Right at the beginning of our conversation, Raphaël Lesbats makes it clear that his role is not about a nostalgic return to traditional philosophies. However, especially in an age of information overload and almost unlimited design possibilities, the question arises as to whether traditional principles should regain greater importance.
Against this backdrop, we want to know from Lesbats whether culturally anchored design principles can serve as a benchmark for good design today, when knowledge is available almost without restriction. He contextualizes this particular moment in our time as follows: »Today, we have access to an almost unlimited amount of information, but what becomes increasingly rare is meaning, clarity, and intent. Our philosophies provide enduring principles that help us distinguish what is essential. They remind us that good design is not about adding more, but about creating something that resonates deeply and naturally with people. At Mazda, our Kodo  design language is a compass. It guides us toward authenticity, helping us create products that feel emotionally meaningful and human, even in a rapidly changing world.«

In his role as Brand Style Manager Europe, the aforementioned compass could be equated with cultural sensitivity. When asked whether the European perspective changes Far Eastern (design) philosophies at their core or rather makes something universal about good design visible that transcends cultural boundaries, Lesbats clearly places his own role at the service of mediation. For him, the challenge is always: How can these Japanese principles be translated visually and emotionally so that they also reach a European audience? »My role is not to change the philosophy, but to translate it.« He points to the long-standing fascination with Japanese culture in Europe: »While our Kodo  design language is rooted in Japanese aesthetics, Europe has long cultivated a strong fascination with Japanese culture. Whether through architecture, craftsmanship, gastronomy, design, fashion, or manga, many Europeans are already familiar with values that are central to our creative thinking: restraint, precision, respect for materials, and the beauty of simplicity.« For him, this cultural proximity creates an interesting dialogue. »People may not know the concepts of Ma  or Kaicho  by name, but they instinctively respond to what these principles express.«

For Lesbats, Kodo  as a philosophy therefore extends far beyond vehicle design. It influences how an image is composed, how light and space are used, how rhythm is created, how stories are told, and ultimately, how Mazda consistently communicates its brand identity across all touchpoints. He cites a campaign for the Mazda CX-6e  as an example, for which the team drew inspiration from film directors Yasujirō Ozu and Jean-Luc Godard, among others. »What interested us was the dialogue between these two cinematic worlds: Ozu’s sensitivity to space, stillness and observation, and Godard’s visual freedom and striking compositions. Although very different, both offer lessons in how emotions can be communicated through framing, rhythm and visual restraint.«

The fact that this approach extends far beyond the immediate context of automotive design is also demonstrated by Mazda’s involvement in this year’s Homo Faber Biennial: An Island of Light. As a supporter of the Biennale  and Country Sponsor Japan of the Homo Faber Fellowship, the brand is committed to Japanese craftsmanship and the transfer of knowledge between masters and a younger generation. The encounter with traditional craftsmanship offers Mazda the opportunity to focus on those design principles that are also decisive for the brand’s vehicle design. Lesbats comments: »At first glance, the world of automotive design and the world of traditional craftsmanship may appear far apart. But they share the same foundation: a dedication to beauty, mastery of materials, attention to detail, and respect for the maker’s hand.« For him, Homo Faber c reates a special opportunity because it brings together some of the most talented craftspeople from all over the world. Combined with the special setting of Venice, he says, the exhibition thus becomes a place of exchange, inspiration, and dialogue between different creative disciplines. »For visitors, but also for us as designers, this encounter is incredibly valuable. It reminds us that regardless of the medium we work with, the pursuit of excellence is often guided by the same principles.«

At Homo Faber, Mazda communicated its connection to Japanese craftsmanship through Kintsugi, a centuries-old Japanese tradition in which broken ceramics are put back together with gold and a great deal of patience. »It was an opportunity to show that behind every vehicle there is a long journey of craftsmanship, human sensitivity, and careful refinement, values that resonate deeply with the spirit of the Biennale.«

Alongside traditional principles and the transfer of artisanal knowledge, there are also the real, technologically highly complex developments of the modern automobile. Given the increasing pressure to think of vehicles as »computers on wheels,« we want to know how Mazda preserves the almost sculptural clarity of its Kodo design philosophy. Where is the line between meaningful innovation and visual noise? For Lesbats, technology should serve people without dominating their experience. »One of the challenges facing designers today is that technology constantly offers new possibilities, but not every possibility creates value,« he says, describing the challenge, and continues: »At Mazda, we try to start with the human experience and then determine which technologies genuinely enhance it.« For Lesbats, the clarity of the Kodo design language is based above all on design discipline. He describes the connection between simplicity and emotional impact as follows: »We seek simplicity because we believe clarity creates a stronger emotional connection.«

What does he think will endure in the long term? »What will endure, in my opinion, is not any particular screen or software feature. What will endure is the human desire for beauty, harmony, and intuitive interaction. These are timeless qualities that technology should help express, rather than replace.« It stands to reason that traditional Japanese principles such as Ma, Utsuroi, and Sori, which underpin Mazda’s Kodo design philosophy, could become even more important for future generations of designers.
Finally, we ask Lesbats what significance these design principles based on perception and emotion can have for a generation of designers who grew up in the digital age. His answer clearly focuses on quality rather than quantity: »Young designers today are surrounded by digital tools capable of generating almost infinite forms and solutions. In such an environment, the challenge is no longer the ability to create, but knowing what is worth creating. Japanese principles and philosophies provide a deeper understanding of rhythm, harmony, and emotion. They encourage designers to observe, reflect, and develop ideas that carry meaning rather than simply pursuing novelty.«

In the age of artificial intelligence and almost unlimited design possibilities, Lesbats therefore sees the importance of human perception and experience continuing to grow. In the future, the ability of designers to give ideas meaning will be decisive. He concludes by putting it in a nutshell: »For me, the true value of a designer will no longer be the ability to generate ideas, but the ability to give them meaning.« [DM]

Chapter  In an interview you said that your process usually begins with an urge rather than with a concept. What can that urge look like?

Fenna Kosfeld  You know the feeling when you dance or move your body and find a really good stretch that you want to stay in because it is releasing or expanding something? You have this natural urge to continue and explore it. That is how I would describe my urge to create and make. It can start with an observation, a movement, a thought or a touch. If it tickles the brain the urge for continuation and play is sparked.

Chapter  Is there a difference between inspiration, as it is often talked about in the context of art, and this kind of impulse you experience?

Fenna Kosfeld  I think it is a synergy of ideas, inspiration, and physical impulse that brings things into movement and existence. The driver for me is mostly that embodied impulse, which can feel like a vibration or shock wave—excitement, curiosity, or fear. It is physical as well as emotional. But from there, it starts interacting with all the influences I carry subconsciously. Things begin to roll and take shape by connecting the dots of subconscious impulses with intellectual ideas and relational inspiration.

Chapter  Does experience—with a certain material, for instance—sometimes get in the way of intuition or curiosity?

Fenna Kosfeld  No, the material itself never really gets in the way of my curiosity. If anything, it is a never-ending fractal to observe, touch, sense, and wonder about. What can get in the way is the necessity to freeze something in time—to go against this intuitive cycle of constant transformation. It is almost unnatural to stop and capture a moment, yet we need to do it to grasp our existence and ground ourselves mentally. Photography does this very literally, but we also do it with materials and ideas. To stop time and change.

So perhaps it is not experience that interferes with intuition, but this act of fixating a moment and state in time. I would rather play and dance with a stone, transform it, and have it transform me in a never-ending process. But of course, that is impossible. Otherwise, I could not act or make decisions.

Chapter  Has there ever been a phase in your life when you felt like you had lost your sense of wonder?

Fenna Kosfeld  No. I would say my sense of wonder has been the one constant, saviour, and driver that keeps me going. You could describe it as my inner child, which I refuse to stop nurturing just because societal or situational conventions might ask for it.

What I have lost at times is the will to make—to add more “stuff” to the world—and I have doubted whether making art is necessary at all. I think those questions are important, but they can also eat you from the inside and shush the inner child’s urge to understand and process simply by doing. That is what art is all about, I think. To relate and to reflect. So the wonder is never really lost, but external or mental circumstances can blur or numb it. That is why it is important to play and not take oneself too seriously.

Chapter  Would it be an oversimplification to say that in your work, the material itself is in control? More so than you are?

Fenna Kosfeld I think it is less about control and more about a dance or conversation. I choose a material for poetic and symbolic reasons, so of course the material has no choice. But rather than manipulating it into a seemingly perfect form, I prefer to trust the process of unfolding. The carbonized bones I currently work with, for instance, change in surface, shimmer, and shape depending on countless conditions inside the kiln. There are many approaches one can take within a practice. One more controlled approach would be to analyze those conditions, choose a desired outcome, and reproduce it. The other is to leave space for spontaneity, unfolding, and expression beyond my control. I switch between approaches as they reveal inherent tensions. But mostly, I am drawn to the latter. That is where it becomes interesting to me.

Chapter  Would you say that there is something ritualistic about the way you work with materials?

Fenna Kosfeld  Yes, but not in the sense of a religious or direct cultural reference. More in an energetic sense: collecting materials, listening to the life around me, making fire, observing transformation, the breathing in between. There is an act of honouring the presence and the moment of transformation. For me, that is meditative. It gives me a sense of connectivity, focus, and peace.

Chapter  What sparked off your interest in light in the first place?

Fenna Kosfeld  I have a strange relationship with light because I feel very sensitive towards it and very much enjoy the darkness or simply the absence of light. Nevertheless, I often find myself acting like a moth, constantly drawn towards light, curious about how it affects me physically and psychologically. Since I started making, I have incorporated light into my sculptural objects, often combining found branches from my forest journeys with simple LEDs. Looking back, I realize I was already interested in the relationship between matter and illumination long before I consciously understood it. When reading Louis I. Kahn’s book Silence and Light, I encountered the statement »Light is the Giver of Presence« in the context of architecture. That idea has stayed with me ever since. Light operates on a spectrum. It is functional, psychological, and aesthetic. For me, it has a spiritual, healing force.

Chapter  How do you know when a piece is finished—when there is nothing that can be added or taken away?

Fenna Kosfeld  When it becomes its own. There is a really interesting moment when sculpting, drawing, or crafting where something shifts from what I intend to do towards the intuition and character of the material itself. At some point, it no longer feels like me adding or taking away, but like an encounter with something beyond and other than myself. That is usually where I stop and pay attention to where this thing might want to go for itself. [SW]

»All true natural science is philosophy and all true philosophy is natural science,« Haeckel stated, thereby naming the ambitious philosophical and clear scientific claim that runs through his entire work. The logic of nature, which he understood as a coherent system whose forms emerge from evolution and kinship, was his preferred field of experimentation. In his introductory essay »Ernst Haeckel: Art Forms of Life,« zoologist and author Rainer Willmann describes Haeckel as a central figure of the 19th century who took up Darwin’s ideas, popularized them, and translated them into his own visually shaped worldview. His plates were meant to make connections comprehensible and visible and to trigger that »incredulous amazement at the beauty of natural objects« that Willmann describes as their lasting effect.

Born in Potsdam in 1834, Haeckel studied medicine and natural sciences, though it can be credibly claimed that his ambition hardly lay in a medical career. He scheduled his office hours from five to six in the morning, thus keeping the rest of the day free for zoological studies. A journey to Italy proved formative for him, where in 1859 he studied radiolarians in the Gulf of Messina. He drew the tiny single-celled organisms with their geometrically structured skeletons, as he wrote to his fiancée Anna Sethe, with »mathematical fidelity.« Already in these works, that connection of precision, systematics, and compositional sensibility emerged that would define his later plate works.

The 688-page volume guides readers through 450 reproductions from Haeckel’s monographs on said radiolarians, siphonophores, calcareous sponges, corals, medusae, and deep-sea organisms up to the Art Forms in Nature published between 1899 and 1904. The reproductions show his precise capture and deliberate ordering of structures. Symmetries are emphasized, bodies isolated, color values clarified, individual forms assembled into ornamental groups. Scientific illustration and artistic composition can hardly be separated. This keeps the images effective to this day, even where his research has been superseded.

In her essay »Ernst Haeckel and the Evolution of Modern Art,« Julia Voss traces the remarkable career of these motifs. Haeckel’s marine creatures, as she writes, left the book pages and found their way onto European facades, squares, stage curtains, and paintings. His forms were taken up by artists and designers such as René Binet, Émile Gallé, Gustav Klimt, Edvard Munch, Max Ernst, and Wassily Kandinsky—an unusually wide reach for scientific representations. On the internet, according to Voss, they ultimately went »viral.«

The proximity to Hilma af Klint (1862—1944) that Voss elaborates also gives Haeckel’s work an indirect contemporary relevance. The Swedish contemporary of Haeckel and pioneer of abstract painting remained largely unrecognized during her lifetime and is today celebrated as a groundbreaking artist of early abstraction. Currently, the Grand Palais in Paris is showing Hilma af Klint. Paintings for the Temple (1906—1915) , the first major solo exhibition of the Swedish artist in France. Voss brings both together through their shared interest in development, cell division, and the mutability of organic forms. While Haeckel understood the living as the result of a long evolutionary process, af Klint directed her gaze toward the futuristic potential of transformation and toward forms that might yet emerge.

In her 1907 painting »Group IV, No. 9. The Ten Largest, Old Age,« a large-format tempera work on paper mounted on canvas, a sequence of growth, division, and transformation unfolds against a flesh-colored ground. Cell-like structures develop into two rotating figures. The proximity to Haeckel’s embryos and organic basic forms, according to Voss, lies less in direct appropriation than in a shared thinking in development, transformation, and inner laws.

As an object, too, the volume continues this idea of system. The binding of the hardcover with slipcase appears like a natural history plate: organisms float on a light ground, strange and precise. Inside, large-format image plates, historical photographs, manuscript pages, and essays alternate. Its physical presence corresponds to the ambition not to reduce the diversity of life to a famous motif.

Yet serious contradictions also belong to Haeckel’s story. Accordingly, the view of him as a scientist and interpretive thinker remains critical. Willmann names his scientific errors, his racist hierarchizations, and his later nationalist statements as facts and without embellishment. The brilliant observer was countered by a thinker with considerable blind spots. This recognition does not diminish the formal power of his work, but it does prevent purely aesthetic veneration.

The Art and Science of Ernst Haeckel shows a researcher who sought to understand nature through drawing and in doing so created images that extended far beyond biology and scientific illustration. Their visual radiance remains palpable to this day. The comprehensive publication from TASCHEN opens an archive of seeing, filled with beauty, knowledge, error, and afterlife [Ed.]

The Art and Science of Ernst Haeckel
Hardcover in slipcase, 24.3 x 30.4 cm, 688 pages
taschen.com

The interaction between space, use, and perception shows how fragile identity can be. Spaces become projection surfaces upon which power relations, social dynamics, and cultural ideas are inscribed. Whether state representative buildings, artistic interventions, or pop-culture settings — spatial design shows that spaces ultimately carry no fixed meanings, but are mirrors of social interpretation.

In September, Das Feuilleton published an article about the Zurich Opera House. It described how, immediately after the first concert of the new season and just after the established premiere audience had left the hall later that evening, a large number of teenagers and young people flocked in, having been spontaneously invited right in front of the building. They strolled in amazement — »with backpacks or beer bottles in hand« — through the rows of red upholstery, lay and crouched on or in front of the stage, let their gazes wander relaxedly through the magnificent scenery, and listened attentively or even with enjoyment to what was offered to them quite spontaneously: six string players had gathered chairs in the center of the stage and were playing Schönberg. And then it continued: singing was added, other instruments. The unconventional night audience stayed, listened, and applauded. Everyone involved enjoyed it — and rightly so. Presumably, however, one or two readers of that article might have started to wonder, because this image did not correspond at all to the operatic nature of the architecture. The spaces of such an institution generally belong to a corresponding, type-specific audience — at least according to the cliché: culturally experienced, educated, well-mannered, and able to purchase the usually expensive tickets. An image that has remained surprisingly consistent since the emergence of the great opera houses in the 19th century, even if today’s programs have long strived for openness and diversity. This makes the question all the more exciting: what happens when such a space, shaped by inscribed identity, tradition, and etiquette, suddenly meets an audience that does not fulfill these expectations?
The space itself does not change physically by a single centimeter, yet this scratches at its operatic nature. The question remains: does architecture as an object, as real estate, possess anything like identity at all? And how flexible or fixed is it, despite even the most unpretentiously ambitious and multi-generational program? After all, Edgar Degas already emphasized that such a house should fundamentally be met with skepticism: »In the opera, everything is false […] Only the effects that emanate from it are true.«

When the Zurich Opera House spontaneously opened its doors to a young night audience after the 2025 opening concert, the encounter between magnificent architecture and an atypical audience showed how fragile the identity of a tradition-rich space can be — and how free its impact.

For us humans, identity is a very significant factor within our self-identification — and it provides orientation. In this respect, it is understandable that even our earliest ancestors went in search of their own self and personal localization. In the course of this cultural evolution, they discovered a special quality in their artifacts — their tools, clothes, or even huts. What they designed in the vast natural space solely for themselves as humans defined them; it became a tool for definition as an individual. We humans often merge in a veritable symbiosis with beloved or self-produced objects, with our homes or built spaces. Like Junichi Sampei‘s tower-like Cherry Blossom House in Tokyo, which gained its strange shape solely from the rapture of its owner. He desired to be able to look directly into the pink wonder from his living room at a height of seven meters during the few weeks of the cherry blossom magic, which is cultishly revered in Japan. That is why the building cantilevers as far as possible toward the tree.

From early on, humans sought self-localization through their artifacts and spaces — objects with which they often entered into an almost symbiotic relationship. A poetic example of this is architect Junichi Sampei’s tower-like Cherry Blossom House in Tokyo, whose extreme form follows solely the wish to experience the short flowering period directly from a height of seven meters.

As rarely as such direct personal expressions appear in architecture — scenography, by contrast, is an ideal medium for the fact that spatial designs, with their meaning, become almost exclusively what they are. As an example, reference is made to a sequence from Billy Wilder’s sarcastic comedy »The Apartment«: the camera looks, accompanied by the pressing clatter of calculating machines, into an open-plan office with countless desks and people — certainly one of the most impressive visualizations of modern white-collar life in the big city. The questions »Where am I?« and »Who am I?« correlate in the architecture of mass society. The film’s protagonist, Jack Lemmon alias C.C. Baxter, pushes himself every morning with thousands of identically dressed people out of the New York subway, with hundreds of the total 31,259 employees into the entrance of the insurance skyscraper, and then with a dozen of them into one of the 16 elevators. Shortly thereafter, all these employees on their floor, the 19th, between 48 identical pillars, at two hundred identical desks under four hundred ceiling lights, process the ever-same. Perfected standard, merciless order, eternal repetition — that is how the job works, that is how the office interior is designed, and in this mode, the white-collar workers, nameless to their company, live. Even if Wilder intended this as a thoroughly critical but authentic reflection of reality around 1960, we naturally experience an exaggeration of that situation in the film’s genre. The set design suggestively enlarges the space to increase the effect. The central perspective sucks you toward the back, which the film set trickily achieved with increasingly lower furniture and small-statured extras, as well as mirrors at the end of the room. In any case, it was imaginatively whispered to the people in the cinema: conformity shapes identity. And from this bitter insight, C.C. Baxter would then work his way out in the course of the story — hopefully.

For the Museum of Bavarian History, the Stuttgart agency jangled nerves developed an immersive museum-didactic film curated by Christoph Süß, which uses a purist station waiting room and sophisticated projection to turn architecture into a narrative space. The production draws the audience atmospherically into the 1920s and transforms the minimalist setting into a historical space of experience.

In film, architecture thus becomes a carrier of our reflection on the state of mind — sometimes sentimental, sometimes humorous, sometimes dramatic — and in this medial function, it is an extremely suitable means of making us think. This insight was utilized by the Stuttgart agency jangled nerves when they developed a museum-didactic film for the Museum of Bavarian History — curated by Christoph Süß. This immersive opportunity to directly encounter the 1920s offered a wonderfully purist setting as a communication level: a station waiting room. Architecturally, there is only a platform on which the actors perform, as well as a back wall and a few pieces of furniture. Nevertheless, the production manages to pull us atmospherically into the respective time, into a third-class and a first-class waiting room — solely through sophisticated projection and the people within it. One succumbs to the suggestion, standing as if on the edge of the stage oneself, and willingly lets oneself be drawn into the historical scenes, even though the studio reality was perceptible in the background. Obviously, we love the seduction of stories, where cleverly animated spaces guide us immensely helpfully. The architecture shown becomes our space.

The most intense personal engagement with our identity is certainly experienced in childhood. In this process, not only family and fellow human beings have a strong influence, but also the spaces and houses in which we live. One of the most impressive reflections of this developmental period in personal maturity is the artistic work of Gregor Schneider, who became famous for conceptually reworking his no longer used parental home in Rheydt, Lower Rhine — which he calls Haus u r — since 1985. At the age of sixteen, his father had made the 19th-century townhouse available to him for studio work. And since that time, Schneider has been in a symbiosis with the building: it stands there, on the street, quite normal, with its stories and its architecture, while its owner constantly rethinks it on the inside and continuously remodels it accordingly. This creates a complex, dynamically changing nesting in which rooms, walls, stairs, and windows within the outer walls configure into a situation that only hints at normal use but does not allow it. Copies of the former rooms appear, as well as disturbing non-spaces, anti-uses, perversions of normal residential architecture.

Since 1985, the artist Gregor Schneider has been transforming his parental home in Rheydt — the Haus u r — into a constantly changing architectural interior world in which rooms, walls, and paths merge into disturbing duplications and anti-spaces. In this obsessive engagement, the familiar parental home becomes at the same time a foreign body that repeatedly leads Schneider to the limits of his own identity and perception.

Anyone who has ever moved through one of his installations will never forget it — Schneider grabs you! Schneider himself sees it that way too: as early as 1998, he noted that everything had »taken on a life of its own.« »Because I spend most of my time here, I have to accept the rooms as they are, accept the most recently built room as an ordinary room.« The method of appropriation and engagement with what is, established as a teenager, created a probably unique connection with the structure. »As a sculptor, I am just as much at the mercy of my spaces as any visitor. The more I build on this Haus u r, the more unknown it becomes to me as well.« Although he is permanently in familiar surroundings, his almost obsessed preoccupation with it leads him into a desperate situation in which the parental home as such is increasingly lost. The coexistence with architecture does not seem to work particularly well for Gregor Schneider here.

