versa? What is the common mutual
language that Marcel has developed with his
friend, photographer Erwin Olaf, in order to
create new forms of eye contact with people?
Photography provides everyone with free access
to an object. Pure magic.
With photography, we have the impression
of entering into a ritual with its fetishes, rules
and language. Like in a 17th century still life or in
the old vanitas’ which are part of Marcel’s and
Erwin’s Dutch culture. We are all educated a
certain way and we follow a dogma which is part
of our Western culture. “I studied the Japanese
civilization,” states Marcel. “As a European,
I had always wanted to cross over the boundaries
in order to push the limits of my own culture.
The surreal photography which I practice with
Erwin and in my own photo studio is bringing
me a lot of satisfaction and has led to stunning results. We are challenging the meaning
of things and the onlookers perception and
interpretation of the image. If I have to define
the surreal photography we are creating, it is
mostly about conventional angles rather than
the more typical altered perspectives, it is not
about obscuring an element or an object or
photographing something from a surprising
and crazy angle. It is not about turning the
camera upside down, lighting effects, or the
interesting use of light and shadow effects. It is
especially and mainly about the representation
of the ordinary in an extraordinary way. It is
the little lie or creation of misunderstanding
about what things could mean or what they
are here for. It attempts to answer the following question: how can I misinterpret this piece
and in doing so communicate something more
about it? This is the way we want to start communicating with our audience.”
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PHotoGRAPHY / DeSIGn
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In the world of Marcel Wanders where the archetype rules, objects are plain and speak for
themselves. They are not overwhelmingly surprising, not extremely new, but… they will always
make new interesting connections, enlighten
us, giving new meaning to what we thought we
knew and understood. That’s exactly what we
feel when looking at the Moooi double portraits
or Superheroes images co-created by Erwin Olaf
and Marcel Wanders. There is always this surprising new connection, set in a poetic landscape of
photography, like Marcel’s photographic haikus
for Alessi and KLM, which are shot in-house at
his own studio in Westerhuis, Amsterdam.
A language of objects and objectivity
As Marcel himself states: “by engaging myself
in art, photography, design and other possible
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creative aspects I enable myself to maximise the
communicative potential of each individual
work and to conduct and guide the improvement of the whole.”
If love guides him in his quest for more
beauty and life fulfilment, photography is one
of the best “momentums” for stating what
an object brings to our lives. There is a sense
of identity and common good. “Our Moooi
catalogue is free, everyone can look at our images which are stylishly art directed and shot.
People don’t browse through the catalogue
because they need a sofa or other pieces in our
collection. People look through it because they
are interested to see their culture, their world,
to get ideas and to have a better understanding
of who they are.” Marcel is a keen observer
of our attitudes and lifestyles and notes that
“ It is especially and mainly
about the representation of
the ordinary in an extraordinary way.”
© Erwin Olaf
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© Marcel Wanders
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Photography / design
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Expanding reality
Moreover, we all live in both the real and the
unreal world. In that sense, photography can
allow us to become the designers of our own
imaginary book. Fiction is free of charge and
its meaning is strong enough to go beyond
ownership. We can project ourselves in a “second life” world but we can also appreciate
the beauty of a more classical shooting with
a twist, where objects are still tangible and
can be touched. By observing, taking time
and distance, we feel more balanced to enter
into the world of imagination with or without
adding a human presence. Pictures which are
strange and propose fantastic forms are sometimes more impactful images. They surprise us
more than the ones that are displayed clearly
and frontally for the camera to record. This
is the way pioneers like William Henry Fox
Talbot started when they wrote “The Pencil
of Nature” in the mid-19th century. Today,
we were also debating with Marcel the fact
that design and photography are two compatible media with a common language which
always goes beyond the “picture dictionary” or
the “people-objects” to enter into a world of
magic. The French philosopher Jean Baudrillard was provocative when he said “The magic
of photography is that it is the object that
does all the work.” “He seemed to be thinking of the classic photographer, who is just
the spectator. In my surreal photographical
fantasies design thinking is the true creative
force, used in combination with a forgotten
superpower: fantasy,” concludes Marcel.
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© Marcel Wanders
our appreciation of art books and “picture
books” starts in childhood. Why should we
escape from this culture of the surreal, and
the superheroes who are providing so much
power, fantasy and pleasure?
© Marcel Wanders
“Fiction is free of charge
and its meaning is strong
enough to go beyond ownership”
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Superheroes series,
Smokerman,
Erwin Olaf
& Marcel Wanders
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Flames, Moooi,
Erwin Olaf
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Moooi, Haikus
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KLM
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KLM
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Kose, AQMW,
AD magazine,
ErwinOlaf
—
www.marcelwanders.com
www.erwinolaf.com
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