In the work of Thomas Demand, a German artist colleague of Schneider’s of almost the same age, there is also a remarkable obsession with the engagement with spaces and their specific nature; he too pursues a strategy of transformation and representation, which, however, works in an emphatically indirect way. First, Demand usually photographs interior scenarios or living spaces, or uses press photos from, for example, real crime scene reports, which he then reconstructs in detail in the studio out of paper and cardboard. After completion, he photographs the models again — and only this photograph becomes the work of art on the museum wall. As an exhibition audience, however, we do not recognize at first glance that we are actually looking at a model. Inevitably, the famous question then arises to the artist: what is the point of all this effort? After all, a real architectural situation or a historical press photo already exists. A striking example is Demand’s »Oval Office Cycle,« from which the desk of then-US President George W. Bush graced the cover of the New York Times Magazine in November 2008. The artist creates — as Lars Blunck wrote — a kind of »fictional reality,« since ultimately everything we see is paper. In this transformation, a »picture about something« is created which, like a referent, is able to communicate certain aspects of the visualized to us. Unlike the usual reporting from the White House with people and actions around the president’s desk, this sterile-looking Demand space develops a surprisingly impersonal and statically state-like aura. Somehow routine, less powerful than usual.

But state architecture is actually supposed to be just that: powerful and thus also emotional. Ideally, it manages to make those represented by the institutions housed within it identify with the respective establishment. This requires symbols — like the flag next to the president’s desk, even if made of paper — and specific formal tactics. One of these public buildings of the highest formal significance in Germany is also one of the most conceptually exciting: the Berlin Federal Chancellery. Its architecture has mastered that delicate task set by the young reunified republic in the 1990s: the goal was to erect new state buildings in Berlin that promoted a democratic, open society and at the same time appeared with the typologically necessary monumentality without communicating obsolete messages or even dangerous authorities. While the court of honor with its flanking wings follows historical yet reservedly functional patterns, the central executive building with the main entrance takes over the show front. Although ten stories high, it shows only two levels, making all elements located there appear oversized. Symbolic »grandeur« results from architectural »size« — and this happens without having to resort to conventional symbolic vocabulary such as orders of columns, coats of arms, and eagles. Axel Schultes, the architect, wants to avoid the »stupidity of the facade« with his front designed in this way. The open, stage-set-like facade structure allows no immediate interpretation; it is not stylistically or iconologically readable like, for example, the imperial-era state architectures of the admittedly architecturally attractive Vienna Ringstraße. Here, in disparate Berlin, delusions of grandeur were driven out — despite the huge dimensions of the administrative system and the office building of the Federal Chancellery. New messages are required — sometimes clearer, sometimes more subtle. Here, civic duty stands above beauty, accessibility above hierarchy. So where and how is the Chancellor in this building? One could say: he is at work.

And now to the daring end of this little philosophical journey of thought — to two examples from Hollywood. Pointing out potentially recognizable formal-aesthetic parallels between Barbie’s Dream House and the Chancellery would be embarrassing — but it has now been done. Those who look closely will notice that beyond the comparable structural principles of a cubic skeleton construction in reinforced concrete, there is one decisive unique selling point for Barbie — the pink coloring. Decisive in that the Federal Republic existed even before the Schultes architecture, but Barbie’s World simply would not exist without that color. Of course, it only becomes truly tangible when children animate it through their imagination, which certainly also applies a little to entertainment-oriented adults. These have long been stuck in an easily accessible popular culture that — as Umberto Eco noted — »delivers the feelings it wants to trigger right along with it.« Director Greta Gerwig, in any case, was long an adult when she dealt with the figure and phenomenon of Barbie. Her successful film published in 2023 and its narrative play with this by providing the plastic-based doll world »Barbieland« with its own hermetic identity, in which everything is subject to an intrinsic logic — architecture, clothing, home accessories, and automobiles included. Through the actual breakout of Barbie and Ken into our human reality, to Los Angeles, the pink biotope becomes a factual secondary reality. Its plausibility finds support in the fact that when both realities merge in the fiction of the film, the action continues seamlessly in the authentic city of L.A. This brings us very close to Peter Weir’s complex reality in »The Truman Show.« Its plot takes place in a film set representing a small town, built as a TV backdrop in a hangar, which in the film forms the actual life of the main character Truman for decades. At the same time, this film set actually exists as the real seaside resort of Seaside in Florida. And this — created in the context of New Urbanism — was itself designed and built entirely in the spirit of a scenery. Its master plan strives to revive the values of traditional urban structures and forms lost in modernity. A projection perceived by the designers as legitimate and necessary, with the goal of allowing the people moving into the artificially created small-town paradise of Seaside to live more pleasantly, socially, and consciously. They should finally have the opportunity again to develop a feeling for the place in which they live and to identify with it emotionally. Whether such a form of life then really has to be pink in terms of construction or content, everyone can decide for themselves. As a summary, one could conclude to seek the positive, the diversity, and to engage consciously, openly and — speaking of opera! — perhaps even performatively with the so stimulatingly versatile aspects of identity and reality. One could creatively turn Adorno’s serious guiding principle around for this and simply claim: there is a right life in the wrong one!

FIRST PUBLISHED IN CHAPTER №XIII »IDENTITY« — WINTER 2025/26

Chapter Coseincorso translates local histories into furniture, objects and accessories. How do you decide which stories are worth carrying forward through design?

Coseincorso We think a story earns its place when it carries something unresolved—something that hasn’t fully found its form yet. We’re drawn to places where history left a fracture, or that hold something hidden: a way of life interrupted, a knowledge almost lost, a landscape that changed so radically that the people living in it had to reinvent themselves entirely.

»The Memory Stool«, »The Axis Table« and »The Flare Lamp« (2026)
from the new Anàphora collection, handcrafted in Italy.

Our last collection, Anàphora, for example, was about Lake Fucino in Abruzzo: in the 19th century, an entire lake was drained by a prince’s ambition. The fishermen who had lived by its rhythms overnight became farmers. That loss—of water, of memory, of identity—is the kind of tension we look for.

Chapter Is there a particular moment or circumstance that usually sets a new project in motion for you?

Coseincorso It often starts with a small trip, and then the urgency to discover a story and translate it into something tangible arrives on its own. We began our studio during the pandemic, in a period of forced stillness that gave us time to look more carefully at the places we were already inhabiting. We discovered the béguinages of northern Europe—communities of women who invented a way of living that was both spiritual and economic at once. That isolation and that independent way of living felt deeply connected to us at that moment.

»The Axis Table«, 2026

With the Fucino, instead, we drove through what is now one of the most industrialized agricultural plains in central Italy. From the plain, you understand that a vast lake must have been there once. That disconnection between what you’re seeing and what you know must have existed—that’s what led us to translate the feeling into a narrative form.

Chapter You work closely with artisans and remain attentive to the origins of materials. What metaphysical role does this physical, hands-on process play in shaping an object?

Coseincorso The hand is where intention becomes real. We always start with drawings and prototypes, then we work through the process together with the artisan. Castelli—a small mountain village in our region—was the pharmaceutical pottery capital of Renaissance Italy. They produced jars for apothecaries and kings, and their craftspeople are still faithfully reproducing those same gestures five centuries later. Working with those ceramists for our Apothecary collection was exactly what we’re after: the moment when making and meaning become the same thing, and the story lives inside the material rather than being attached to it from outside.

Chapter What do you believe is the most important mindset a designer needs in order to create work that feels authentic beyond mere aesthetic refinement?

Coseincorso For us, the starting point is never »what should this look like?« but »what is this place, this material, this practice actually asking of us?« Aesthetics emerge from that listening—and often translate into a genuine connection between us and our artisans.

»The Ember Tray«, 2026; metal bowl and candle holder— »two elements / one ritual.«

We also think authenticity requires a kind of resistance to speed. We both have an introverted side that leads us to step back from time to time in order to work and reflect. In a world saturated with images and trends, clarity comes from withdrawing enough to hear what actually matters to you—not what the moment demands.

Chapter If design has the ability to preserve memories, places and gestures, what do you hope people encounter through your work in their own space?

Coseincorso We think of our work as existing at the intersection of museum and home, function and ritual. What we hope people feel is both the texture of the hand and a sense of poetry behind it—the sense that an object holds a past they can’t quite name. Not because we’ve explained it to them, but because the form itself carries it.

»The Mirror of Simple Souls« was our first object, and mirrors are at the heart of our practice—not only as a recurring form across our collections, but as a symbol of what we’re trying to do. Every piece asks you to look at yourself in relation to something larger, something older.
If someone lives alongside one of our pieces and occasionally wonders about it, that’s enough. Memory doesn’t have to be explicit to be felt. [Ed.]

The recent work of Los Angeles–based photographer Eloise Hess revolves around memory, perception, and the fragility of holding on. Personal and intimate, it asks what an image can reveal when memory begins to falter—and how photography, between intention and chance, forms its own kind of truth.

Chapter In your series Second Hand (2024) and Early Morning Tomorrow (2025), you worked together with your father Charles Hess. What motivated you to explore that collaboration?

Eloise Hess My father has Early-Onset Alzheimer’s. We’re seven years since his diagnosis and longer since the onset of his symptoms. Early in the disease he carried this insistent yearning to photograph everything. This centered the question of photography—why? As the disease progressed, he struggled to use the camera. He pointed the camera in the wrong direction, against his intention. When the photograph misses the photographer’s intention, why then? The act superseded the outcome. We found ways to take photographs together, adapting the process as his abilities changed. In what became Second Hand, I wound the film and helped him find the button on the camera, he pointed the camera and pressed the button. Sometimes he framed the picture with his hands, as if holding the camera, and I shot the picture he held. Then he could no longer find or press the button, nor hold the imagined camera in his hands. In what became Early Morning Tomorrow, he held and pointed the camera in the direction he wanted to photograph, or in a direction unintended, and I shot the picture through his viewfinder. These are not necessarily the photographs he would have taken on his own, nor the photographs he intended to take. They’re as determined by my aim as by the discomfort I felt in our two-person act. Our collaboration began when it felt called for, and ended when it was clear it should. In a wider sense it continues.

»2.27«, 2025 | Early Morning Tomorrow

»4.27«, 2025 | Early Morning Tomorrow

»19.27«, 2025 | Early Morning Tomorrow

Chapter In this context, how has the experience of creating this work shaped the way you think about memory and impermanence—themes often associated with age and reflection?

Eloise Hess The experience of this disease, alongside making this work, has taught me an enormous amount about the function of memory and the actuality of impermanence. As I’ve seen, when memory fails, the sense of self begins to unravel. This can be wildly painful, and also profound. Memory helps us organize our experience as our experience exceeds our capacity to contain it. It helps us to stabilize the through-line that constitutes our sense of self. Photography can be used as a tool in this construction; it often is. We often take photographs to remember our experiences—and we often remember best the ones that have been photographed. But a photograph is a cut, a limited kind of intake, a limited kind of output, cut from the whole. It can be used to close down memory, to align it with expectation—or to open up memory, to imbue it with speculation. It is a cut of the actual—made more permanent than the moment it records and the moments that surround it, yet just as partial as the moment it records and as permeable to the impressions upon it. I’m interested in a photography that reckons with this position between persistence and instability, index and impressionability.

»21.27«, 2025 | Early Morning Tomorrow

»23.27«, 2025 | Early Morning Tomorrow

Chapter More generally, what place does vulnerability hold in your artistic practice?

Eloise Hess I’m hesitant to use the word vulnerability, which comes from the word wound. I’m concerned with receptivity. Receptivity includes vulnerability, at times. To maintain receptivity means to churn through and make form of whatever comes through, however it comes. There is what compels me to make and what compels me while making, a passive and active attunement. When I feel compelled to make, it’s difficult not to try to resurrect just what compelled me to make initially, but while making, to be compelled again, differently than initially, to maintain responsiveness throughout.

»Sky Clad«, 2025 | Picture a Train

»Ledges«, 2025 | Picture a Train

Chapter You describe your work as being about the act rather than the outcome, emerging from gestures rather than observations. From your perspective, what does the process of making reveal that you can’t access through the finished image?

Eloise Hess I may have been speaking, as I said earlier, of the act of photographing superseding the outcome of the photograph. That was a lesson in that collaboration. But I don’t mean to pose the act against the outcome, or the making against the finished work. The finished work holds the entire process of making it; the act is inseparable from the outcome. The process of making reveals lots of »not it« that you can’t access through the finished work because they’re not in it. The »not its« include the photographs I don’t print, the prints I don’t choose. I make dozens more prints per painting than are included in the finished painting, and sometimes scrape off and re-make the same painting on the same panel many times over. All the »not its« help me find what it is. I spend much more time with the work in process than with the finished work. But a lot happens with the finished work beyond my making it. There is the process of the viewer, maybe many, whose experience I cannot know but which meets mine somewhere with the object.

FIRST PUBLISHED IN CHAPTER №XIII »IDENTITY« — WINTER 2025/26

The tapestry, conceived as a practical object to warm floors, structure rooms, or insulate walls, has for centuries transcended its seemingly everyday purpose, assuming a second existence as a work of art. Within it, craftsmanship, visual language, and cultural memory condense into a compositional unity that extends far beyond its utilitarian function.
In the work of Jean Lurçat, the most influential textile artist of the 20th century, the tapestry likewise exceeds its original role: at once material and metaphor, surface and narrative space—a textile image poised between utility and aesthetic significance. In this dual role—as both handcrafted object and medium of symbolic imagination—lies the foundation upon which Lurçat built his radical renewal of tapestry.

Born in Bruyères in 1892 and deceased in Saint-Paul-de-Vence in 1966, Jean Lurçat was active during his lifetime as a painter, ceramist, and tapestry weaver, among other things. Before dedicating himself entirely to art, he actually studied medicine at the Université de Nancy. However, after barely three years, he transferred to Victor Prouvé’s studio, also in Nancy, and subsequently continued his artistic education at the Académie Colarossi in Paris. From 1919 onwards, Lurçat increasingly emerged as an independent artist and began to establish himself as a painter and graphic artist in the French art scene.
Influenced by the decorative practices of the École de Nancy and his teacher Victor Prouvé, father of Jean Prouvé and a leading figure of this collective art movement, Lurçat came into early contact with the central principle of Art Nouveau, that art and craft are inextricably linked. However, his inclination towards the textile medium did not arise solely from this environment but was also—as many biographies emphasize—shaped by a personal experience: in 1917, his mother embroidered a small Gobelin tapestry based on one of his designs.

While works such as »Filles Vertes« (»Green Girls«, 1917) and »Soirée dans Grenade« (»Evening in Granada«, 1917), and later »Le Cirque« (»The Circus«, approx. 1922) and »Les Arbres« (»The Trees«, approx. 1924), demonstrate that he designed small-format, sometimes decorative tapestries early on and continuously created experimental textile works in parallel with his painting, which were executed in weaving and embroidery workshops, it was not until the 1930s that he primarily dedicated himself to tapestry weaving.
In the 1920s and early 1930s, Lurçat initially worked primarily as a painter, maintained a lively social life, and moved in circles of important personalities of his time, including Rainer Maria Rilke, Hermann Hesse, and Ferruccio Busoni. In the early 1920s, he met the French gallerist, collector, and art patron Marie Cuttoli, through whose initiative and support several small-format tapestries were already created based on his designs. Driven by the idea of dissolving the boundaries between fine and applied arts, Cuttoli presented innovative textile works alongside fine art in her gallery Myrbor in Paris. In line with her ambition to transfer modern art into textiles, she commissioned contemporary artists, including Picasso, Braque, Le Corbusier, and Léger, with designs that were subsequently realized as tapestries. As part of this project, in 1933, a tapestry based on a Lurçat design was produced for the first time in Aubusson, the traditional center of French tapestry weaving—the tapestry titled »L’Orage« (»The Storm«, 1933).
The execution of the work was still based on classical, painterly cartoons and without the new structure he later developed, but it marked the beginning of a fruitful collaboration with the traditional workshops in Aubusson—a collaboration that became the decisive prerequisite for the precise implementation of his conceptual and technical innovations in the following years.

IMMANENT SPARK

A first milestone on his now unstoppable path to becoming a central representative of modern tapestry art was his first major commission, »Illusions d’Icare« (»The Illusions of Icarus«, 1936), in 1936. The large-format work was commissioned by the French state and subsequently woven at the Manufacture des Gobelins, which has served as a state manufactory for the execution of tapestries for public buildings, museums, and state collections since the 17th century.
However, the decisive change of course in his work, which ultimately led to the revival and redefinition of tapestry as an independent, contemporary art form, was his encounter with the »Apocalypse of Angers« at the Château d’Angers in 1937, a 14th-century tapestry described on the official museum website of the Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine as »déterminante« for his later textile work.
While tapestry had, for centuries since the Renaissance and Baroque, become a woven painting—characterized by designs in the form of illusionistic, painterly executed cartoons and nuanced color transitions—the textile clarity of the Middle Ages had largely been forgotten. With its clear contours, reduced colors, and great symbolic directness, Lurçat recognized in the medieval »Apocalypse of Angers« that tapestry does not have to be a painterly imitation, but can be an independent medium with a visual language developed from weaving techniques.

From this realization, that tapestry possesses its true strength in a visual language developed from weaving techniques, Lurçat derived his conceptual and technical reorientation: the radical reduction of the color palette, a numbered color code, and the abandonment of painterly designs in favor of strictly structured black-and-white cartoons, which gave clear instructions to the executing weavers and at the same time allowed him more control over the result. Thus, for the first time, tapestries were created that were no longer designed from the logic of painting, but again from their textile logic. Lurçat’s newly understood, profound view of textile material is described by Martine Mathias in the catalog for the exhibition Jean Lurçat — Master of French Modernism (Kunsthalle Talstraße, Halle/Saale, 2016) with the statement that it is above all the »intelligence of matter« that makes it possible to understand the quality of Lurçat’s tapestry weaving.

His artistic attitude, shaped by this idea of intelligent matter—a kind of energetic signature expressed in structures, rhythms, and forms—is based on the recognition and respect for the inherent life of the material, which he does not bypass but consciously reveals. This perspective, as Mathias notes, is rooted in his comprehensive humanistic education and his familiarity with ancient writings such as those of the Roman philosopher and poet Lucretius, whose De rerum natura (»On the Nature of Things«, 1st century BC) describes matter as a living reality permeated by inner forces. Mathias underscores this assumption with a quote that aptly summarizes Lurçat’s attitude: »Anyone who tries to subjugate the spirit of matter in wall tapestries behaves like a child.«
Following the inner logic of textiles, the tapestry thus becomes not merely a carrier of an image, but an organic medium in which this hidden energy becomes visible. For Lurçat, the threads form a poetic fabric in which the »spiritual« dimension of the world materializes. Already in the 1940s, works such as »La Grande Menace« (»The Great Threat«, 1940) and the eight-part, most symbolically dense group of works from the war years, »Constellations« (»Constellations«, approx. 1940-1945), make matter visually tangible as an energetic field, combining natural forms, signs, and rhythms into a metaphysical pictorial world.

DISSOLUTION OF THE WORLD

With the outbreak of the Second World War, global reality entered a phase of devastating political, social, and cultural upheavals, accompanied by the decomposition of all morality. Jean Lurçat, who had experienced the First World War as a soldier and survived it severely wounded, developed a lifelong sensitivity to the destructive forces of war. In the Second World War, in the Lot department—a region in southwestern France strongly influenced by the Resistance, where many intellectuals found refuge—he joined the circle of Resistance-affiliated artists such as Louis Aragon, Elsa Triolet, Jean Cassou, and Pierre Seghers, who opposed the Vichy regime and the occupation.
His tapestries from these years—such as »Les Vapeurs« (»The Vapors«, 1943), »Les Eaux« (»The Waters«, 1943), or »De natura solari rerum« (»On the Solar Nature of Things«, 1943), and later also »Liberté« (»Freedom«, 1945), »Avec la France dans les Bras« (»With France in its Arms«, 1945) and »La Naissance du Lansquenet« (»The Birth of the Landsknecht«, 1944)—process these experiences as moral-cosmic statements: powerful, often subversive depictions that accuse war, oppression, and collaboration, while also formulating a vision of human dignity, spiritual freedom, and renewal. In these works, man usually appears as a vulnerable but conscious being, embedded in a web of natural forces, cosmic signs, and political threat—a fragile figure exposed to the violence of war and yet remaining a bearer of human dignity and inner freedom.

As Martine Mathias emphasizes in the exhibition catalog Jean Lurçat — Master of French Modernism (Kunsthalle Talstraße, Halle/Saale, 2016), this depiction fundamentally shifts during this period, which shaped him both personally and artistically: the human figure gradually recedes until it completely disappears in many of his later works. Its place is taken by cosmic rhythms, plants, animals, stars, fire, and light—symbols of a broader world structure that increasingly interested Lurçat. This slow disappearance of the explicit human form from his works does not indicate indifference, but a shift in perspective. Man becomes a small part of a larger, energetic context, in which nature and cosmos themselves become the actual visual language.

A POETIC UNIVERSE

In Lurçat’s work, a development now becomes increasingly clear, culminating in an ethereal dimension. His modern interpretation of the aether—that fifth element quinta essentia postulated by Aristotle, whose physical reality has long been disproven, but whose poetic power endures—understands it as an immanent spark connecting nature, man, and cosmos.
A symbolic language used in this sense, Mathias writes, appears from the mid-1950s onwards, for example, in the use of zodiac signs, which he integrated into his visual world as a metaphorical principle. Stars and constellations appear not as astronomical facts, but as signs of a deeper connection, as luminous nodes of a living structure useful for practical guidance and emotional orientation for humanity. As an example, she describes the ninth scene, »Poésie« (»Poetry«, 1961), from his monumental cycle »Chant du Monde« (»Song of the World«, 1957—1966), in which Lurçat depicts an archer, accompanied by the retinue of zodiac signs and a sun symbol with a human face—an ancient but still fruitful poetic method of shaping space and time through celestial signs.
In the first eight tapestries of the cycle, the cycle unfolds a narrative movement ranging from the primordial forces of the world to its threats: »Le Feu« (»The Fire«, 1957), »L’Eau« (»The Water«, 1958), »Les Arbres« (»The Trees«, 1958), and »Les Grands Champs« (»The Great Fields«, 1959) form the prelude to an elemental natural order, while »La Grande Menace« (»The Great Threat«, design 1940 / revised version 1959), »Les Illusions d’Icare« (»The Illusions of Icarus«, 1960), »La Conquête l’Espace« (»The Conquest of Space«, 1961), and »La Fin de Tout« (»The End of Everything«, 1962) illustrate the tensions, dangers, and upheavals of this world.

Lurçat calls the cycle, as Mathias notes, »table des matières d’une existence« (table of contents of an existence), and this, according to her, connects to his explicit will to »intellectually grasp the world and human destiny.« Created over a tireless creative period spanning almost a decade and woven in the traditional workshops of Aubusson, »Chant du Monde« is considered his magnum opus and comprises ten monumental tapestries with a total area of approximately 500 square meters, which are now preserved in the Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine in Angers. His monumental masterpiece tells a modern, cosmic creation story in which the cosmos appears as a living organism permeated by inner forces—a universe of stars, plants, animals, radiations, and energy fields that, despite being threatened by war and destruction, still understands humanity as part of a larger, luminous order.
The tenth scene, »Ornamentos Sagrados« (»Sacred Ornaments«, 1966), was completed after his death, and what remains is the epochal (life’s) work of an exceptional artist, in which Jean Lurçat’s inner worldview, his tireless creative spirit, and his identity as an artist and human being of his time are not merely laid over the fabric, but inscribed into the intelligence of the fiber of his matter.

FIRST PUBLISHED IN CHAPTER №XIII »IDENTITY« — WINTER 2025/26

Jungjin Lee‘s photographs seem to exist in a space between matter and spirit, where landscape becomes a mirror of inner perception. The South Korean artist transforms personal moments in nature into universally resonant meditations on time and silence. In conversation with Chapter, she reflects on the balance between control and surrender—and how harmony emerges between the self and the natural world.

Chapter  Your images seem to blur presence and absence—what does the idea of identity mean to you in the context of your work?

Jungjin Lee  When inspiration arises in the landscape, it is a moment when my spiritual presence aligns with the subject. This experience goes beyond thought and is difficult to explain in words. I see the act of visualizing the energy inherent in nature as a way to express not only my identity, but the universal truths of human emotion. The Taoist idea of selflessness—letting go of the ego and becoming one with nature—is a fundamental concept I pursue throughout my process. While my images may appear ambiguous, the emotions they convey are clear. During photographing and printing, I focus entirely on my own feelings, yet I do not consider the work as a direct reflection of my personal identity. Instead, my photographs carry the »breath« of human existence, which I see as the power of art. I have observed that viewers often encounter their own inner emotions through the work rather than mine.

Everglades #11, 2014-15

Chapter  Many of your images seem to hold time still, yet they are deeply infused with change—weather, erosion, light. How do you think about time not only as a subject, but as a collaborator in your process?

Jungjin Lee  Weather and light are always essential elements in landscape photography. In my work, light itself often becomes the source of inspiration, almost as if the image is drawn by it. The sense of time in my photographs leans more toward duration than fleeting moments. Although the images may appear frozen, they are not static; they suggest a timeless state—a presence that unfolds as the viewer engages with the work. I see this as an energy beyond time and space, subtle yet palpable. When I photograph, it is crucial for me to empty my thoughts and surrender to the subject and to nature. Rather than imposing myself, I attempt to read what is already present. It is not a collaboration with nature in the conventional sense, but an acknowledgment that I can express only as deeply as I am able to receive what nature reveals.

Opening #13, 2015-16

Chapter  Your compositions are oftentimes pared down to essentials—silence, texture, tone—yet they feel emotionally vast. What emotional space do you hope the viewer inhabits when encountering your work?

Jungjin Lee  The printing process in my studio is as important to me as the act of photographing itself. Through printing on hanji, I work to amplify simplicity and abstraction, attending carefully to the texture of the paper and the depth of tonal expression. The philosophy of yeobaek—the presence of space—emerges naturally both in photographing and in printing. »Emptiness« is not »nothing«, but an infinite expanse of another dimension. I hope my work is experienced not merely with the eyes, but with the mind. It is my intention to convey the quiet awareness I feel before the subject. In this way, viewers often encounter their own inner state rather than the narrative of the artist. I describe this as the condition of human existence, a quality revealed only in works that have reached their fullest realization.

Opening #01, 2015-16

Chapter What personal source of inspiration has remained almost inexhaustible for you as an artist over the years?

Jungjin Lee It is solitude and nature. Solitude has allowed me to live as an artist, while nature embraces that absolute solitude. In nature, I realize that the solitude I have known is not merely a personal feeling, but the essence of human inner being. In the moments when I am absorbed in photographing, that solitude transforms into a sense of fullness through the presence of the subject. I feel as though I become part of nature—those are my happiest moments. In this sense, the camera becomes a profound instrument that mirrors my inner being in the objects and scenes I encounter.

Everglades #01, 2014-15

FIRST PUBLISHED IN CHAPTER №XIII »IDENTITY« — WINTER 2025/26

The first analytical entry point is provided by Uli Sigg’s essay »An Outsized Appetite for Risk«. The Swiss collector and long-time observer of the Chinese art scene describes Ai Weiwei as an artist who consciously takes risks—both aesthetically and politically. Sigg traces how, from his early years in New York’s East Village to his internationally renowned installations, Ai Weiwei developed a practice in which art is understood as a social situation. Projects such as »Fairytale« at Documenta 12, for which 1,001 people from China were invited to Kassel, demonstrate how Ai Weiwei turns encounters between people, cultures, and political realities into the very material of his art.

The book is supported by insightful essayistic approaches and a chronological chapter structure that traces Ai Weiwei’s development over several decades: from the years 1983–1993 in New York to his return to Beijing (1993–1999) and the political and artistic projects of the 2000s. These stages mark biographical phases as well as the increasing intertwining of art, public debate, and political reality in Ai Weiwei’s work.

This historical contextualization is followed by Roger M. Buergel’s essay »The Mediator’s Ways«, which interprets Ai Weiwei’s practice from an art-historical perspective. Buergel describes the artist as a mediator between cultural systems, historical materials, and political contexts. One example is the installation »Template«, shown at Documenta 12 in Kassel in 2007. The structure, built from historical door and window frames, partially collapsed during a storm—an event Ai Weiwei did not view as a failure, but accepted as part of the work. For Buergel, this reveals a central principle of Ai Weiwei’s practice: art remains an open process that includes chance, time, and social dynamics.

The later chapters of the volume follow Ai Weiwei’s work through the politically charged years after 2008—from his investigation into the victims of the Sichuan earthquake to his detention in 2011 and the international exhibitions and film projects that followed. At this point, Alfred Weidinger’s essay »Against the Walls—Ai Weiwei and the Right to Visibility« comes into focus, concentrating primarily on works from the 2010s onward. Weidinger shows how, after his imprisonment, Ai Weiwei developed a new phase in his practice in which questions of visibility, control, and the public sphere became central. Projects such as »@Large« on Alcatraz, installations like »Law of the Journey«, or the large-scale intervention »Good Fences Make Good Neighbors« in New York demonstrate how Ai Weiwei translates global issues such as migration, surveillance, and political freedom into spatial and visual structures.

Weidinger particularly emphasizes how Ai Weiwei integrates new media and digital platforms into his artistic practice. Photography, film, and social media become instruments through which political reality is documented and simultaneously reflected upon artistically. Works such as the film »Human Flow« or image series from refugee camps show how closely personal observation, documentary practice, and political intervention are intertwined.

What emerges is a publication from the house of TASCHEN, oversized not only in its physical form but also in its scope and intellectual depth. Moving beyond the framework of a conventionally closed monograph, it presents itself as a complex portrait of an artist while leaving space for a future in which his work continues to evolve—biographically, art-historically, and politically. A book that, with foresight, makes Ai Weiwei’s positions visible: art as a medium through which individual experience, historical memory, and global conflicts come into view. [Ed.]

Ai Weiwei. Updated Edition
25 x 33.4 cm, 4.03 kg, 736 pages
taschen.com

]]> https://chapter.digital/en/art-innenkreis-new-design-gallery-in-copenhagen/ Thu, 05 Mar 2026 10:44:40 +0000 https://chapter.digital/innenkreis/ On 19 March 2026, Innenkreis opens in Copenhagen as a new gallery that deliberately places contemporary functional works in dialogue with historical positions of the decorative arts created before 1940. The inaugural exhibition, »Raiments,« presents the work of Danish designer Lærke Ryom, whose practice is defined by a material-driven, craft-based approach to furniture. With this concept, founder Zeynep Rekkali Jensen connects contemporary design positions with historical references, establishing a curatorial framework that understands functional objects as part of an ongoing cultural dialogue. In conversation with Chapter, she discusses the idea behind the gallery, her curatorial perspective, and broader questions of how design and craft can be communicated today.

Chapter  What led you to the curatorial idea of placing contemporary functional works in dialogue specifically with pre-1940 decorative arts?

Zeynep Rekkali Jensen  For me, integrating historical works felt more honest. In real life, our homes are never purely contemporary or purely historical. So curating a strictly contemporary environment felt slightly artificial to me, almost like pretending objects exist outside the flow of time.
The choice of pre-1940 decorative arts was deliberate. These objects reflect a moment before industrial standardization dominated design and before ornament was vilified by modernism. Decorative elements, especially figurative ones, were still natural and coveted. I love that. I want to see Goddess Artemis with her crescent crown on objects around me. For me, objects that allow us to feel something, not only to use them efficiently, are vital.

Additionally, the world already has exceptional mid-century and late 20th-century design specialists, so I did not feel drawn to that canon. Instead, my aim was to contribute more poetry.
When I choose the historical pieces, I prioritize those that clarify and reinforce the exhibition’s conceptual theme, connect the narrative, or introduce a timeless, visionary design perspective.
For example, the armchair by Anton Pospischil was exhibited at the MAK in Vienna in 1902. I like to remember that our work now is not entirely new. Designers in the past also worked at the edge of their time, with skill, vision, and patience. It is humbling and inspiring.

Chapter  Would you say the placement of contemporary works alongside historical pieces such as Josef Hoffmann’s nesting tables or a Gio Ponti lamp shapes the way viewers engage with the objects—and encourages the slower looking that craft-based work requires? And more broadly, how do you approach cultural mediation in a time of shrinking attention spans and a culture increasingly experienced through screens?

Zeynep Rekkali Jensen  I don’t think of it as fighting against shrinking attention spans, but rather creating the conditions for attention to return. The gallery space is intentionally calm, and I’m very invested in the meeting point between craft and conceptual thinking.
Craft-based objects retain a quality that cannot be digitized: their weight, texture, and presence. The conceptual narrative of the exhibition, the craft processes, and the dialogue with historical pieces all mediate the work for the viewer.
The historical objects serve as anchors in the room, establishing continuity amid a culture that moves rapidly from one image or trend to the next. Their presence, shaped by time, shifts the atmosphere and slows the experience, emphasizing a connection between past and present.

Chapter  Why did you choose Lærke Ryom’s exhibition Raiments as the opening show for Innenkreis? What made her practice the right starting point for the gallery?

Zeynep Rekkali Jensen  Textiles can appear gentle at first glance, but the decisions behind them are extremely technical. That tension, softness that is actually structural, feels very much like the spirit of Innenkreis.
What I admire about Lærke is that she is both an impeccable designer and a deeply committed craftsperson. When you sit in her pieces, you immediately feel how carefully they are designed. They are incredibly comfortable, which places them within that Scandinavian tradition of thoughtful, human-centered design.
She pushes that tradition further. In this exhibition, every piece is hand-stitched. This creates a completely different rhythm of making.

Chapter  Ryom speaks of »dressing« furniture rather than upholstering it, allowing materials to drape naturally rather than forcing them into rigid forms. Would you say this approach reflects a more co-creative relationship between material, craft, and function in contemporary design culture?

Zeynep Rekkali Jensen  Yes, absolutely. Lærke references philosopher Michel Serres’s notion of hospitality as mutual transformation. To host is to accept change. In her work, the furniture frame becomes a host. It offers structure and support while letting go of control. What emerges through that negotiation is an object formed through care rather than command, where softness is an ethical refusal of control. This refusal challenges the hierarchies inherited from functionalist modernism, in which structure was privileged as truth and softness was pushed aside as decoration. [Ed.]

Since its opening in 2001, the Leopold Museum has played a pivotal role in bringing the forward-looking, experimental spirit of Vienna’s turn of the century to life—not as a singular, archived moment consigned to the past, but as an enduring cultural point of reference. Founded by the Austrian art collector, ophthalmologist, and patron Rudolf Leopold (1925–2010), the museum remains consistently devoted to the art and culture of around 1900. With its extensive collection—including major works by Egon Schiele, Gustav Klimt, and Oskar Kokoschka—it has established itself as one of the leading institutions dedicated to the presentation of Viennese Modernism.

By continually reimagining its permanent exhibition, »Vienna 1900—Birth of Modernism,« the museum repeatedly succeeds in framing the aesthetic, social, and design impulses of the era within a contemporary context, offering ever-new perspectives. On display are masterpieces from the Leopold Museum’s collection alongside significant national and international long-term loans, through which the radical energy of the past resonates and the emergence of modernity around 1900 appears remarkably relevant today.

Armchair for the Purkersdorf Sanatorium by Koloman Moser;
Executed by: Prag-Rudniker, workshop: Jakob Soulek (carpenter), 1903

How this formative turning point found expression is explored in the exhibition catalogue, which characterizes the heterogeneous milieu of the Danube metropolis as a »central engine of a turbulent movement of renewal«—one that created fertile ground for an extraordinary concentration of cultural achievement. Names such as Klimt, Freud, and Loos have long stood, requiring little explanation, as synonymous with groundbreaking innovations across a wide spectrum of modern disciplines. Vienna’s multilayered identity, shaped by movements such as the Secession and the Wiener Werkstätte, continues to inform contemporary debates on craftsmanship, materiality, and the role of art in society.

The world-famous group portrait of the artists participating in the 14th Exhibition of the Vienna Secession, including Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Josef Hoffmann and Carl Moll, photographed by Moriz Nähr, 1902

»Ver Sacrum. Theseus and Minotaur.« — poster by Gustav Klimt for the 1st Art Exhibition of the Association of Austrian Artists, Secession. Condition before censorship, 1898

The applied arts played a central role in realizing the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk—a term denoting the aspiration to infuse all areas of life with art, which in the age of social media might most closely correspond to the overused word »curate«. The distinction, however, lies in the ambition to create an aesthetically and conceptually self-contained whole, one that transcends dull replicability and fleeting immediacy—the logic of the »copy-and-paste-taste«.

In this context, the attentive and discerning eye will have noticed that the »Hoffmann Chair«—a label commonly applied regardless of the specific model—has, in many a carefully curated feed, been reduced to a conspicuously deployed prop, intended to signal stylistic confidence, mask mediocrity, and assert distinction »from the rest«. Yet it is worth noting, positively, that furniture from the turn of the century continues to strike a chord today, capable of evoking the atmosphere of that vibrant era—which is precisely where the exhibition’s true strength resides.

»Vienna 1900—Birth of Modernism« lays bare the foundations from which many of today’s trends and debates first emerged. Rather than concentrating on singular iconic figures, the presentation opens up a perspective on the complexity of an era in transition, whose energy continues to resonate to this day.

In keeping with this understanding of modernity as an enduring impulse that extends beyond Vienna, the Leopold Museum is also presenting a comprehensive retrospective, »GUSTAVE COURBET—Realist and Rebel« (19.02.2026—21.06.2026). With Courbet, the focus shifts to an artist who—much like the protagonists of Vienna’s turn of the century—challenged conventions and insisted upon artistic autonomy. The exhibition thus consistently aligns with the museum’s programmatic aim of revealing moments of upheaval in art history as living, ongoing impulses. [Ed.]

Vienna 1900. Birth of Modernism
560 pages 23.5 x 28 cm
1000 illustrations
leopoldmuseum.org

Architecture by Herzog & de Meuron

The architecture of »Calder Gardens« was designed by the Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron, known for its context-sensitive cultural buildings. The renowned architectural practice keeps the design restrained, framing the art in a calm, carefully structured setting. Partially embedded in the ground, the structure develops along the property in horizontal sequences.

The architecture remains deliberately low and opens up to the landscape, rather than separating itself from it. In response to the kinetic and static quality of Calder’s sculptures, a sequence of spatial situations emerges, characterized by differently proportioned rooms, varying ceiling heights, and strategically placed daylight openings. Materials and surfaces are subtly chosen, directing focus to the form, movement, and scale of the sometimes larger-than-life sculptures.

Landscape Design by Piet Oudolf

Piet Oudolf, one of the most influential landscape designers of our time, was entrusted with the design of the landscape for »Calder Gardens«. His concept is based on a multi-layered planting of perennials, grasses, and woody plants, used as compositional elements that change with the rhythm of the seasons. Movement—one of the central principles of Alexander Calder’s mobiles—is created here by wind, light, growth, and change.

Oudolf’s overall overview of the planting concept for the «Calder Gardens» site, with color coding for plant selection as a reference; the drawing shows various planting concepts for the different areas of the landscape and their connection to each other.

Like Calder’s sculptures, which remain in a constant, never identical state due to air movement, gravity, and balance, the landscape is also designed as a dynamic system. More than 250 plant species form a living structure in which processes of becoming, passing, and renewal become visible. Calder’s statement »The universe is real, but you can’t see it. You have to imagine it.« can be read in this context as a unifying idea: perception is active and only unfolds in the interplay of space, time, and imagination.

Calder in his Roxbury studio, 1941.

In the garden spaces, designed as open structures, the sculptures do not appear as isolated objects, but as integral components of a changing environment. Wind, light, and vegetation continuously influence their perception and echo Calder’s interest in movement and change; Oudolf expands the environment with his intervention—as in a successful collaboration—to an additional dimension.

A Quiet System

»Calder Gardens« largely foregoes explanatory texts or traditional mediation formats, focusing instead on direct experience. The project positions itself neither as a sculpture park nor as an exhibition house, but as a coherent ensemble of space, design, landscape, and art, where Calder’s work is rethought both spatially and conceptually. In doing so, »Calder Gardens« sets a new standard for dealing with modern sculpture in public and semi-public spaces. Architecture and landscape do not compete with the art, but form an environment specifically tailored to the work—a place where design has a structural impact and allows art to speak in its own way. [Ed.]

Gschwandtner’s practice moves between object, space, and body. He understands furniture as functional everyday objects, as carriers of social, cultural, and symbolic meanings. In this sense, he describes his work as an examination of the social dimension of objects and their proximity to the human body. On the website of Radio Athènes, he formulates this approach as follows:

»Furniture is a necessity of human life but beyond its functionality, furniture design also reflects the social life of objects and has symbolic capacities.«

Trained in traditional leather processing and Spatial Design, Gschwandtner now lives and works in Vienna. His work results from both craftsmanship and art and design historical references. Materials such as canvas, leather, metal, and historical textiles, including fragments of 18th-century tapestries, fringes, and horsehair, form the basis of his formal language. Canvas, in particular, functions in his work as a flexible medium that is folded, cut, or laid out on the floor, while at the same time carrying aesthetic, historical, and narrative levels.

In the recently shown exhibition, Gschwandtner drew on Aristophanes’ speech in Plato’s Symposium. The idea of the once spherical people, who were separated by Zeus and have since been searching for their other half, served as a conceptual frame of reference for questions of duality, complementarity, and relationship. New works such as museum benches, lamps, display cases, his Pillow Chairs, and textile objects, as well as their prototypes, were related to each other in a home-like structure. Gschwandtner describes this approach as an attempt to give his works the opportunity to find a counterpart—between first draft and final object, between personal use and public presentation.

In a statement, he explains how the theme of the exhibition took shape:

»Aristophanes’ idea of the spherical people, who, after being cut apart by Zeus, spend their lives searching for their other half—has followed me for a while. Somehow, it felt natural to apply this theory to many situations; there always seem to be two sides, two components, in my work: sometimes a historical one, sometimes a bodiless observation—and especially between the first attempt at a piece and its final version.

So I began thinking about giving my pieces the chance to find their other half, in Athens. Living in Vienna with the first iterations of each work helped me understand their domestic relevance more. After the final versions had been shown outside my personal space, the originals started to form an emotional dialogue with me, almost a kind of companionship. They became new protagonists in my life and my rooms.

One chair, for example, became my nightstand out of necessity. It held my water glass and books and, most importantly, greeted me every morning.

One light was never meant to be shown elsewhere; I made it for my partner’s birthday. Strangely, various versions of it found their way into exhibitions and collectors’ homes.

The gathered pieces will occupy a Greek apartment; each room will host a couple, two reunited halves—almost as if I were giving them privacy in each room to discuss their time apart. Their own symposium, or even speed dating: I let them converse with their opposite to see if it’s a match. Otherwise, we rotate.

Strange to think that I would be Zeus in this scenario. And what would my Mount Olympus be? Austrian hills? My apartment on the fourth floor?

And at the opening I turn into a speed dating moderator?

Returning to Aristophanes and his companions discussing Eros and love, it’s interesting to consider the actual social and domestic setting of the Symposium. While each guest presents their thesis on love, they are also sharing a space—drinking, eating, listening to one another.

This brings me to imagine Phaedrus, Pausanias, Eryximachus, Aristophanes, Agathon, Socrates, and Alcibiades inhabiting the apartment—the exhibition space—and leaving behind glasses, fragments, and traces of an evening of conversation.

Laid on the floor of Radio Athènes at Tositsa: canvases, originally from my 30th birthday party in my Vienna atelier—my own kind of symposium.«

—Lukas Gschwandtner, Vienna, November 2025

Gschwandtner’s work shows how closely function, social attribution, and emotional attachment are interwoven and interact. In the context of Radio Athènes, an independent platform for contemporary visual culture at the interface of art, design, and theory that has existed since 2014, this examination recently found a concise spatial implementation. [Ed.]

The architecture of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art follows the principles of Danish modernism of the 1950s and 60s: reduced forms, natural materials, and clear proportions. While classic white-cube architectures usually exclude views to the outside, in Louisiana, generous window areas open up to the park and the Øresund, making daylight a central design element.

The neutrally designed spaces provide a functional framework for the exhibitions, while the architectural basic concept, expanded over decades, retains its original form, connecting buildings, nature, and art into a clearly structured whole. Pavilions set low into the landscape, connected by glass corridors, create a museum that unfolds linearly yet flexibly, continuously establishing connections between the interior and its surroundings.

At the heart of the museum is a diverse collection of modern classics that shapes not only the architectural structure but also the museum’s conceptual identity, including works by Alexander Calder, Alberto Giacometti, Henry Moore, and Jean Arp.
The Giacometti Gallery is one of the museum’s most important spatial reference points: an elongated, deliberately minimalist space specifically created to present Alberto Giacometti’s slender, vertically oriented figures in optimal spatial tension. The bright, almost ascetic architecture—narrow window bands, clear lines, controlled daylight—enhances the effect of the sculptures, whose proportions and surfaces emerge particularly strikingly in the interplay of light and shadow. The deliberate distance between the figures allows for different viewing angles along the axis of the room, making the gallery a place where visitors’ perspective and movement directly influence the perception of the works.

Furthermore, the museum’s collection includes significant works by artists such as Joan Miró, Wassily Kandinsky, Asger Jorn, and Roy Lichtenstein, which are shown in rotating presentations and continuously foster the dialogue between classical modernism and contemporary positions at Louisiana.

At the same time, Louisiana expands its program with major solo exhibitions by international artists, opening new perspectives on current art developments. Exhibitions have included works by Yayoi Kusama, Louise Bourgeois, Pipilotti Rist, Olafur Eliasson, Cindy Sherman, Jenny Holzer, David Hockney, Jeff Wall, Bruce Nauman, and Richard Serra. Installative and expansive works benefit from the open museum structure, which allows for variable presentation forms—for example, Olafur Eliasson’s 2014 exhibition »Riverbed,« in which the museum installed a walkable rock landscape that completely transformed the architectural framework and impressively redefined the relationship between nature, space, and perception.

The Sculpture Park  adds an important spatial dimension to the museum. Works by Calder, Moore, Lygia Clark, Richard Serra, or Alexander Tovborg are placed on the grounds, forming a direct connection between art and landscape. The positions are deliberately chosen to incorporate both architectural lines and topographical features.

In its curatorial program, the museum, in line with its architectural heritage, intensively addresses questions of design, spatial culture, and architectural history. Thematic insights into Nordic design and building culture are as much a focus as exhibitions on international architectural movements, designers, and urban developments. Projects by Louis Kahn, Zaha Hadid, Renzo Piano, and Tadao Ando, among others, have been presented, expanding the museum’s scope with relevant positions in global architecture.

For almost 70 years, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art has demonstrated how naturally architecture, landscape, and curatorial practice can intertwine. This is precisely where the enduring quality of this place lies: in the consistent evolution of a framework tied to its location and culture, which presents international artists in a context that is both temporally and spatially precise yet open. [Ed.]

What makes the experience of art contemporary today? Rosa Park, founder of the Francis Gallery in Bath and Los Angeles, has a clear answer to this: Art needs proximity, atmosphere, and context. She explains why the space is always part of the work for her—and why she has turned her own home in Los Angeles into a stage for her new exhibition concept »Casa Francis«.

Chapter How did you come to adopt a holistic, more approachable concept for the gallery experience—one that considers not only the art but also the overall setting and mood—and why?

Rosa Park I’ve always held the belief that you cannot separate anything from its environment; there’s an inextricable link between the artwork and what surrounds it. At Francis, we’re constantly striving to create a warm, easeful setting that complements the viewing experience. Art has a tendency to feel impenetrable to those on the ›outside‹. To move away from that paradigm, we’ve pursued a softer, more domesticated interior space to build a bridge between the works we show and our audience—which includes specialists and generalists alike.

Casa Francis, Los Angeles; Group exhibition: «Have you eaten today?», 2025
Ash Roberts, «Mujō», 2025

Chapter In a time when so much visual material goes uncommented, why is it important to you to present works with greater context?

Rosa Park Without context, art exists in a vacuum—and that’s paradoxical. Art is inherently created in response to its culture and a moment in time. It is an expression of the artist, yes, but also in dialogue with what the artist is immersed in. Thus, art and context are co-dependent, and it is paramount to the gallery to show works with as wide-reaching a context as possible.

Francis Gallery, Los Angeles

Chapter Your latest project, Casa Francis, is located in your former family home in Los Angeles. Can you talk a little bit about the concept and what inspired this intentional choice?

Rosa Park The first iteration of Casa Francis had to take place in my former family home, because the concept is based on how I live with art and my objects. It had to be that personal, because the intimacy of how we curated came from that source.

Francis Gallery, Bath: Grace Watts, «Evolution Impression», 2024; «A Note, Beauty & Love», 2023

Chapter What are your thoughts on living with art?

Rosa Park In a world where almost everything serves a function or utility, I take joy in living with pieces that exist solely on their cultural and aesthetic merit. The art on my walls says more about me than any other piece at home. When I hang the first painting or position the first sculpture, that’s when my house becomes a home.

ARTICLE FIRST PUBLISHED IN CHAPTER №XII »SIMPLICITY« — SUMMER 2025

Lucie Rie (1902–1995) is considered one of the most influential ceramic artists of the 20th century. Yet her work continues to defy simple categorization. She cared neither for artistic labels nor for theoretical explanations—her focus was always on the act of making, on direct engagement with the material. Her vessels, created over decades between Vienna and London, possess a quiet austerity that deliberately eludes conventional classifications. To truly engage with her work means paying attention to what is not immediately visible.

When asked whether she saw herself more as an artist or a craftswoman, Lucie Rie usually responded curtly: »I am a potter.« A sentence that unequivocally shows that the ceramist, born in Vienna in 1902, preferred not to dwell on such classifications—and their hierarchical implications. Nor did she want to philosophize at length and expansively about her work, as author and ceramist Edmund de Waal reports. She once answered an inquiry about a contribution to a book as follows: »I do not want to be in your book. I like to make pots—but I do not like to talk about them. I would answer your questions today, but they would be wrong tomorrow.« This statement, which de Waal classifies as a typically Viennese method »of getting to the point,« contains two insights about Lucie Rie.

On the one hand, everything in the influential ceramist’s life truly revolved around making; on the other hand, this more-than-direct answer also encapsulates Rie’s view that every new piece of ceramic is a new beginning. »To make pots is an adventure to me, every new work is a new beginning,« is one of Lucie Rie’s most frequently quoted sentences. Vienna was the starting point of her journey, consisting of countless small adventures. Lucie Rie, then still Luzie Gomperz, was born in 1902 in the Austrian capital and grew up in a middle-class Jewish home. Her childhood and youth were significantly shaped by her uncle Sándor Wolf, a respected Burgenland businessman with a large collection of ancient art treasures from various cultures. The fact that Roman pottery was among them significantly influenced Lucie Rie. »There were these fantastic Roman bowls that were floating. I always tried to copy those floating bowls,« she recalled many years later about her first encounters with her uncle’s ancient ceramic collection.

FROM VIENNA TO LONDON

Her artistic talent became apparent very early on, and on the advice of her private drawing teacher, she attended the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna, where prominent artists such as Oskar Kokoschka and Josef Hoffmann taught. However, Lucie Rie was particularly drawn to Michael Powolny’s ceramics class. Yet, it was not he, but the architect and co-founder of the Wiener Werkstätte, Josef Hoffmann, who considered her first self-made vessel so good that he exhibited it in Brussels’ Palais Stoclet. As Tony Birks notes in his comprehensive biography Fired Earth, »Lucie’s work at the potter’s wheel was characterized by a rational approach and determination. She had internalized the design concept of the early Secession and the Wiener Werkstätte, originally derived from architecture, according to which all everyday objects, from wallpaper patterns to chairs and greeting cards, had to fit into the overall architectural framework and form a harmonious whole. Her vessel shapes—cylinders and bowls—looked deceptively simple.« During and after her studies, Lucie Rie began experimenting with various chemicals and glazes, and she also delved deeply into the study of the raw materials used. This led, among other things, to the first »volcanic« glaze, which would later become characteristic of many of her works.

»Unlike her contemporaries, who were mostly making decorative and figurative ceramics, Rie was interested in the material and physical properties of clay and glazes. This can be linked to the modernist interest in truth to materials. She experimented with layering slips and glazes to achieve interesting surface effects,« describes curator Eliza Spindel of the initial phase of her work. In 1938, after Austria’s annexation by the Nazi state, Lucie Rie and her husband emigrated to London. In 1939, in Albion Mews, a then heavily neglected district of London, she discovered a garage with living space above it. The garage was converted into a pottery workshop and remained the focal point of her creative work until her death. To stay financially afloat during and after World War II, Rie primarily produced ceramic buttons and jewelry for fashion houses at that time. »Arriving in London in 1938, Rie found that her work was out of step with prevailing trends in British studio pottery,« says Eliza Spindel in an interview with the magazine STIRworld. She initially adopted the style of her colleague Bernard Leach, who was a few years her senior and a central figure in the British pottery world at the time. »First I tried to follow Bernard Leach’s rules—I made heavier pots and heavier shapes,« Rie describes the influence of her contemporary in a conversation with wildlife filmmaker and self-proclaimed Lucie Rie fan David Attenborough. Gradually, however, she moved away from his style and found her own, which, as Leach himself once noted, was characterized, among other things, by radical independence: »An outstanding quality of Lucie’s work is the degree to which it is free from the direct influence of other potters, ancient and modern.« Sir David Attenborough puts it this way: »Before her time Leach and his followers sought their inspiration from medieval England and twelfth century China. Rie showed how this ancient craft could produce new shapes and new colours.«

MOVED BY BEAUTY

After the war, Rie rediscovered the elegance of her early works, strongly influenced by Modernism. From the late 1950s, she expanded her style with new forms and glazes, including more organic shapes and textured surfaces. Her later work features vibrant colors and metallic glazes that convey a sense of opulence. Retrospectives were dedicated to her in 1967 at the Arts Council Gallery on St. James’s Square, in 1981 at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, and subsequently at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. However, Lucie Rie never felt as comfortable in the spotlight as she did in her workshop in Albion Mews. The last major exhibition in which Rie participated as an active ceramist took place in August 1990 at the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts in Norwich. The day after the opening, the then 88-year-old suffered a severe stroke, which brought an abrupt end to her pottery career. After her subsequent hospital stay, when asked about her future, she responded with a counter-question: »Haven’t I made enough pots?« Lucie Rie died on April 1, 1995, in her apartment in Albion Mews. In 1999, a solo exhibition was dedicated to her at the Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna.

The living and bedroom (1926–1928) designed for Lucie Rie by architect Ernst Plischke for her apartment at Wollzeile 28;
rebuilt at the Hofmobiliendepot, Möbel Museum Wien.

Rie’s pottery studio, which had barely changed over the decades, has been exhibited at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London since 2009. In 2023, a bowl with the deep-drawn footring typical of her work, which lends a special lightness to her pottery, fetched a record sum of £330,200 at an auction by Phillips Auctioneers. Numerous friendships were also central to her work, such as with the aforementioned Bernard Leach, but also with her long-time workshop colleague Hans Coper and with the architect Ernst Plischke, who designed her Vienna apartment in Wollzeile. Rie formed an unusual friendly relationship in old age with the Japanese fashion designer Issey Miyake. Fascinated by her works, he organized an exhibition titled »Issey Miyake meets Lucie Rie« in 1989 at the Sogetsu Gallery in Tokyo. »I am often asked to speak of instances where I have been moved by beauty. Lucie Rie and her work represent some which most often come to mind,« reads a statement by Miyake about Lucie Rie.

PERFECT AND IMPERFECT

Lucie Rie’s successes can also be attributed to her unique technique, unusual for her time. In his biography, Tony Birks describes how colleagues who watched her potting always noted with interest that she used a kidney-shaped piece of metal, a simple tool curved like a comma, in her case made of copper, which replaced fingers in creating smooth surfaces on the inside or outside of a bowl. Furthermore, many of her thin-necked vessels were assembled from two parts. With the exception of her Bernard Leach period, she also meticulously ensured that the upper and lower parts of a ceramic piece were equally cleanly crafted. »Indeed, the bases of numerous works with sgraffito decoration, and also the later so-called knitted vessels, bear very finely incised, sometimes even painted-on patterns after turning, so that viewing her works from that period is akin to a revelation, like the sight of a sea urchin or the delicate drawing of an insect’s body under a magnifying glass,« writes Birks. For the sgraffito or inlay technique, Lucie used a sharp needle as a scoring tool. Radial, parallel lines arranged at an angle to the clay body and fine cross-hatching were typical of her works from the 1950s. Later, she combined cross-hatched sgraffito patterns with heavy glazes.

This resulted in the so-called »knitted« vessels. In the foreword to his biography, Tony Birks writes that Lucie Rie’s simple, yet immensely subtle and complex vessels owe their high degree of perfection not to a reduction to an ever clearer form, but equally to their robustness and fragility, a combination of opposites such as economy and abundance, light and shadow. »But it is probably above all the close proximity of perfection and imperfection, the inimitable Lucie Rie’s tremor, that captivates the viewer.« As a person, she embodied the same mixture of opposites, according to Birks. »Her delicate appearance and apparent fragility might sometimes have disguised the fact that she possessed an iron will and was capable of hard work.« The fact that Lucie Rie was not one of those people who constantly revolved around themselves should also be mentioned here. As cliché as it may sound: she always remained firmly grounded. With one exception: In a video showing David Attenborough’s visit to her studio, there is a scene where Lucie Rie dives so deep into her kiln that she loses her footing. Shortly before, in a brief exchange between the naturalist and the artist, the discussion was whether opening the kiln after firing would be akin to a revelation. Laughing, Rie replies: »Not a revelation, a surprise.«

ARTICLE FIRST PUBLISHED IN CHAPTER №XII »SIMPLICITY« — SUMMER 2025

David van der Leeuw is a Belgian photographer who works with a fine sense for the fleeting. Reflections, shadows, and permeable layers characterize his visual world. But what seems like poetic coincidence is the result of conscious experiments with material, perspective, and technique.

Chapter   Reflections, shadows, and subtle interventions seem central to your imagery. What draws you to these ephemeral elements?

David van der Leeuw   I’m drawn to moments that feel like they’re on the verge of disappearing. I like it when an image feels unstable, when it holds tension—when what’s visible is only part of the story, leaving the viewer wondering what is happening. I try to layer and obscure reality—sometimes through glass, water, or mirrors. These elements all create a certain ambiguity, which hopefully encourages the viewer to spend time decoding the image. I guess the short answer is: I try to make it feel more poetic than realistic.

Chapter   You often physically enter your photos through shadows. Can you talk about this performative gesture—is it about presence, authorship, or something more elusive?

David van der Leeuw   I don’t really know, to be honest—I guess it’s a mixture of all of the above. Sometimes it’s a way of including myself in the photo; sometimes it’s simply to add an abstracted layer to a scene that needs something more. Mostly, I think it has to do with creating a sense of mystery in my work—something that introduces a narrative or a human element, but still remains elusive.

Chapter   It appears that, conceptually, there’s a surreal, cinematic tension running through your work—where do you personally draw your inspiration from?

David van der Leeuw   I try to draw inspiration from everything around me, all the time. Sometimes it’s a line from a book, a city, a color, a newspaper article, a friend, a museum visit, or a dream… Overall, you could say cinema is my main influence—it inspires me in the most complete way, because it’s such a broad art form that encapsulates all the elements I just mentioned: image-making, storytelling, philosophy, music… there’s just so much in it to be inspired by.

Chapter   While AI is unlocking unprecedented possibilities in image making, there’s something almost magical about working with traditional methods. Could you also share a bit about the technical aspects behind how your images come to life?

David van der Leeuw   I try not to get too attached to a certain technique—I always aim to experiment and do things differently. I shoot with old analog cameras, digital ones, and even my iPhone. I photograph through different materials—glasses, fabric, whatever happens to be around me. Sometimes I use props to alter reality, but everything happens in-camera; I don’t use double exposures. In post, I sometimes crop images radically, reprint and rephotograph them, or remove entire color ranges. There’s never just one formula—I always try to experiment along the way.

ARTICLE FIRST PUBLISHED IN CHAPTER №XII »SIMPLICITY« — SUMMER 2025

»A house is not a machine to live in. It is the shell of man, his extension, his release, his spiritual emanation«—this is how the Irish-born architect and designer Eileen Gray once summed up her understanding of architecture. What lies behind these words becomes clear when one takes a closer look at her first house, a masterpiece as discreet as it is avant-garde, named »E.1027«. Gray built the villa, located on the Côte d’Azur, in 1929 as a refuge for herself. The name is a cryptic combination of her initials and those of the journalist and architect Jean Badovici, with whom she built the house. Originally, it was conceived as a place that would allow them to hide from the world, if necessary, but also from each other. While its flat roof and clear lines clearly corresponded to the spirit of modernism, Gray added a sensual-intuitive layer to the design, which ultimately meant that »E.1027« had nothing to do with Le Corbusier’s coined term of the »living machine«.

Painted over and appropriated

Gray began her career as a lacquer artist, but gradually evolved into a designer and interior architect, creating design icons with the »Adjustable Table E 1027« and many other designs. Not only her refuge on the Côte d’Azur, but also her furniture and furnishings testify that Eileen Gray was far ahead of her time. Long before Mies van der Rohe, the artist, who grew up in an aristocratic family in County Wexford, Ireland, experimented with tubular steel furniture. The »Non Conformist Armchair« (1926) was an important piece of furniture of its time not only because of its formal language, but also because of its statement, which perfectly matched the attitude of its creator: One side—the one with the armrest—was for leaning back and smoking, the other allowed for the freedom needed when gesturing and discussing.

Eileen Gray’s connection to Jean Badovici and his extensive network led, among other things, to several encounters with Le Corbusier, who could barely conceal his enthusiasm for »E.1027«. After Gray decided in the early 1930s to leave the house to Jean Badovici, he encouraged Le Corbusier to cover the interior and exterior walls of »E.1027« with imposing frescoes. Eileen Gray, who had deliberately used white, bare walls as a stylistic device, was not informed about this. She described the paintings as vandalism and demanded their removal, but her wish was ignored. Le Corbusier instead built his famous »Le Cabanon«, a rustic-looking log cabin, directly behind »E.1027«. With her departure from »E.1027« in 1931, Eileen Gray also withdrew from the public spotlight. She died in 1976 at the age of 98. Her furniture and furnishings are now traded at high prices and are represented in numerous museums and exhibitions. »E.1027« is accessible to the general public as a museum.

Formulas are nothing

The film »E.1027 — Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea«, which was filmed, among other locations, at the original site of »E.1027« in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, reconstructs the dramatic story of an avant-garde designer and her refuge, which turned out to be a masterpiece. Gray’s design language was also the direct inspiration for the film’s creation, which also tells of the challenges Eileen Gray had to face as one of the first female architects of the modern era to pursue her passion. Since Eileen Gray had her private correspondence destroyed, »E.1027 — Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea« is a film that approaches the person through her work.

»At the heart of this film is an unresolved conflict. One could argue that Le Corbusier did nothing wrong. Eileen Gray was already gone when he appeared. Jean Badovici gave him permission for the murals and even encouraged him. But is it okay to violate and appropriate another artist’s artistic vision? Of course not, I would argue,« summarizes director Beatrice Minger the core conflict. »Le Corbusier did not appropriate Gray’s house because she was a woman. He could not bear her different perspective her deep sensibility, her artistic power, her freedom—and had to make it his own.«
Eileen Gray formulated it as follows: »Formulas are nothing. Life is everything. And life is simultaneously mind and heart.« [SW]

The aesthetic of Isamu Noguchi’s work stands as a remarkable example of timeless artistic expression, with his Japanese-American heritage forming a central part of his oeuvre. Noguchi can be seen as a modernist between two worlds—shaped by cultural heritage yet driven by the search for his own personal and artistic identity. His universal aspirations extended beyond art itself, and the power and influence of his work continue to resonate to this day.

A UNIVERSAL ARTIST

Isamu Noguchi (1904 – 1988), one of the most influential artists and designers of the 20th century, coined the phrase »There is no such thing as time«. In his artistic work, he repeatedly grappled with the question of the timeless form. In addition to sculptures, gardens, furniture, ceramics, he even created architecture and stage designs, using a wide range of materials such as stainless steel, marble, cast iron, wood, bronze, basalt, granite, and water. His works have been shown at documenta in Kassel, at the Venice Art Biennale, and in major museums around the world. As a global citizen, Noguchi traveled throughout his life and was inspired by the purity of Italian marble and contemporary art, as well as by Chinese ink painting and the purist ceramics and traditional gardens of Japan. In his avant-garde work, whether as an artist, designer, stage designer, landscape architect, or sculptor, he combined impressions from East and West, processing the themes of his life.

Sunflower (Himawari), 1952, Shigaraki stone-ware, Sogetsu Foundation, 66 x 35 x 19 cm

BETWEEN NEW YORK AND JAPAN

But how can we imagine Isamu Noguchi as a person? He is often described as having felt lonely, with a persistent sense of not belonging anywhere—a feeling rooted in his childhood. Noguchi’s parents, who both began their careers as writers, were never married. His mother, Léonie Gilmour—an American of Irish descent—was working in New York City as a young writer and editor when she met the Japanese poet Yonejirō Noguchi. Yet only a few months before Isamu was born in Los Angeles on November 17, 1904, his father returned to Japan alone—marking a first rupture, a first abandonment.

The Kite, 1959, Anodized aluminum, 158.1 x 44.8 x 14 cm; The Mirror, 1958, Anodized aluminum, 161.1 x 72.2 x 9.5 cm; Man Walking, 1959, Anodized aluminum, 220.7 x 95.9 x 87 cm

When Noguchi was two years old, his mother moved with him to Japan, but he rarely saw his father. »All I can remember in my early childhood is being a child living with his mother,« Noguchi is said to have remarked. Since his mother worked as an English teacher, the young Noguchi spent much of his time alone, which taught him independence. Another rupture followed when his mother sent him back to the United States alone in the summer of 1918—at only 13 years old—to attend high school in Rolling Prairie and later in La Porte, Indiana. He did not see his mother again for five years. One description of his character aptly notes that this circumstance »added another layer to his increasingly complex identity.« Noguchi resented his mother for sending him to America against his will, and later commented on a visit from her: »My extreme affection never returned, and now, the more maternal she became, the more annoyed I became with her.«

Léonie Gilmour, Mother, c.1932, Terra-cotta, 20.6 x 18.1 x 19.1 cm, Private Collection

ENCOUNTER WITH TIMELESSNESS

Nevertheless, the young Noguchi, who had begun studying medicine in New York City after graduating from high school, followed his mother’s advice and took evening classes in sculpture at the Leonardo da Vinci Art School. Had she already recognized her son’s great talent at that time? After only three months at the evening school, Noguchi presented his first exhibition and from then on earned his living by creating portrait busts. One of his first impressive academic works, Undine, a female plaster sculpture, was created in 1926. However, because academic work no longer satisfied him after a short time, Noguchi sought new inspiration and became enthusiastic about modern and contemporary art. In particular, the works of the sculptor Constantin Brâncuși, which he had seen at a New York exhibition in 1926, impressed Noguchi so deeply that they fundamentally changed his artistic direction. He was said to have been spellbound by Brâncuși’s vision and work. With his minimalist sculptures, which he refined again and again in pursuit of the essence of things, Brâncuși strove to create something both modern and archaic—ultimately, something timeless.

Man (Otoko), 1952, Bizen stoneware, 55.6 x 16.5 x 15.2 cm, The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York

THE ESSENCE OF NATURE

Fascinated by this idea, Noguchi seized the opportunity in 1927 to travel to Paris on a Guggenheim scholarship. There he worked for five months in Brâncuși’s studio as an assistant and was inspired by the simplicity of his designs. »What Brâncuși does with a bird or the Japanese with a garden is to take the essence of nature and distill it. Just like a poet does. And that’s what interests me. To get to the heart of the most important forms in a poetic translation,« said Noguchi. Inspired by Brâncuși’s forms and philosophy, Noguchi turned to modernism and abstraction, and from then on imbued his own works with lyrical and emotional expressiveness, an aura of mystery. In works such as Man (1952) or in the exhibition of his marble sculptures at the Stable Gallery in New York in 1959—considered a tribute to Brâncuși—the influence of his mentor is especially evident. Again and again, Noguchi’s origins played a role in his life; as someone who was half American and half Japanese, he often faced prejudice. Thus, influences from both East and West, along with questions of identity and belonging, came to shape his art.

For Martha Graham’s Hérodiade, 1944, Plywood, paint, 246.7 x 90.8 x 69.2 cm, The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum, New York, gift of the J. M. Kaplan Fund, 2002

CARVED IN STONE

After extensive travels through Asia, Mexico, and Europe, Noguchi returned to New York City in the early 1930s. In his Greenwich Village studio, he devoted himself to a wide range of design projects alongside his portrait sculptures—designing landscapes, playgrounds, and large-scale stone works, while also exploring new materials and methods. His art reflects the sensibilities of an era shaped by the upheavals of World War II. During this time, he created striking sculptures inspired by archaic Greek figures, which were presented in the 1946 exhibition Fourteen Americans at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Of these sculptures Noguchi said that they defy gravity, just as they defy time and even life itself, which could be lost at any moment. Time—and the attempt to transcend it through the essence of form—remained a recurring motif throughout his work.

Fourteen Americans, Museum of Modern Art, September 10 — December 8, 1946

ARTISTS AND DESIGNERS

Even though Isamu Noguchi is often regarded as a »designer« today, his self-image was fundamentally different: »I decided to just be an artist,« he once said of himself. In his practice, Noguchi consistently collaborated with artists from a wide range of disciplines. For example, beginning in 1935 he created stage designs for Martha Graham, worked with her throughout his life, and drew lasting inspiration from their collaboration.

Center Elevation for Martha Graham’s Seraphic Dialogue, 1955, Brass rods, steel cable, 671.8 x 518.1 cm

Gate of Hippolytus for Martha Graham’s Phaedra, 1962, Paint, canvas, wood, metal, 307.3 x 68.6 x 38.1 cm

Through his stage work, Noguchi realized that he wanted to create sculptures for space itself, and from then on he also devoted himself to furniture design—most notably his famous Coffee Table of 1944. In the 1950s he created the first Akari lamps, crafted from mulberry paper and bamboo. Even though many of his objects were later produced in large numbers, he still considered them works of art. Noguchi drew no distinction between his artistic practice and commercial design—if the opportunity arose to bring a design into mass production, he embraced it. In 1937, for example, he designed an intercom for the Zenith Radio Corporation, and both his Coffee Table and his Akari light sculptures are still in production today.

Originally manufactured for the American furniture manufacturer Herman Miller, the Coffee Table from 1944 is still produced today.

Akari Lamps, Chuo Koron Gallery, August 2 – 7, 1954

HIS UNDERSTANDING OF TIME

Although Isamu Noguchi was not opposed to mass production, he often found its limits. In an interview, he summed up this problem while also offering an insight into his understanding of time: »If you want to live and work in an industrialized world, you have to use industrial materials and tools. However, I was not entirely satisfied with this, because I felt that the limitations of such tools force you to be part of the industry instead of being free. And I felt that the more old-fashioned way of doing things, for example with stone and with your own hands, leaves a way to freedom. And so I went back to the stone. I also worked with wood for a while, but I switched back and forth. Sometimes I feel like I’m part of today’s world, but sometimes I feel like I might belong to history or prehistory. Or that there is no such thing as time. But if you are trapped in time, in the immediate present, then the selection is very limited. You can only really do certain things right that belong to that time. But if you want to break out of this time-boundness, then the whole world you see—not just the industrialized world—is the place where you belong.«

Energy Void, 1972–73, Swedish granite, 361.6 x 31.1 x 112.4 cm

WHAT REMAINS

Noguchi’s legacy is immense, due in part to the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum (today known as The Noguchi Museum) in Queens, New York, which he himself initiated and opened in 1985. He designed the museum in a 1920s industrial building located directly across from his studio. Alongside photographs, drawings, and models, visitors can experience his sculptures in a serene garden setting. Noguchi also stipulated that his studio in Mure, Japan, be preserved to inspire future artists and scholars — a wish realized with the opening of the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum Japan in 1999. For him, both his work and his museums were to be understood as a crossroads where East and West meet. Isamu Noguchi passed away on December 30, 1988, in New York. Through his diverse artistic practice, he succeeded in uniting Western and Eastern cultures — creating objects that transcend their time. He may have had this in mind when he remarked: »A museum is an archive, a depot against time. It has a touch of eternity.«

FIRST PUBLISHED IN CHAPTER №V »TIME AND SPACE« — Winter 2021

In his brief biography of Francisco de Goya, Javier Goya summarized the cornerstones of his father’s artistic creation as follows: »As an admiring observer of Velázquez and Rembrant [sic], he studied nothing but nature, which he declared his master.«

How these influences affected the Spanish artist’s printmaking work is shown in the new illustrated book »Goya. The Complete Prints«, published by TASCHEN. Across 600 pages, the volume takes its readers into the world of the painter and graphic artist who died in 1828. The collection comprises a total of 287 etchings and lithographs, thus Goya’s entire graphic oeuvre. It also includes editions created under his direct supervision, as well as state proofs from unpublished series. This highlights both the artist’s experimental spirit and his control over the printing process. In addition to detailed commentaries on each print, the volume also contains in-depth essays by Anna Reuter and José Manuel Matilla, who have been researching Goya for many years.

»Goya. The Complete Prints« impressively demonstrates why Francisco de Goya is considered one of the most innovative painters and graphic artists of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His etchings and lithographs are considered masterpieces of modern printmaking and paved the way for many artists who followed him years and decades later. Goya’s artistic legacy is still clearly discernible in contemporary art.

The career of the Spaniard, who was born in Aragón in 1746, quickly gained momentum: Immediately after his training, Goya was appointed the first court painter to Charles IV. In his famous series, including the satirical »Caprichos« or the nightmarish »Disparates«, he dealt with the great upheavals of his time. With both the bright and dark moments that accompanied them. Again and again, he contrasted the individual with superstition or the ruling power. His work is not one that merely depicts the world, but one that describes it with a dissecting gaze—seeking to expose cracks, tensions, and fears.

Goya was also an intellectual, shaped by the art and culture of his time and intimately familiar with the ideological debates of the era. Initially, he felt committed to the ideas of the Enlightenment; later, he developed more far-reaching and personal positions. However, he was inspired not only by visual arts but also by literature. Due to his deafness, which affected him from the 1790s onwards, the written word became increasingly important for him to inform himself about ideas and new developments.

Even towards the end of his career, Goya was still influenced by his strong desire to learn. This is evident, among other things, in the drawing »I am still learning«, made in Bordeaux, as José Manuel Matilla notes in his essay at the beginning of the illustrated book. Francisco de Goya was »an independent artist who, in his work, was guided by reason and criticism of ignorance, constantly experimented, and at the same time sought the most suitable way to express his ideas.« [SW]

Goya. The Complete Prints
Hardcover in slipcase, 24.3 x 30.4 cm, 3.78 kg, 600 pages
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The horizon serves as the exhibition’s guiding metaphor. It marks the outermost limit of what is visible, yet shifts with every movement. Accordingly, the show invites visitors to broaden their perspective. Each work tells its own story regarding intention, material, and meaning. «Future Horizons. Glass in Contemporary Art» includes pioneers such as Stanislav Libenský/Jaroslava Brychtová or Dale Chihuly, as well as contemporary works by Mona Hatoum or Alicja Kwade.

Mark Bradford, Borsa, 2024

Los Angeles-born and based artist Mark Bradford combines the everyday object of a shopping bag with the Venetian glassmaking tradition in his work Borsa (2023). As often in his artistic work, he addresses socio-political issues. Engraved tally marks refer to prison labor in Venice, where similar bags are produced, thus connecting everyday life, craftsmanship, and social reality in a single artwork.

Philip Baldwin / Monica Guggisberg, First Memories, 2010

The boat First Memories (2010) by Philip Baldwin/Monica Guggisberg evokes the association of overcrowded refugee boats in the Mediterranean, while Jessica Loughlin’s glass sculpture Between Spaces 5 (1999) is inspired by the salt flats of Lake Gairdner and reflects the fragility of ecological habitats.

Monica Bonvicini, In my Hand, 2019

The spatial staging also underlines this approach. Bruzkus Greenberg Architects created contrasting areas: a silver-black BlackBox  and a color-intensive FirstFloor. Mirrors at the end of the rooms double the perception and blur the boundaries of the exhibition space, a spatial metaphor for openness to new horizons.

Tony Cragg, Listeners, 2015

In the interplay of curatorial concept, works, and spatial design, the ambition of «Future Horizons» unfolds: Here, glass becomes visible not only as a material but as a medium for societal and artistic questions. The exhibition presents design as a discipline that opens up spaces for reflection and sparks debates.

Alicja Kwade, Hemmungsloser Widerstand, 2019

Complementing the exhibition, the publication «About Glass. Contemporary Sculpture and Installations» will also be released as part of the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung’s anniversary, edited by Eva-Maria Fahrner-Tutsek and Petra Giloy-Hirtz, with contributions from Andrea Lissoni and Tina Oldknow, among others — the first comprehensive inventory of the role of glass in contemporary art.

Mona Hatoum, Basket V, 2014

«Future Horizons. Glass in Contemporary Art» will take place from October 10, 2025, to May 28, 2026, at the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung in Munich. The exhibition will be accompanied by a diverse supporting program, which includes artist talks, lunch breaks, and guided tours, among other things. [RED.]

When directors of science fiction films envision the future, they create worlds that no one has ever seen in this form before. However, to draw viewers into these unknown environments, the connection to the real world must not be entirely lost. Often, it is familiar objects, including design classics, that serve as links between the new and the familiar. Because even the most absurd world remains connected to reality to some extent if it features an armchair on which one might have already sat.

Eero Aarnio, Pallo / Ball Chair, 1963, © Vitra Design Museum, Photo: Andreas Sütterlin

For example, in the 2010 film »Tron: Legacy«, it is the Barcelona Chair  by Mies van der Rohe and the Eames Lounge Chair  that subtly establish a connection between past and future. In short: film directors and set designers are aware that design classics can act as gateways to previously unknown worlds. Conversely, many designers are also inspired by the environments and technologies depicted in science fiction films. After all, it is also their job to imagine the future – to give it a form that is forward-looking, yet simultaneously anchored in the present.

Eero Aarnio, Tomato Chair, 1971, © Vitra Design Museum, Photo: Roland Engerisser

Thus, it was primarily the so-called Space Age, which began with the launch of Sputnik 1  in October 1957, that brought forth a surge of furniture in which the intense engagement with space travel was clearly reflected. Designers such as Gae Aulenti, Eero Aarnio, Luigi Colani, Joe Colombo, or Verner Panton designed furniture and living landscapes that looked futuristic with their organic forms and shiny plastic surfaces, while fundamentally rethinking living and housing habits of that time.

Still image from the film set of Star Trek, 1968, © CBS Photo Archive, via Vitra Design Museum

Influenced by the rapid developments in space travel, designers in turn began to create furniture that seamlessly integrated into the science fiction films of that era. In Stanley Kubrick’s »2001: A Space Odyssey«, Olivier Mourgue’s Djinn Chair  became a screen star, while Eero Aarnio’s Tomato Chair  perfectly fit into the world of »Men in Black«. In the 1960s series »Star Trek«, Eero Saarinen’s Tulip Chair  can be seen.

Marc Newson Orgone Chair, 1993, © Vitra Design Museum, Photo: Jürgen Hans

However, the dialogue between science fiction and design continued in the following decades. Again and again, design icons conquered the cinema screens, including Orgone Chair‘s Marc Newson in the 2012 film »Prometheus«, but also unexpected design objects like Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Argyle Chair  in the 1982 blockbuster »Blade Runner«. The extraordinary form of Nemo Chair  Fabio Novembre’s, which resembles a classic Venetian theater mask, has also fascinated directors and set designers for many years.

Andrés Reisinger, Hortensia, 2021, © Vitra Design Museum, Photo: Andreas Sütterlin

At the Vitra Design Museum (Schaudepot), the exhibition »Science Fiction Design. From the Space Age to the Metaverse« can be seen until May 10, 2026. The Argentine artist and designer Andrés Reisinger, who himself designs furniture for the Metaverse, has collected 100 collection objects, which he presents on a futuristic stage. The scope ranges from the Space Age  to the question of how suitable the Metaverse is as a new space for projections and experiments. Reisinger’s digital dreamscapes, which show clear references to the visual worlds of earlier science fiction films, are also part of the exhibition. [SW]

Header Photo: Andrés Reisinger, The Shipping, Tangled, 2021, © Reisinger Studio

»Stop and look closely. Don’t take anything for granted,« wrote Anita Wallerstein about a comprehensive retrospective dedicated to the artist Salvador Dalí at the New York Gallery of Modern Art in 1965. The same could well be said of TASCHEN’s new limited-edition publication—restricted to 10,000 copies—which explores the Spanish artist’s work across two volumes: an illustrated book and a chronology. Presented in baby SUMO format, the illustrated volume showcases Dalí’s most significant works against a black background in striking quality—thanks in part to the fact that 150 of the artist’s pieces were removed from their frames and re-photographed especially for the book.

The book is complemented by a chronology volume featuring texts by Montse Aguer and Carme Ruiz of the Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí in Figueres, the artist’s birthplace. Interlacing Dalí’s own words—drawn from his writings and letters—with contemporary exhibition reviews, photographs, sketches, letter fragments, and magazine articles, the authors craft a vivid portrait of the artist and his era.

With this extensive publication, TASCHEN pays monumental tribute to the ever-polarizing Spanish artist, reaffirming that Dalí envisioned and painted worlds which, even 35 years after his death, continue to reveal unexpected wonders. Both the richly illustrated volume and its accompanying chronology suggest that Salvador Dalí should not be seen merely as the emblem of surrealism. He was a sharp observer and critic of his era and of the movements he engaged with—yet from which he repeatedly and decisively broke away.

Both the illustrated book and the chronology are structured into distinct periods that follow Dalí’s artistic evolution step by step—from his early works influenced by the Futurists, through the Surrealist phase in which many of his most famous paintings emerged, to his later turn toward the classics as well as science and religion. Equally significant are his numerous (artistic) encounters and friendships, often marked by tension, such as with poet Federico García Lorca, and also with André Breton, Juan Miró, Luis Buñuel, Coco Chanel, among many others.

The chronology also offers glimpses into Dalí’s first tentative meeting with Pablo Picasso, as well as his encounter with Sigmund Freud, whose influence on his art was profound. Freud famously remarked to Stefan Zweig about Dalí: »I have to thank you indeed for the introduction of our visitor of yesterday. Until now, I was inclined to regard the Surrealists—who seem to have adopted me as their patron saint—as one hundred percent fools (let us say 95 percent, as with alcohol). This young Spaniard, with his ingenuous fanatical eyes, and his undoubtedly technically perfect mastership, has suggested to me a different estimate.«

The importance of psychoanalysis, dreams, and the realm of optical illusions is reflected not only in Dalí’s paintings but also in many of his own words: »I do my work subconsciously. I never use models or paint from life or landscapes. It is all my imagination. That is, I see everything in a dream as I am working.« He also remarked: »I paint automatically and it is related to what madmen do, the only difference being that I do not confuse the imaginary world with the real one.«

However, Dalí was not only a painter, but also a stage and costume designer, author, columnist, lecturer, and a collaborator in Hollywood productions, working with figures such as Walt Disney and Alfred Hitchcock. He also participated in fashion projects and frequently appeared on the pages of society magazines.

TASCHEN’s SUMO series made history in 2005 with the release of a monumental illustrated book dedicated to the work of photographer Helmut Newton. While the »Baby SUMO« series may not be quite as large in scale, it is no less impressive. The connection between the publishing house, founded by Benedikt Taschen, and Salvador Dalí is also noteworthy: forty years ago, the publisher released its very first artist monograph on the Spanish master. Titled »Dalí«, it spanned 96 pages and was authored by British surrealist Conroy Maddox. The current homage goes far beyond serving as a successor to that early paperback—it is a work of book art in which one can lose oneself and, true to Dalí’s spirit, also lose all sense of space and time. [SW]

DALÍ. BABY SUMO
Hardcover in a slipcase, 36.7 x 50 cm, 8.39, 438 pages
Edition of 10,000 copies
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»Diego’s importance to his older brother Alberto is just beginning to be widely recognized«, wrote the New York Times  in 1985 about the then 82-year-old artist Diego Giacometti, who had spent decades in the shadow of his famous brother. It took even longer for Diego Giacometti’s own artistic work—after more than three decades of supporting Alberto’s practice—to gain the recognition it deserved as an independent oeuvre.

But first, let’s rewind to the beginning: Alberto and Diego Giacometti were born in Switzerland in 1901 and 1902. The two brothers grew up alongside two other siblings in a family shaped by the artistic pursuits of their father, the painter Giovanni Giacometti. Diego initially devoted himself to drawing and experimented with etching, later completed a commercial apprenticeship, and finally followed his older brother—who was studying sculpture with Antoine Bourdelle in Paris—to the French capital. When Alberto received commissions to design and produce furnishings, the skilled craftsman Diego grew increasingly interested in his brother’s work, supporting him with plaster casts, scaffolding production, and sculpting activities.

During the Second World War, Diego Giacometti attended courses at the Scandinavian Academy of Art  and created his first sculptures—including several extraordinary animal figures. From 1950 onwards, he focused primarily on designing furniture and artistic everyday objects. »The brothers were very different. Alberto was supremely self-confident, highly cultivated and insatiably curious. Diego was more instinctive, more physical and sometimes impenetrably self-effacing,« describes Michael Brenson in the New York Times, highlighting their differences. What united them, however, was their exceptional sense of scale and form, as well as a deep passion for artistic work and craftsmanship.

After the death of his brother in 1966, Diego Giacometti increasingly realized his own artistic visions, whereby his main focus was on designing artistic, often filigree furniture. He designed salon tables, armchairs and consoles made of glass and bronze. In addition, he created numerous pieces such as the »table in the shape of a skeleton«. Giacometti designed several pieces of furniture for the world-famous Kronenhalle  bar in Zurich and the entire interior of the »Café Diego« in Saint-Paul-de-Vence for the Fondation Maeght. His last major commission attracted international attention and made him known to a wider public: Diego Giacometti designed the entire interior of the Musée Picasso in Paris, which opened in September 1985—from the furniture to the banisters and door fittings to the ceiling lights. With their filigree structure, the latter are reminiscent of large birdcages and were made of plaster-coated iron. However, the artist did not live to see the ceremonial opening of the museum: Diego Giacometti died in Paris in July 1985. As he gave away many of his works or sold them privately, his entire oeuvre is still not fully documented.

The Bündner Kunstmuseum in Chur is presenting a large-scale exhibition dedicated to the artist, on view until November 9, 2025. For the first time, Giacometti’s furniture is shown in an art context rather than a design context. The exhibition was created in collaboration with the Musée des Arts décoratifs in Paris, where Diego Giacometti’s estate is held. [SW]

Experimental objects such as lighter cases made of silver and set with semi-precious stones, sculptural pill boxes and elegant cigarette holders, necklaces with obelisk-shaped pendants that serve as containers for essential oils, or a magnifying glass that is worn around the neck on a vegan leather cord and, according to the description, is intended for reading the menu or examining a page. Designer Sophie Buhai’s unconventional creations—a fusion of minimalism and surrealism—move fluidly between utility, jewelry, and art object.

Before Sophie Buhai founded her eponymous label in 2015—now known for its contemporary interpretations of the modernist sterling silver jewelry tradition—she studied fashion design at the renowned Parsons School of Design  in New York and ran her co-founded fashion line »Vena Cava« for ten years. After that chapter was closed, Buhai found herself back in her hometown of Los Angeles to take some personal time out and the necessary freedom that eventually led her to jewelry and object design: »Creatively, I felt that I wanted something different. There was a shift and I started to do a lot of different things. I was doing interiors at the time I went to a residency in Italy and I brought a lot of materials with me, and I started making jewelry.«

As is so often the case, the metaphorical circle closes with sufficient distance and only much later in life, when the time is ripe. Buhai was first introduced to jewelry much earlier, through her mother and grandmother, who both had a pronounced fondness for striking silver pieces. »I was really inspired by my grandmother and my mother, these women that wore really bold silver jewelry. That jewelry was mid-century Scandinavian or Mexican silver jewelry or Native American jewelry«, she recalls. She had always worn some of these special pieces herself, but only now she realized how timelessly modern they still were. When she started making jewelry, dainty necklaces and pendants made of brass and gold had been particularly popular, but she herself had never been interested in the conventional understanding of jewelry as a merely functional accessory. Her designs are primarily aimed at the more unconventional type of woman or man, whose interest is primarily in the idea of the design and less in the monetary value, she explains her artistically influenced view of jewelry beyond diamonds, rubies and emeralds. However, Buhai expands the sometimes dusty perception of jewelry not only by clearly referring to the design aspect, but also by naturally embedding functional objects in the range. By conceiving of her designs as small sculptures—»mini-sculptures«—the concept takes on a new dimension—from ornamentation, a merely decorative object, to an art object.

TOOTHPICK AND CASE Sterling silver; PYRAMID PILL BOX Sterling silver, yellow beryl stone

Following the logic of this insight and in view of how closely the brand is linked to her as a person, one could conclude that she herself would also fit more into the category artist than designer—if categories are necessary at all. However, when asked about this porous boundary between design and art, she refers to the difficulty of demarcating the transition from one to the other, but clearly defines herself as a designer. Artist’ is too difficult a word. What is certain is that her inherent understanding of jewelry as an art form and the interaction between aesthetic and emotional components instinctively places her in the larger context of her brand identity, creating a narrative that tells a personal story. She tries to be authentic in everything she does, says Buhai.

»When I think of luxury to myself, it’s things that are coming from a person, coming from a soul.«

How honest authenticity can be consciously brought about is a central question in connection with emotional brand management and probably one of the most important aspects in the contemporary interpretation of luxury, which is geared more than ever towards values that can be located in a psychological dimension. The focus is on conveying the idea of both individuality and connectedness, which leads to a kind of subjectively perceived exclusivity. Buhai also recognizes this and gets to the heart of the matter without any theoretical digressions: »When I think of luxury to myself, it’s things that are coming from a person, coming from a soul. It’s so rare that things feel hand-touched coming from a designer or an artist, personally.« She goes on to elaborate on her concept of luxury, in which the soulful object takes center stage and the brand name is more of a seal of quality: »I think when you have that connection with an object, it’s quite powerful. So to me, that connection is what makes something luxury. I don’t think it’s the dollar amount or the brand name. It’s the experience that you’re really feeling with that piece.«

MAGNIFYING GLASS NECKLACE Sterling silver, vegan leather cord

This fragile space between soul and product is created and maintained through the art of storytelling, in which image-based communication dominates the written word. At Buhai, however, you will search in vain for loud visual courting of attention, which nevertheless does not diminish the brand’s presence in social media. A picture does not tell a story, but many pictures provide a possible narrative and, as in any good story, recipients find a free space to emotionally inscribe themselves in it, to charge it personally. »We don’t use words really that much. I think we put the work out there, and we’re very image-based. And beyond that, you take what you want from it«, says the designer.

»I’ve always kind of loved this gray area in between different design disciplines. And so I’ve kept that throughout the brand.«

The staging, often reduced to the object alone, paired with the restrained aesthetics of her visual language and the interspersing of style-defining intermediate elements function like a tailor-made place of longing—a narrative anchor point that both draws the viewer in and releases them. Buhai’s visually elegant language, like her designs, carries the timeless charm, the aura of long faded but unmistakable old world glamor and evokes associations with the glamorous days of Hollywood. When asked what makes her home city of Los Angeles special, given the persistent prejudices against the relatively young and superficial metropolis, she answers with a wave of her hand, dismissing what she perceives as a distorted perception before it can attract too much attention. For her, the appeal of living in Los Angeles lies above all in the unencumbered freedom that inevitably restricts tradition.

In terms of Buhai’s design process, this initially appears to be a paradoxical advantage, as it begins with visual references to historical themes—the broad scope of which ranges from the Japanese Edo period to Romeo Gigli in the 1990s—where Gigli’s vision of »modern nostalgia« seems somewhat less distant from Buhai’s designs at first glance. Aware of her numerous sources of inspiration spanning times and worlds steeped in tradition, she resolves the apparent contradiction with the following words: »But with all of that, I’m always trying to make something that feels new. It can have references to create a conversation of design history, but I think it should always feel like there’s one thing or the mixture of elements that makes it a new creation.«

DAWN LIGHTER CASE Sterling silver, set moonstones; RISING MOON FLASK Sterling silver, set moonstones, onyx cap

Buhai’s designs are exemplary of the organic interplay of simplicity, balance and harmony; as soon as all the elements interlock, the sketches become prototypes. Initially made exclusively by a wax carver, she now also works with a CAD designer on 3D models—after first having to come to terms with the idea—and argues: »I was really anti-CAD in the beginning, and everything was hand-carved wax. But I’ve actually come to embrace CAD. With a good CAD designer, I think it is a tool that can be used in a very human way.« Once the model has been perfected, the mold is cast in metal, followed by fine-tuning. The designs are produced by highly specialized artisans based in the Los Angeles Jewelry District, a vibrant center for jewelry in all its forms in the heart of downtown since the 1920s.

The designer’s intensive involvement with craftsmanship and materials also regularly takes her to the world’s largest gemstone and mineral fair, the Tucson Gem Fair—also known as the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show—in the US state of Arizona. Her interest in the visual and technical potential of stone as a material, however, eludes traditional processing, in which stone comes before setting. For her, design continues to be the top priority, and the stone, which is still raw at the time of purchase, must conform to this. »We’re creating our own forms and are really trying to push what we can do with our stone carvers, how large we can go, and the different shapes we can work in,« gives Buhai an insight into this self-imposed challenge, somewhere between technical expertise and artistic zeal. This local availability of knowledge and resources also gives the designer some creative freedom to design pieces that, according to Buhai, are more about the concept and the idea and less about selling a large number of them. These include, for example, sculptural objects made of sterling silver, such as an elegant toothpick with an accompanying hand-hammered case, for—as they say—the evening bag or the dining table, as well as a modernist-looking spoon for children or a hip flask with moonstones set in a setting and a hand-carved onyx lid, whose extravagance is tempered by being described as a collector’s item or a potential family heirloom—which is in line with her belief that objects always tell a story, preserve memories, and convey emotions.

Her open-minded approach to the potential of different craft and design disciplines also manifests itself in her studio, a place where everything comes together. She took on the interior design together with her friend and long-term collaborator Gabriela Rosales, the founder of Formative Modern, a Los Angeles-based gallery specializing in early 20th century design. Since the beginning about ten years ago, curated objects and furniture have always been part of Sophie Buhai’s brand world, never as a conceptual addition, but as an intuitive one. »I’ve always kind of loved this gray area between different design disciplines. And so I’ve kept that throughout the brand,« she explains, uncompromisingly filling this free space with her innate, authentic synthesis of design, art, and culture, which is subject to constant and inimitable human and artistic evolution.

Cover story CHAPTER №XI »TASTEMAKERS« — WINTER 2024/25

We can’t do anything without things, things make us. That is the condition of life. Objects shape our lives and our identity on the most diverse levels and in many ways that are often difficult to grasp. The interaction between creatives and objects is and remains particularly interesting. What follows are reflections on the »thing« as a central motif and the people who create it and work with it, whether in the fields of architecture, design or art.

Somehow, a thing is always something individual and usable. Unlike the well-known formulation in relation to Genesis, which speaks of the »creation of all things« and thus refers to the beginning of the world, we do not also understand the thing as a living being such as a tree and an animal or as a component of the environment such as a mountain and a road. For us, a thing is ultimately always a separate entity which, if it is human-made, also has a function and becomes an object within our formation of reality. Consequently, »the thing« always refers to us as humans, because if we do not perceive something in this way, then there is no thing. A stone is just lying around. But if it is used to hold a door open, then it suddenly becomes relevant: »That thing there.« Exciting, isn’t it?
Such insights are ancient. Philosophy developed realism for debates about things and concepts, and the scholastic Middle Ages, for example, discussed the question of whether a table only becomes a table because it has this designation. What would it be otherwise? In any case, all of this makes it clear that things are part of our lives, that we make or define them, use them and also understand them as having value. However, the symbolic quality is particularly appealing: no queen without a crown, no judge without a robe. No chancellor without a bottle of beer, one could add—let’s remember Gerhard Schröder’s famous saying. As clichéd as it sounds, it has a factual meaning. In fact, these symbolic objects were introduced to signal power or competence, but also to make it easier for us to accept abstract qualifications: »Whoever wears the hat is in charge.«

Villa Savoye in Poissy, 1887-1965

When the Swiss architect and co-founder of classical modernism Le Corbusier (1887-1965) was ready to have his famous Villa Savoye in Poissy documented with the black and white photographs that were common at the time after its completion and he looked through the prints he had just made, he noticed a small deficit. He immediately asked his photographer Marius Gravot to place a few things in the foreground of a shot of the famous sun terrace on the roof of the villa. Apparently, the other images, taken in an objective, modern style, had become too impersonal. In these, the house appeared basically deserted and sterile, which made its architectural conception clear and legible, but in no way corresponded to the reality of its use. And what did Marius Gravot place in his picture? Just the insignia of the architect: Glasses, hat, cigarettes. As if Le Corbusier had just stood behind us on the roof parapet for a moment and was about to return to his personal paraphernalia. A clever trick that plays with the presence of what is not shown, without jeopardizing the documentary task of architectural photography with a distracting person in the picture. As viewers, we decide what we concentrate on—and thus ultimately what the message of the picture is. A second layer of content is created solely through these four objects.

Philippe Starck, born in Paris in 1949, is a fan of old styles, especially the French royal court in the Baroque period. Reflections of Louis-seize, or Rococo, can be found time and again in his work. However, to make it less obvious that this star designer, who can also appear unconventional with a motorcycle, tracksuit jacket or costume, loves the »old-fashioned«, he developed a camouflage solution for a Kartell series chair in 2002: he made it transparent and called it Louis Ghost. It is now up to those who buy it to consciously sit on a piece of stylish furniture, or to overlook its formally expressed »meta-level« and just use it as a simple plastic chair—chacun à son goût. For Starck, design also involves play, and this creates a special kind of communication. It would be tempting to assume that the Frenchman was familiar with the »Ten Theses for Good Design« by his German colleague Dieter Rams. The well-behaved Rams with his neat designs—for Braun or FSB, for example—calls for: »Good design makes a product understandable.« And that’s what appeals to Starck. He doesn’t want you to be able to grasp something completely and immediately »see through it«—although this is indeed the case with a Louis Ghost, visually speaking. However, the versatility of a thing expands its presence.

Philippe Starck for Kartell: »Louis Ghost«, 2002

A third aspect: anyone who approaches things exclusively with a functional reservation—and understands every product of our meritocracy in the same way as Loriot’s famous utility user—overlooks what Greek-born Katerina Kamprani has been thinking through for herself and us for some time. While studying industrial design, she discovered the dysfunctionality that is as much a part of the object as its usability. The utensil, whose name derives from usable, is not bound to the fact that it can be put to good use—the stone mentioned above can also lie in the way instead of holding the door open. Kamprani describes her strategy as follows: »I love surrealism and absurdism. For me, it’s a different way of thinking that is much less strict than logic: it’s not about right or wrong, so the possibilities are limitless.« But your goal always remains a positive one: »I laughed out loud at my own creation! This gave me the idea to actually design objects for a bad user experience, objects that are intentionally uncomfortable.« What a nice way to drive our society to the edge of sanity.

»The Uncomfortable Broom«, Katerina Kamprani, 2017

However, objects are not only characterized by their form and use—they are sometimes also carriers of messages or signifiers for a context of meaning. The visual arts and scenography in particular work with this. Both belong to the professional field of Aleksandar Denić (b. 1963), a Serbian artist working in Germany. As a participant in the 2024 Biennale, he opted for an installation consisting of three objects that become the protagonists of a narrative. How this story is then interpreted when visiting the Serbian Pavilion at the »Exposition Coloniale« depends on individual interpretation and creativity. However, there are unmistakable signals associated with the built objects: The telephone booth painted in the Ukrainian national colors rings from time to time, but without conveying a conversation. The two old oil barrels—positioned flanking it—display two brand identities, namely that of the US oil company Texaco and that of the Russian company Rosneft. We are therefore not so much standing in front of three somewhat old relics, but in a sense in front of a »monument«. Description boards or guided tours are not really necessary: We understand the underlying meaning of things.

»Exposition Coloniale«, installation by Aleksandar Denić for the Serbian Pavilion, Biennale, 2024

»Exposition Coloniale«, installation by Aleksandar Denić for the Serbian Pavilion, Biennale, 2024

Incidentally, there is a genre of art that consists solely of pictures of things that have been set aside: the still life. Of course, they are artfully composed. Kevin Best, the Australian photo artist, is undoubtedly a fan. From a distance, one could immediately place his works in the 17th century Netherlands without hesitation—as long as one thinks of the classic motifs, including the mighty frames around them. However, while a dense approach to historical works disillusions the viewer to the extent that the contours then become coarser, irritatingly impasto, and ultimately no longer dissolve recognizably into a surface of color, this does not happen with Best. Best is a meticulously staged photographer. And so the objects in his still lifes lose neither brilliance nor sharpness, regardless of the distance. We see exactly what has been photographed, as if it were actually in front of us – the cup, the lemon, the carpet. But what about the meanings and stories that are known to have been incorporated into the image at the time? They are still there: »I often weave complex narratives into my work, so I usually start with a single object and add others to develop a story until it is complete«, he reveals about his approach.
Understandable, because we live in the 21st century and read a picture in our own contemporary way. But for us too, the things shown become carriers of a narrative. Michel Foucault already mentioned in his Order of Things that signs »can be based on agreement«. While people in the 17th century loved to recognize representatives in them—for philosophical aspects of life such as transience or the vice of gluttony—we are enthusiastic about the quality of the reproduction or the aesthetic experience. Even if it’s just a glass or a peeled tropical fruit.

However, there is indeed a special quality to one thing or another—it becomes a fetish. This is well described in Tom Wolfe’s (1930—2018) wonderfully ironic book From Bauhaus to our House, which deals with the inescapable influence of modernist design and the Bauhaus aesthetic on the cultural scene in the USA in the 1950s—from Walter Gropius’ architecture to Mies van der Rohe and his furniture designs. »The home of every young architect and the pad of every architecture student«, Wolfe reports, »was this box and this shrine. And in this shrine was always the same icon … the Barcelona chair. … When you saw this sacred object on the sisal rug, you knew you were in a household where a newly fledged architect and his wife had sacrificed everything to place the symbol of the divine mission in their home. Five hundred and fifty dollars!«
Sometimes things get enormously complicated. Especially when they symbolize or communicate something, i.e. have an indirect effect. Let’s take another example: once upon a time, there was an insignificant satellite dish on the flat roof of a store in south-east London. In August 2024, the now world-famous but anonymous street artist Banksy decided to spray paint a black, howling wolf on this very light gray dish. This was immediately publicized in one of his posts and, as always, the art-loving public immediately went into raptures over the cleverly packaged message in Banksy’s graphic. The banal bowl had apparently become an art object—instantaneously. But just one hour after it was seen by the public, a masked man climbed a ladder onto the roof in broad daylight, dismantled it and stole it. But what was it that the petty criminal group simply carried away across the shopping street despite protests from passers-by? A thing, an antenna in any case, at best a satellite dish spray-painted against its usability. Incidentally, it can be assumed that the spray-painting artist had already worked in a mask and damaged something that did not belong to him. So is it just damage to property and removal of garbage? Or is it qualified art theft, or perhaps even a happening? The art world is puzzling over whether it should be outraged. Some say: absolutely!

The series of characteristics of things listed here would also include the fact that they sometimes become personal companions and we can no longer do without a special object, or that they literally represent us as an individual, as a person. What the smartphone has certainly become for many over the last decade has been the coffee and cigarette relaxation set for more than a hundred years. Whether you’re working on a building site or at the operating table, for quite a few people it’s part of their lifestyle. This also applies to the New York-based filmmaker Jim Jarmusch (born 1953). The then fifty-year-old even felt so connected to these two things in his everyday life that he made an episodic film in 2003, which deals with this constellation, including the associated cups, ashtrays and tables, in small stories—always with his typical looseness and subtle humor. And one thing becomes very clear while watching: coffee and cigarettes are things that involve a lot of time, a lot of enjoyment and a lot of discourse—»Coffee, is that cool? … Yeah yeah, OK … Coffee? … Yeah. … OK man.«—even if the latter doesn’t always have to be the smartest at the coffee table with Iggy Pop and Tom Waits. Whatever!
Jim Jarmusch is very aware of the importance of things in our world, and also of the fact that we use them to enhance or stylize our personal appearance. For example, he is usually photographed wearing dark sunglasses, which, in combination with his wild, silver-grey hairstyle, is undoubtedly part of his self-presentation. However—and this may be the last wise insight of this text on the condition of life—sometimes there is also a protective function in the thing: especially with those dark glasses in front of the eyes. Bob Dylan wrote in his 2004 autobiography Chronicles that he often had to arm himself against intrusive curiosity in his songs, which were sometimes simply inspired and created without much thought. Besides, he can’t explain everything in his music. His first thing to reach for is something that has often saved the lives of Jim Jarmusch and many others: »Sometimes you just have to bite your upper lip and put sunglasses on.«

FIRST PUBLISHED IN CHAPTER №XI »TASTEMAKERS« — WINTER 2024/25

City and SALONE—AN interlinked system

This year’s program in the city begins even before the official opening of the fair. The Vernissage  exhibition in Via Dante, for example, brings photographs by Bill Durgin into the public space. They show bodies in relation to designed objects—as a reference to this year’s main theme »Thought for Humans«.

This visual narrative is complemented by the Design Kiosk  in Piazza della Scala, where daily discussions with designers take place. Both formats are less spectacular events and more an invitation to engage with design in everyday life.

Installations between staging and reflection

Two central installations outside the exhibition grounds are more differentiated in terms of content and atmosphere than in previous years. Robert Wilson’s work Mother in the Museo della Pietà Rondanini is intended to stand for a harmonious interplay of light, music and space—an examination of Michelangelo’s unfinished sculpture, accompanied by Arvo Pärt’s Stabat Mater. The installation deliberately dispenses with narrative gestures and works with reduction, lighting and sound as creative means.

With Library of Light, the renowned British artist Es Devlin has created an installation in the Cortile d’Onore of the Pinacoteca di Brera that clearly stands out from the purely visual gestures of many Milanese installations. The conceptual core lies not in the representation of light as an atmospheric means, but in its role as a carrier of information and meaning. The installation is physically conceived as a walk-in structure, filled with over 2,000 books—curated and donated by the Fondazione Feltrinelli—, which transform the space into a kind of performative library.

The artist operates here with the contrast between ephemerality (light) and memory (text, book). The result is a temporary space that moves between sculpture, archive and stage. Visitors are invited to move quietly into the structure, linger between the shelves or take part in curated talks at the evening events. This programmatic addition clearly shifts the installation in the direction of a cultural format with a claim to active mediation.

Es Devlin herself commented: »I have always experienced libraries as silently intensely vibrant places where minds and imaginations soar, while clutched like kites by their seated bodies. This kinetic sculpture reflects the synaptic connections being forged, the resonances and associations at play within the minds of a temporary community of readers. As Jorge Luis Borges said: I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all that I have loved; all the cities I have visited.«

Two installations also set design accents at the trade fair itself: Villa Héritage by Pierre-Yves Rochon reinterprets classic interior design with references to historical hotels and a detailed choice of materials. In direct contrast to this is La dolce attesa, a joint project by director Paolo Sorrentino and set designer Margherita Palli. The production thematizes the moment of waiting—as an intermediate state, translated into a visual and acoustic spatial design.

Focus on light—Euroluce 2025

With the return of the light biennial Euroluce questions of technology, modularity and material once again take center stage. Numerous designs show new solutions in the field of wireless systems, adaptive lighting control and sculptural design. Material combinations of glass, recycled plastic and metal are in the foreground—mostly for functional reasons, less often as a design statement. In addition, the Euroluce International Lighting Forum will take place for the first time, with contributions from architecture, science and lighting design. Here, too, there is a tendency to open up disciplinary boundaries.

Milan as the design capital

With over 2,100 exhibitors from 37 countries, including 168 brands represented for the first time, and a total area of more than 169,000 square meters of sold-out exhibition space, the Salone del Mobile.Milano remains the most important international platform for the furniture and design industry in its 63rd edition. The trade fair is complemented by the SaloneSatellite  area for young designers, which this year brings together 700 young designers and 20 international design universities. In addition, over 100 showrooms in the city have been activated as part of the official program, as well as 49 digital LED walls in the city, 320 billboards in subway stations and a dense programme of talks and cultural events at a total of eight central locations. Despite all the conceptual expansions, the Salone thus remains an event that makes an impact above all through its density, scale and institutional reach. [Red.]

For the design of her BMW Art Car, the artist Julie Mehretu, who is internationally renowned for her large-format, abstract paintings, sent the BMW M Hybrid V8 through one of her pictures. And found that it worked. However, the New York-based artist believed in the transformative power of art even before this project, which was completely new to her, she explains in our interview for the cover story of Chapter №X—»State of the Art«.

With large-format works such as the almost 25-metre-wide mural »Mural«, which hangs in the lobby of the Goldman Sachs headquarters in New York, Julie Mehretu has already broken boundaries on several occasions. With the design of the current BMW Art Car, the artist, who was born in Ethiopia in 1970 and lives in New York, has now finally outgrown both herself and the framework conditions that have previously applied to her art. How is this to be understood? She herself outlines the creation process of her BMW Art Cars as follows: »I sent the car through one of my pictures.« We talk about Zoom and Julie Mehretu laughs. Then she sneezes. »It’s spring in New York«, she says and starts to explain why what I’ve just said is not to be taken literally. »When I was thinking about what the car might look like in the end, I kept thinking about this picture in my studio that I had just finished. The model of the Art Cars was standing next to it and I thought that I could perhaps try to move the car through the painting.«

However, this almost mystical attraction between the two objects did not result in Julie Mehretu giving the BMW M Hybrid V8 simply covered an existing outfit. »The painting appears on the car in a remixed form. If you were to place the finished Art Car and the painting next to each other, you could feel that they belong together, but you probably couldn’t really put into words where this feeling comes from«, says Mehretu, before she takes us even deeper into the creative process. For her, it felt as if the car had moved through a kind of portal only to reappear at the other end in a transformed form, she notes. These descriptions, which could also have been taken from a science fiction film, also fit in with the fact that Julie Mehretu describes the BMW M Hybrid V8, which served as her canvas, as »a car of dreams«, which in its form and technical possibilities goes beyond all limits of the imaginable. Or, to put it another way, it pushes the boundaries of what was previously possible when it came to automobiles.

O, YOU BEAUTIFUL BLUR

When she received the request from BMW, she was completely perplexed, recalls Julie Mehretu. At the same time, however, she also felt incredibly honored. »At first, I thought to myself that there was no way I could say yes, because I didn’t even have the slightest idea of how I could go about it.« In spring 2020, when she suddenly had more time to think about it due to the Coronavirus pandemic, she went through the request again in detail. And came to the following conclusion: »I thought to myself: just do it. It’s an incredibly exciting opportunity to immerse myself in something completely new.« She also realized that Okwui Enwezor, whom she held in high esteem until shortly before his death in 2019, was the director of the House of Art in Munich, was a member of the jury. In his statement, he noted the following: »Julie Mehretu’s work encompasses various questions of movement, she brings dynamism into form. Julie has a very clear and well-founded understanding of how the object behaves in space.« Movement is a good keyword, because in order to really get things moving, Julie Mehretu first had to be surrounded by running engines. She attended the Daytona 24-hour race, which gave her the idea of working with blurs and glitches in her BMW Art Car.

The starting point from which she began was therefore anything but static, but a collection of moving, shimmering objects. This is why it is far from her intention to describe the vehicle she designed as a sculpture. »It is a work of art, but also a car that will compete in the 24-hour race at Le Mans« , the artist states with her typical clarity. »I am interested in what happens to the car during these 24 hours«, she adds. »How it changes, what marks the track leaves on the vehicle. All these questions have cast the creative process in a completely new light for me. A playground opened up where I could give free rein to my creativity«, says Mehretu. The artist will talk about this playground more often during our conversation—as well as about the new artistic freedom that she was able to open up for herself by working on the BMW Art Car. She adds that there are also many things that she can take from this new experience into her artistic practice. »Above all, the great desire to remix existing material.« So here, too, the route (up to the final Art Car) has left its mark—in the best sense of the word.

FELT AS MUCH AS READ

We will come back to the role that speed and the associated blurring play in her artistic work in more detail. On another level, which is just as important for her work, one thing is clear: Julie Mehretu wants to remain flexible and open. But she also wants her art to be moving—even if, as in most cases, it does not take the form of a hypercar. »I want the work to be felt as much as read«, she once said in an interview. When we asked her why this was the case, she gave her usual direct and unpretentious answer: »I find art exciting above all when it triggers something in me, moves me and sets something in motion. I am particularly interested in the sensual reaction to something. This applies equally to the visual arts, music and other art forms.«

»Mural«, 2009
Ink and acrylic on canvas
7 x 24 m
Goldman Sachs, New York

In reference to the creation process of her Art Car, one could perhaps even compare it to a form of magical portal. In abstraction, Mehretu has found a form of expression that allows her to do just that. For her, abstract space is above all a space full of possibilities that functions independently of our language system and is not about rational understanding and logical classification, but about creating a sensory experience. »It is a different form of knowledge«, she states after a short pause. Anyone talking about abstraction in connection with Julie Mehretu’s artistic work should also mention the term »opacity«, whose direct German translation—»Opazität«—is rarely used in everyday language, but which means something like opacity, intransparency or, in a more figurative sense, impenetrability. In interviews, Julie Mehretu has already quoted the Martinique-born poet Édouard Glissant several times, who once wrote in an essay dedicated to opacity: »We clamor for the right to opacity for everyone.«

»Out of The Dreaming«, 2022 — 2023
Ink and acrylic on canvas
243.8 × 304.8 cm

For her, there is something liberating in the closely associated abstraction, as the artist has already emphasized several times in interviews. However, this does not mean that she wants to renounce all traditions. Quite the opposite. »The way I make art takes place in discourse with other artists and other forms of visual expression—as well as in dialog with the history of abstract painting. I see myself as part of this dialogue«, Julie Mehretu is keen to emphasize. This also applies to the history of the BMW Art Car, with which the artist has been intensively involved. Frank Stella’s grid-like design from 1976 was one of the things that inspired her, says Mehretu.

Following on from this, we would like to know from her what it feels like to approach a concrete object, such as a racing car, in an abstract way. She pauses for a moment and then answers in a calm voice: »A vehicle like the BMW M Hybrid V8 is a concrete object, but at the same time incredibly rich in metaphors and history.« Playing with this and exploring the entire spectrum of what a car can be was a great attraction for her, she adds. However, the American conceptual artist Glenn Ligon feels that classifying her work purely as abstract art is too narrow a view. He says: »Julie is the painter I turn to when I want to think about how to trouble the line between abstraction and figuration, between local and global concerns, between painterly restraint and joyous abandon.«

She herself once stated in an interview: »I think that there isn’t this binary between representational work and the abstraction. It’s much more blurry and messy.« And there it is again—the blurriness that also put her on the right track—, so to speak, on the ideal line—when designing her BMW Art Car. And which, as crystallized in an interview with the New York curator Adrienne Edwards, became more and more prevalent in her work from 2012 onwards. She used maps, city plans and architecture less and less as the basis for her multi-layered paintings. In addition, the airbrush was used more and more frequently and she began to use photographs printed in mass media as a basis. In an interview with an American art magazine, she says that there was a moment when she wanted to project an image of Saddam Hussein’s bunker onto a screen, but the projector spat out a blurred image due to an error. »And, I don’t know, something so profound to me, and so potent, in that image. It felt like everything I was trying to do with this architectural drawing just emerged in this blur. It felt like the specters of that image, the light and the forms, allowed for this other kind of dynamic to exist in the image. So, then I actually decided to start playing with that in Photoshop… I really wanted it to look like this kind of haze of a blur where you can’t see the image yet the form and suggestion of color and light are still apparent.«

Many of her works continue to oscillate between drawing and painting and require the viewer to capture them from different perspectives and distances. Whereby »capture« is certainly the wrong word in the context of her flickering, often large-format paintings consisting of countless layers. If you throw yourself into them, you still have the many gestural markings she has made to hold on to—as if to lifebuoys—, but at best you simply let yourself drift. Or to return to the concept of opacity: Examining her paintings in their entirety should by no means be the declared aim. Even with art-historically trained X-ray vision, one would not succeed in penetrating her works completely. In an interview with Flash Art Magazine, she told of a critic who was trying to get to the bottom of one of her paintings, who literally wanted to look all the way to the bottom, ignoring the »opacity«: »I remember, I even had a critic ask me one time. ›Well what does this mark mean?‹ He literally went through the piece and asked about every mark.«

»…In a world so dominated by algorithms, making a mark on a piece of paper is, for me, an action that exists outside this system.«

CROSSING BORDERS

You don’t need the aforementioned X-ray vision to find out about Julie Mehretu’s career to date. In interviews, she talks openly and at length about the many moves she made in her childhood and youth, which would later shape her art. »There was this military dictatorship in Ethiopia, and it was a hairy moment where the government was eradicating intelligentsia and intellectuals«, says the daughter of a university professor of geography and a Montessori teacher. She says about her artistic beginnings: »When I started my MFA, I was making big, abstract oil paintings that looked gestural and expressionistic, even though I wasn’t interested in them looking like that.«

»Untitled 1«, 2001
Ink and acrylic on canvas
152.4 × 213.4 cm

When you meet Julie Mehretu, you are confronted with a person who puts her heart and soul into making art, but who does not want to embody any attributions that are imposed on her from the outside. She does not fit into any pigeonhole—not only because of the size of many of her best-known paintings. Julie Mehretu is also an artist who, as she explains in the interview, has become increasingly interested in the activist side of her artistic work over the course of her career.

When asked what exactly she understands by this, she answers as follows: »There are so many things happening in our world, mainly due to technological progress that is just hurtling along, that give us the feeling that we as human beings hardly have any individual freedom of action anymore. I’m not talking about excessive individualism, but rather about having the feeling as an individual that you can actively shape your own environment—perhaps even bring about change. I firmly believe that drawing is a very intimate and immediate form of insisting on being here. As well as an insistence on precisely these individual possibilities. In a world so dominated by algorithms, making a mark on a piece of paper is, for me, an action that exists outside of that system.«

»Black Ground (deep light)«, 2006
Ink and acrylic on canvas
182.9 × 243.8 cm

However, this also means that the BMW Art Car will not be retired after its grand appearance at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, but will demonstrate its endurance in a completely different form. The collaboration between Julie Mehretu and BMW will continue in 2025 with the »PanAfrican Translocal Media Workshop Series« on the African continent. Together with Mehret Mandefro, Emmy-nominated producer, author and co-founder of the Realness Institute which works to strengthen the media ecosystem across Africa, Julie Mehretu will host workshops in eight African cities over the course of nine months to provide a space for artists to meet, share and collaborate. The results of the workshops will then be exhibited at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town – together with the 20th BMW Art Car. The central partner for the conception of the program is the artist residency founded in 2004 by Julie Mehretu, Lawrence Chua and Paul Pfeiffer Denniston Hill in upstate New York.

She adds that the second part of her collaboration with BMW was also about testing out what this car can (be). »Really pushing the imagination of what this car could be« is a phrase that comes up several times during our interview and, beyond the BMW Art Car, is characteristic of her work. It is also fitting that she sees her artistic works as »space for possibility and for invention«. »In terms of actual social change, it will not alleviate many systemic problems we have, such as our really shitty education system or poverty or hunger. But I think there’s room for many levels of working on social change.«

FROM THE ABSTRACT TO THE CONCRETE

Although Julie Mehretu’s artistic work is, of course, primarily about abstraction, we would like to mention a few concrete figures. Her 7 × 24 meter mural »Mural« hangs in the lobby of the Goldman Sachs headquarters and was described by the American art critic Calvin Tomkins as »the most ambitious painting I’ve seen in a dozen years«. Her painting »Untitled 1« (2001) was sold at Sotheby’s auction house in 2010 for more than one million US dollars and her work »Black Ground (deep light)« (2006) was auctioned at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong for 5.6 million US dollars. »Untitled« (2001) was sold at auction—also at Sotheby’s in Hong Kong—for 9.32 million US dollars. In 2023, the entrepreneur Michael Ovitz sold Julie Mehretu’s »Walkers With the Dawn and Morning« (2008) for 10.7 million dollars. Never before had a work of art by a BIPOC artist achieved a higher sum. In 2005, she also received the prestigious »Genius Grant« from the MacArthur Foundation and the U.S. State Department Medal of Arts in 2015.

Considering that Julie Mehretu has just completed the opening of the most comprehensive exhibition of her works in Europe to date at the time of our interview, she seems extraordinarily relaxed and at ease. »Ensemble« was the title of the exhibition, which was on display at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice until January 6, 2025. The name said it all, as her own paintings enter into an exciting dialog with works by fellow artists such as Nairy Baghramian, Huma Bhabha, Tacita Dean, David Hammons, Robin Coste Lewis, Paul Pfeiffer and Jessica Rankin.

We quickly ask her whether she finds it easy to look back with satisfaction on the work she has created so far before the window of the video conference app closes again. »Sometimes, of course, I think about whether I might have done something differently here and there, but in the end the pictures are what they are. But sometimes I also look at a picture of myself and think: Wow, how did you actually manage that?« Would the Art Car have given you the same feeling of satisfaction? »Absolutely. I’ve just come back from the studio and saw the model there. It looks fantastic!« She laughs and we say goodbye. Spring is probably still tickling her nose. And there’s a pretty good chance that Julie Mehretu’s fingers are already tingling again. There are many more frames to break.

»I like things that change«, the Italian designer, architect, set designer and author Gaetana »Gae« Aulenti once said in an interview. She claimed this form of mobility for herself and her work – throughout her life she resisted categorization and responded to the apparent lack of a signature with the words: »Style means the repetition of an idea that is always the same.« A look back at the life’s work of the designer, who died in 2012.

»The whole world is a stage and all men and women mere players. They come on and go off again«, according to Shakespeare’s comedy »As you like it«. However, the metaphor of the world stage, which has been omnipresent ever since, not only exposes people as the owners of a multitude of roles, but also raises the question of how this stage-like world is constructed. In short: if the world is a stage, do we move through it like a huge stage set?

The stage set designed by Gae Aulenti for Ronconi’s production of the Rossini opera »Il viaggio a Reims« at the Vienna State Opera, 1988.

If you look at the work and underlying approach of Italian designer and architect Gae Aulenti, who died in 2012, you feel confirmed in this comparison. Not only because Aulenti’s extensive repertoire of roles also included that of set designer – she worked primarily with director Luca Ronconi – but also because she always saw people and buildings as two interacting parts of the same play. According to Aulenti, », the space, as a co-player or partner, should always be designed in such a way that it allows for different behaviors and does not restrict them.«1 Despite its inherently static nature, it has a mobility and creative power that is also at the heart of many stage designs.

Table Tavolo con Ruote, FontanaArte, 1980

Gare d’Orsay before its conversion into a museum

SENSITIVITY TO WHAT IS FOUND

Gae Aulenti, who as an architect and designer made tables roll (Tavolo con Ruote) and transformed train stations into museums (Gare d’Orsay), was always interested in mobility in her work. She once said: »It’s true, I’m perhaps simply against anything that seems static. I like things that change.« The urge to always remain flexible was also reflected in the fact that Aulenti never wanted to be pigeonholed stylistically. In an interview with the design platform BauNetz, the artist, who was born in Palazzolo dello Stella in 1927, answered questions about the lack of a uniform style as follows: »’I can’t work everywhere with one and the same signature. Because it is the place that dictates how something is to be designed. Style means repeating the same idea and the same details over and over again. That has never interested me.« Instead, she is convinced that you always have to start from scratch with every project.

Main gallery of the Musée d’Orsay, Paris

Main room of the Palazzo Grassi, Venice

This was probably also the case with the works that brought Gae Aulenti international fame. These include the conversion of the Gare d’Orsay in Paris into a museum. It took a whole seven years before the museum was finally opened on December 1, 1986. Aulenti was very keen to preserve the old building fabric as far as possible. Through a series of subtle, sometimes even minimal interventions, she finally transformed the 20th century station into a 21st century museum. She worked closely with the French curators to create the closest possible link between the architecture and the logic of the exhibition. »My design itself was like a big machine that we drove into the station«, she once summed it up in an interview. On a design level, it was important to her to connect the spaces in such a way that their size did not create a feeling of anxiety or overwhelm for visitors. According to Aulenti, you always have to discover the possibilities hidden in old buildings, not imitate or copy what is already there, but try your own interpretation. »You have to work against the space and still respect it.«

In 1980, the Italian designer and architect was also the first woman to win a project of this size in a competition. In an interview, she once remarked that the renovation of the Gare d’Orsay had given her more strength in this respect. »Back then, people didn’t believe that a woman could design a large project on her own.« Working as a woman in a male-dominated industry did not exactly make it easy for Gae Aulenti to live up to her own ambitions until her breakthrough in the early 1980s. »It took me many years to be able to realize big projects, but I went along quietly, without protesting and without allowing this fact to penetrate my consciousness too much. Aulenti was also only one of two women to graduate in architecture from the Politecnico di Milano in 1954.

Gae Aulenti’s redesign of the Museum of Modern Art at the Centre Georges Pompidou and the conversion of the Palazzo Grassi in Venice for museum purposes also caused a stir. Most of her architectural projects combine a careful adaptation to the built environment, but without wanting to exclude contemporary influences. Aulenti is generally associated with Neoliberty – an architectural movement that was based on the tradition of Art Nouveau – Stile Liberty – which was only very weakly developed in Italy anyway, and which attempted to distinguish itself from the modernism of the interwar period through a stronger historical orientation. In connection with her work, however, Aulenti herself spoke far less about stylistic features than about the unconditional embedding of her buildings in urban contexts. As the former Italian president Giorgio Napolitano noted, her designs were characterized by a great sensitivity for the existing.

April chair, Zanotta, 1964

ICONIC OBJECTS

As early as the 1960s, Gae Aulenti succeeded in gaining a foothold as a furniture designer and designer of industrial products. In 1962, her first commercial furniture projects were launched by the manufacturer Poltronova: the rocking chair Sgarsul, inspired by Thonet’s cantilever chair No.1, and the Stringa chair and sofa series. The iconic Locus Solus armchair from 1964 is part of a collection of garden furniture published by Poltronova. Her interest in industrial design soon led her to collaborate with the most important companies in the sector – in 1964 she created the April folding chair for Zanotta, the following year the Jumbo marble table for Knoll and in 1974 the 4794 polyurethane chair for Kartell.

Series Locus Solus, Poltronova, 1964

Her most iconic designs also include the Pipistrello lamp, which is still in production today and is probably one of Aulenti’s works most influenced by the neoliberty movement. Like her designer herself, however, the lamp does not really want to be categorized. Because the Pipistrello was originally intended for the Olivetti showroom in Paris, it had to stand out all the more from the typewriters and computers that primarily populated the room.

Pipistrello lamp – originally intended for the Olivetti showroom in Paris.

Aulenti made a name for herself as an interior designer with the design of the showrooms for the typewriter manufacturer Olivetti in Paris (1966/67) and Buenos Aires (1968). The Italian car dealer Fiat commissioned her to design the showrooms in Brussels and Zurich (1969/70).

THE LIGHTNESS OF BEING

»Stage design, design and architecture always came together for me«, said Gae Aulenti in an interview two years before her death. The extent to which this is actually the case can be seen, for example, in Aulenti’s Rossini chair made of wood and metal. Designed in 1984 for her stage set for Ronconi’s production of the Rossini opera »Journey to Reims«, the chair was later produced by Maxalto/B&B Italia. But it is not only these clearly demonstrable connections between the stage universe and reality that bring these two worlds so close together in Aulenti’s case that one can actually speak of a world stage. To summarize, it can perhaps be said that Gae Aulenti was concerned with a certain lightness in both areas – with spaces that, despite their size, do not frighten the users and with stage sets that make the players take off. Even literally, because for the »Barber of Seville« she had the singers lift into the air. »The characters fly, yes, they fly«, Ronconi put it in a nutshell.

So it’s all just a game? I don’t think you can say that either. But maybe like this: as in a theater or opera production, Gae Aulenti combines different disciplines in her overall work to create a harmonious, artistic production.

ARTICLE FIRST PUBLISHED IN CHAPTER №VIII »ELEMENTS« — SUMMER 2023

It would actually be much more exciting to deal with what happens than with what is. Because that is immediately recognizable, static, defined. In contrast, our world and things are constantly moving and changing. Ancient Greece called this »metamorphosis« – and that’s what we’re talking about here.

»Lost in Translation«––who hasn’t seen the classic film starring Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson, in which two people who don’t know each other meet by chance in Tokyo, a Japanese megacity that is unfathomable and untranslatable for them, which is presumably why they have sought it out. However, the intense feeling of being lost gives their encounter a common level on which they meet, talk and live as if in an intermediate world––for a few days. Watching the film, you enjoy entering this floating state with the two of them––light, open, liberated. You wish you had the courage or the sovereignty to be in-between, as the foreign metropolis allows the main characters in the film to do. Perhaps because it is something subconsciously important to our existence that we repeatedly suppress out of reason or convenience: an interim state of mind that applies to all people in the most diverse life situations and is typical of processes, evolutions and formations. It is the moment of change––sometimes short-lived, sometimes with a noticeable duration––that is expressed quite well in the concept of hovering. The Swiss artist couple Gerda Steiner and Jörg Lenzlinger achieved a congenial visualization of such a process with their touching »Giardino calante« installation at the 2003 Venice Biennale: in the nave of the church of San Staë, people move under a three-dimensional sphere of flowers and delicate natural elements that seem to fall down from the vault without reaching you directly. The beauty and vitality of what was otherwise painted on the ceiling as floral decoration in the Baroque period and stands for creation becomes physical and moving. This brings us closer to the miracle of the speaking church interior; we find ourselves, as it were, in the process of creation, from the ideal budding to the fullness of nature.

Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger, »Giardino calante« (installation), Church of San Staë, Biennale 2003, Venice

While the flanking states––i.e. the initial situation on the one hand and the new on the other––are tangible for us, as they can be clearly defined and also clearly perceived due to their stability, the in-between is a phenomenon whose nature and form is too fluid to »have a handle on«. Time and again, people are forced to accept this period of transformation, whereby they are confronted with it in the most diverse dimensions of life. Sometimes dreams revolve around those motifs of tense pauses, as we are dealing here with the most intense moments of our experience of the world––perhaps Paul Virilio’s famous formula of »frenzied standstill« fits quite well here? Ultimately, however, nature is behind all movement––from the cosmic to our planet. On the constantly rotating earth, vitality and life are defined by the movement and transformation of states: emergence, growth and decline. Symbols of this are the bud or the larva that develops into a butterfly––and this without being able to see the beautiful final stage of the original form, even if it is already within it. Reflections of this omnipresent metamorphosis, as this phenomenon of shape-shifting was called in ancient Greece, can be found in the culture that humans developed as a living being typical of their species from the earliest epochs of history.

Marina Abramović, »The Artist is Present«, MoMA New York, 2010

So it’s no wonder that, alongside philosophy, art is also interested in those slow-motion tipping points, those short periods of time in which one situation leads to the next. Impressive examples are easy to find: For his Florentine sculpture from the story of David, Michelangelo chooses exactly the minute in which the boy develops the courage to hurl the stone he is weighing in his hand at the giant Goliath; Marina Abramović’s performances lead those present into an uncomfortable situation, forcing them to constantly resist the pressure to avoid the exhausting or upsetting confrontation with the art action––only those who can stand the artist sitting in front of them in silence for hours, for example, will ultimately take part. The South African William Kentridge could also be mentioned with his animated films, mostly drawn in charcoal. When you see them, you can’t take your eyes off them, because unlike conventional films with separate individual images, you experience the process of change and the traces of what has gone before always remain at least briefly present in the current film still. »In this way, each sequence carries the story of its development within it. What the technology itself brings with it is a sense of time«, according to the artist. The cases listed demonstrate the intention of art to really and tangibly bring the recipients into its sphere––by subversively placing them in a precarious situation. A routine or emotionally protective perception is not possible in this way. Instead, one must surrender oneself to the experience of this ambivalent situation.

William Kentridge, »Monument« (Stills), 1990

But why is this so fascinating? Human beings actually strive for order, which in a practical and cognitive sense would only give life a before and after. Immediately before the introduction of change and also in between, there is ambivalence, hesitation and dithering about changing a safe situation, the fear of an uncertain outcome––and that is unpleasant at first. That’s why we analyze and plan wherever possible so that everything runs smoothly and the results don’t come as a surprise or create unforeseeable problems. However, transitions are fundamentally unavoidable in an organic, metabolic system in which we live. The nature of the matter always includes its ability to change, even the certain change of what we are currently experiencing. And humanity has always reacted to this: In archaic societies, for example, initiation and sanctification rituals arose in which a specific period of time, a symbolic act and special objects performatively accompany the transition into a new quality, such as the admission of young men into the circle of adults. The ancient Egyptian cult of the sun god Ra worked with the barque as a real embodiment of his journey across the sky and through the underworld. People celebrated this in processions in which a Nile barge charged with a mystical aura was moved from the water to the holy place. Christian theology also had to grapple with the zone between secular reality and the sacred sphere. It developed the concept of limbo––a non-real waiting room for the souls for the temporally unmeasurable but unimaginable intermediate state until redemption.

Norman Foster, Reichstag Dome Berlin, 1999

In factual life on earth, on the other hand, which is constantly and often inexplicably changing, cultic and individual rituals give people more time and sensory influences to empathize and understand––which is why sacred places such as altars or graves have been circled since time immemorial. Turning around something makes you think, see more sides, experience a small effect of the endless in the circular movement, which is typical of the permanent mobility of the cosmos. In this respect, it is not only children who love walking around in circles, adults also enjoy the formal constraint of a circular path, especially when, as with a spiral, the perspective changes subtly with every step. Norman Foster’s architectural concept, who was commissioned to redesign the dome above the Reichstag in Berlin in 1995, also operates with a complex implementation of this motif. Visitors not only walk upwards in a spiral movement along the edge of the transparent roof structure, where they can look out over the country, which is governed from within the building. They can also look down into the plenary chamber and watch their deputies making their case and taking decisions. The discursive process of the legislature is reflected in the movement of the citizens in the iconically towering dome and thus becomes conscious in the performative movement of all.

Refik Anadol Studio for Bvlgari, Milan: »Serpenti Metamorphosis« (installation), 2021

The project »Serpenti Metamorphosis« by media artist Refik Anadol does not use architecture, but visual effects to address the motif discussed here. The large spatial installation, realized in Milan in 2021, creates wall-filling, constantly reconfiguring surfaces that are composed of 200 million varying images of nature in 3D and are connected to animal protagonists––snakes. These are generated by an immersive computer program: »… as poetic imagery mimicking natural transformations and snakes that seemed to slither and change throughout the installation«. Anadol has a concrete goal: »I welcome the machine as a collaborator, it allows me to make the invisible visible. Metamorphosis is really the perfect symbol to represent overarching ideas of evolution, growth, and precision in the world that surrounds us.« The use of AI also makes it possible, depending on the situation, to emit a fragrance that makes the experience synaesthetic. The phenomenon of permanent change in nature is transformed into an equally volatile visualization, which in turn has an emotional effect and changes through the reactive actions of the audience within it.

Rei Naito, »Matrix«, permanent installation Teshima Art Museum, 2010

While Anadol’s media installation is in principle an artificial setting, in another artistic work nature actually appears as an active player and can thus be experienced in its metabolic movement. The Japanese artist Rei Naito worked on the floor of a specially constructed grotto-like concrete architecture––the Teshima Art Museum––using a special surface shape and punctured holes so that the natural spring water in the area forces its way up onto the artificial surface in small drops, which then move freely: »Following the inclination of the floor they seem to race, overtaking each other and occasionally colliding and combining in larger puddles. Dancing in unexpected patterns, they finally gather and are drained through other holes. This splendid movement makes the water look lively, and not only a source of life but alive itself.« Unlike when looking at a stream or lake, the water is not perceived as an element of the landscape, but as a visible and tangible indicator of the vital force of nature, of pushing and becoming––experiencing the process of life, the seemingly eternal cycle of the creation and decay of natural forms in the forming and draining of these small ponds. »Is there anything more moving than this moment of transformation?«, the artist asks rhetorically.

The young Berlin CGI studio PALAM is also exploring this fascinating phenomenon, skillfully bringing it into the reality-based sphere of the product world alongside artistic aspects. Their immersive installation »Metamorphosis« (from page 80), which took nine months to create, gains its appeal not only through a strong aesthetic characterized by intense orange tones, but also through the visionary power of computer-generated imagery. The magical presence of the automotive object is created in a technoid setting, on an active »stage«, which is geared towards both production and presentation and plays on this with its robotic moves: »The stage becomes a canvas where the fluidity of life is explored, offering an intellectual and sensory journey that captures the essence of transformative beauty.« In terms of product design, it is therefore not about a design as the form generated from a material through a transformation process, regardless of whether this is created in a controlled manner as in an assembly, printing or casting process. Ultimately, this thematizes nothing other than the end product. The virulence of the process, i.e. the transformation process itself, and the fact that this metamorphosis is part of the concept and remains present in the form, is much more interesting than the path and period of production.

After all this, what is the conclusion of these considerations, what is the latent and explicit message of these impressive projects and works of art? At any rate, it is based on the insight that the impression that something is standing still is often based on imagination or misinterpretation––although at the same time it is also a cognitive strategy of our brain, which knows that we need a certain order and structure in our analysis of the environment in order to be able to perceive something in peace. This is perfectly fine as long as we have such talented creatives around us, who––like Rei Naito or Anadol––are able to combine the visual, emotional and ultimately also intellectual floating of changing states into wonderful and enlightening spaces of experience.

ARTICLE FIRST PUBLISHED IN CHAPTER №X »STATE OF THE ART« — SUMMER 2023/24

In 2017, Robert Punkenhofer revived the traditional watch brand Carl Suchy & Söhne, which was originally founded in Vienna in 1822. Once a purveyor to the imperial family, the company was considered the most important watch manufacturer in the Danube Monarchy in the 19th century and also enjoyed international renown, which only dried up with the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. With a clear vision, Punkenhofer has now revitalized the brand and brought it into the 21st century: Watches of the highest quality, conceived as a tribute to Viennese elegance and inspired by the era of Wiener Moderne (Viennese Modernism) in dialog with contemporary design.

Carl Suchy & Söhne was once the most important supplier for clocks and watches in the Danube Monarchy and stood for the highest quality and precision—even Emperor Franz Joseph I was one of the watchmaker’s regular customers.

With three collections since the relaunch, Carl Suchy & Söhne has already successfully established itself as a niche brand characterized by quality, historical and cultural depth and a strong design identity. In an interview with Chapter, Robert Punkenhofer talks about the challenges and ambitions of this brand revival, his personal connection to Vienna and the role of art and design in creating a timeless identity.

Chapter  How do you define the DNA of the Carl Suchy & Söhne brand, even apart from the brand’s historically numerous prominent customers?

Robert Punkenhofer  The DNA for me was very clear: Carl Suchy & Söhne was the most important watch manufacturer of the Danube Monarchy, not without a reason purveyor to the court for three generations and offered customers the highest quality. That is the DNA for me. So ultimately: »The Emperor’s Choice«.

Chapter Which original design details were essential for you during the relaunch in order to maintain the authenticity of the brand?

Robert Punkenhofer  For me, the design details are less about historical watches that we have in our archive, because the premise for us was to carry on the fire of Carl Suchy and not the ashes—after all, he was one of the most outstanding, creative and innovative entrepreneurs of his time. That’s why the original design was less important to me than the positioning: I wanted to be back where Carl Suchy was, namely at the highest level. And we are not simply copying the original designs and reissuing the same watches. Quite the opposite: we are continuing the story and picking up where Suchy left off, i.e. Biedermeier. And what came after that: Wiener Moderne, Secession, Viennese Jugendstil—and that’s where we took our design approach, i.e. our watches are very much inspired by Vienna around 1900 with the formative architecture and art scene around Hoffmann, Klimt, Schiele, Loos, Wagner etc. But again, it’s not a copy, it’s a recreation, charged and relevant for the 21st century.

A highlight of the Belvedere collection is the development of the date display, in which the date window moves forward every day.

Chapter How did you navigate the tension between historical 19th century watch design and contemporary trends, particularly with regard to the sporty Belvedere line?

Robert Punkenhofer  With the Belvedere in particular, it was important for us to remain true to our design approach, i.e. to create a watch based on Wiener Moderne  that is clearly recognizable as a Suchy—for example by the halved guillochage on the dial and many small details such as the polished and sandblasted surfaces. And on the other side, when we turn the watch over, we see the golden rotor, the Golden Vienna, so to speak, the classic baroque, with the micro-engraved façade of Belvedere Palace. A duality of simplicity, effortless elegance, and the emotional, such as the golden rotor, the golden retaining ring, but also with little twists, such as the date window, which keeps turning and thus provides a new perspective on the watch every day.

Chapter To what extent does the design of the dial you described as a central element reflect the revival of the brand identity and »Viennese elegance«?

Robert Punkenhofer  The dial is indeed elementary, it is the face of the watch. It was essential for us to create a simple elegance, a Viennese elegance, with flowing transitions from the dial to the case, from the glass to the dial, from the strap lug to the steel case or titanium case. Flowing transitions like those created by Adolf Loos in Wiener Moderne, for example, or Josef Hoffmann. And then, of course, the small design details of the dial were also important to us, which shine through everywhere in our collections and make them recognizable, as with the waltz disc on the Waltz N°1, or mentioned date window, which moves on at midnight.

The design of the Waltz N°1 wristwatch is inspired by Viennese architect Adolf Loos and is intended to combine the timeless elegance of Wiener Moderne (Viennese Modernism) with the highest level of Swiss craftsmanship.

Chapter You always emphasize the brand’s historically strong Viennese roots, the inspiration from formative Viennese art and cultural trends and classic Viennese elegance. What connection do you personally have to Vienna and how does this influence the brand identity of Carl Suchy & Söhne?

Robert Punkenhofer Well, I’m not Viennese, I’m actually Styrian, but of course Vienna has always fascinated me, even as a young student. I’ve also been active in the design and art world in Vienna for many years, for example I founded Vienna Art Week 20 years ago and was managing director of the Austrian Design Foundation in Vienna. And through this involvement with creative Vienna, with the creative industries, I developed a very, very strong connection to the city. Long before the revival of Carl Suchy & Söhne, it was a dream of mine to revive a historic brand. Based on a strong history, a strong legacy, to create something relevant, something new. I love Vienna! … But only if I can get out regularly. (laughs)

The mechanical movement of the traditional Swiss watchmaker Vaucher Fleurier is visible through the scratch-resistant sapphire crystal case back of the Waltz N°1.

Chapter How has this professional background as an art and design expert that you have just described shaped your view of the art of watchmaking and what role does your extensive experience and expertise in this field play in the positioning of the brand?

Robert Punkenhofer On the one hand, this is a very important influence and also an important basis for my work. On the other hand, I have to admit that I couldn’t really seek synergies from this »cutting-edge« art and design world when relaunching Carl Suchy & Söhne, because the brand’s DNA and philosophy are naturally positioned much more conservatively. On the other hand, with regard to young designers, such as Milos Ristin, who designed the first watches, or now with Eric Giroux, my influence from art and design projects that I have implemented in the past is also very recognizable. Especially when it comes to constantly challenging yourself and questioning what you can do better, better, more beautifully. Because we want to build a really beautiful brand that isn’t always just about whether we can make money with it, but as my motto has always been »Meaning is more than money«.

Chapter What challenges did you face during the revival of Carl Suchy & Söhne?

Robert Punkenhofer From my point of view, the challenges were not that great, because I am also used to creating beautiful things out of nothing, so to speak. Perhaps also because in my previous job as a diplomat and business delegate, it was always important to put out feelers, build up new networks and connect with interesting people—in this case, watchmakers, designers, etc. The real challenge was actually to still be alive after a year. We are now in our seventh year and have already managed to build up three collections and win customers in over 20 countries. When I think back, the biggest challenge to date has actually been to build up this network and a community of people in the watch industry, dealers, opinion leaders, whether journalists or collectors. In the end, I really underestimated that. I thought to myself, I know how it works in the art world, I know how it works in diplomacy, it won’t be much different in the watch industry. But it is still a special segment and also a very closed circle to some extent.

An unusually bold statement: after more than 100 years, Carl Suchy & Söhne launched the Table Waltz, a table clock designed to fill any room with Viennese charm.

Chapter  How would you describe the target group that you want to address with Carl Suchy & Söhne?

Robert Punkenhofer Our target group is very clear: passionate watch collectors who already have the usual brands in their homes, so perhaps already have a Rolex or a Patek Philippe, and are now looking for something special—a niche that is much more exclusive. We make a few hundred watches a year, while Patek Philippe makes around 70,000 and Rolex over a million. Our customers are looking for watches that are special in terms of design and heritage, that tell a different story than any other Swiss watch brand. We are the Austrian watch brand, we are the Viennese watch brand. And our customers are, so to speak, »People in the know«, sophisticated, intellectual and well-traveled. In terms of mindset, someone who is looking for something special, who doesn’t prefer »bling bling« and »into your face«, where everyone should immediately recognize that I have a Rolex, but who, on the contrary, is happy to know what special thing he is wearing on his wrist and it is not at all important to him that others immediately recognize it.

Chapter And how do you want to ensure that the brand remains relevant for both watch enthusiasts and collectors in the long term?

Robert Punkenhofer I think we can only create this relevance and desirability for our watches by delivering fantastic quality—in terms of design, in terms of movements, but also in terms of positioning, creating a brand world that offers something special. And I believe that with our symbolic value around our history, around Vienna, around our design language, we will hopefully be able to win over many new collectors in the future—enthusiasts, collectors and fans. [CS]

In his works, the Vienna-based artist Lukas Gschwandtner deals with the human body in both physical and psychological relation to its surroundings. The almost poetic expression of his extensive studies and precise reflections manifests itself not only in his handling of the chosen materials, but also in his extended, backdrop-like staging of the (exhibition) space.

Chapter         In your ongoing series »Pillow Portraits«, you focus on the human body and its interaction with space, furniture and objects. How did this exploration come about?

Lukas Gschwandtner         The series »Pillow Portraits« is based on my long-standing collection of historical paintings of ladies resting on chaise longues, whose non-self-staged body language I wanted to understand. In most cases, their poses were chosen by male artists who wanted to portray them in a certain body language, surrounded by objects that would define the sitter. But the focus is also on the chaise longue itself. So in my series »Pillow Portraits« I try to create a direct and abstracted translation of the depicted body languages. A portable »canvas volume« that directs the body to lie as the portrayed person does. For me, these are mainly personal studies that help me to understand the physical, aesthetic and sociological dimensions of the painter’s decision – but above all I try to understand the physical dimension for the female models, especially as the result of the poses they assume is usually very uncomfortable and unnatural. It is important to me that »Pillow Portraits« can be worn and understood individually, but at the same time serves as a universal tool to grasp the sometimes problematic themes of historical painting.

Chapter         In your work, for example, you question furniture as a purely functional object. What social dimension do you personally attach to furniture?

Lukas Gschwandtner         What interests me about a piece of furniture is the direct contact with the body in use––a construction that supports and guides the body and at the same time determines its body language. Apart from that, the historical aspect of a piece of furniture is very important to me. The research itself is essential in order to understand the origin of the furniture and to be able to pass it on. In the context of restoration, I find it exciting to be able to reconstruct and deconstruct pieces of furniture.

Chapter         Your exhibition »A Room of Her Own« seems to distil the essence of Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky’s »living room/bedroom furnishings for Mrs. C. Neubacher«. What considerations preceded the realization and how did you approach such a multi-layered, socially charged source work?

Lukas Gschwandtner         Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky’s life story and her work have been with me for a long time and continue to influence me in new ways. The living room and bedroom she designed for Karoline Neubacher (1925) is part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Applied Arts (MAK) in Vienna. Over many years I have visited this room and measured the details with my eyes (without forbidden scanning) and found the dialog between upholstery, upholstered furniture and wood construction, their wear and tear, exciting, as well as how all components come together as a unit in the spatial image. In Mexico City, together with the Peana Gallery, I was able to translate Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky’s living room and bedroom. The translated canvas corpus (Canvas Fossil) concentrates on the surface of the room objects, acting almost like their skin. The substructure functions as a skeleton of linear steel elements reminiscent of a drawing. The stone drawings clarify the proportions and volumes of the furniture. These constructs serve as spatial drawings that can be read differently depending on the perspective. In order to transfer the floor plan and proportions of the living room and bedroom, the textile fossils were pressed between glass walls and formatted according to the floor plan of the room. For me, the overall picture of the exhibition with all the fossils floating in glass represents a family portrait of Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky’s designs––details archived by me with historical context.

Chapter         The staging of your works has a stage-set-like effect. What importance do you attach to the atmospheric and purely visual components in your work?

Lukas Gschwandtner         For me, the works stand together with the surrounding space as a whole. Perhaps it can be understood as an unspoken overall picture that I unconsciously try to create. I find it incredibly fun to move from a small scale to the largest areas of the room. This allows me to see and understand every detail. Visually, I like it best when I can document my work with my cell phone, especially because the quality is often so poor that the photo can almost be read as a painting. These cell phone photos often make it easier to recognize volumes and proportions than in fancy pictures. I think it’s important to give space a leading role, even in photos. Not forgetting my obsession with scanning––I would love to scan what I have scanned. A scan has a special two-dimensional, pressed quality that makes me think a lot about archiving––my other obsession.

For three decades now, the museum in progress has made it its mission to make contemporary art more democratic and thus accessible to as broad a public as possible. Through its integrative, low-threshold activities at the highest artistic and operational level, the non-profit art initiative transforms media and public spaces into flexible support structures for its projects away from the metaphorically thick walls of traditional cultural institutions.

»The cause of the museum in progress projects lies in the future (loosely based on Beuys)!«, writes Kaspar Mühlemann Hartl in his introductory text to the anthology »museum in progress. Kunst in öffentlichen und medialen Räumen – DURCH EIN ENDE REIN & DURCH DAS ANDERE DURCH [ & DANN NOCH EINMAL ]«, which provides an overview of the works of the museum in progress art initiative to date. The reference to the initially paradoxical-sounding assertion by the great German artist Joseph Beuys »The cause lies in the future« refers to art’s ability to grasp social trends at an early stage and can plausibly be applied to the founding idea behind the museum in progress. After all, if contemporary art is the mediator of something future, its creation, distribution and consumption away from the classic cultural infrastructure also seems logical. Founded by Kathrin Messner and Josef Ortner in Vienna, the art initiative with the programmatic name museum in progress has been operating beyond traditional forms of presentation for contemporary art since 1990 and uses open spaces as temporary spaces for art interventions, for example on billboards, building facades, in concert halls, on television or even on board airplanes.

Martha Jungwirth, »The Trojan Horse«, 2019, »Iron Curtain«, museum in progress, Vienna State Opera, 2019/2020

Media-specific, context-dependent and temporary – the practice of museum in progress plays above all with the idea that space for art begins in the mind. »From museum in progress I had learned that museums are first and foremost software and not hardware, and this idea is more contemporary and effective than ever today«, Massimiliano Gioni, currently artistic director of the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi in Milan and the New Museum in New York, sums it up and continues: »It is extremely interesting that my encounter with museum in progress coincided with the opening year of the Museo Guggenheim in Bilbao. The Guggenheim in Bilbao may be better known today, but for me museum in progress will always point the way to the future.« The culturally significant position of the progressive art initiative was recognized early on by leading museums such as the MoMA in New York or the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, which already included its works in their collections at the turn of the millennium. Max Hollein, Director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, describes the project as »… a highly influential, elusive but all the more effective institution since its foundation, always ahead of its time«.
The museum in progress provides a possible answer to the ever-present discourse on the future of museums and classic exhibition spaces in areas such as newspaper art and multiples in magazines. According to the initiative, there is no other institution in the world that has realized groups of works comparable in scope, diversity and quality and furthermore: »It should be emphasized that the diverse works of the international artists were conceived specifically for the media space and do not represent reproductions of artworks, but function as multiples, as independent works in the medium’s circulation. Consequently, the individual newspaper or magazine is an original and collector’s item.«

Anselm Kiefer, »Solaris (for Stanislaw Lem)«, 2023, » Eiserner Vorhang«, museum in progress, Vienna State Opera, 2023/2024

The museum in progress also demonstrates great (socio-political) sensitivity to current events with its exhibition series »Eiserner Vorhang«. Since 1998, this project has transformed the iron curtain of the Vienna State Opera – actually a structural fire protection device designed to protect the stage from spreading to adjacent parts of the building and the auditorium in the event of a fire – into an exhibition space for contemporary art.
The concept of the exhibition series was preceded by the debate surrounding the original iron curtain by the artist Rudolf Hermann Eisenmenger. »At the heart of the controversy was an overarching topic that was only discussed in passing in public: the involvement of Austrian artists during the Nazi era and how post-war society dealt with this legacy«, the initiative’s website explains. This means Eisenmenger’s extensive role in the National Socialist regime – he painted propaganda pictures with swastikas and was awarded an honorary professorship by Hitler – the opacity of the awarding of commissions at the time and the bumpy decision-making process by a largely unqualified jury for this purpose. In fact, the controversial curtain hung prominently and largely unquestioned from 1955 to 1995, until opera director Ioan Holender publicly called for Eisenmenger’s work to be removed as a symbolic gesture. As a result, the art initiative museum in progress developed a proposal that prevailed and is still being realized today: Since then, a new work has been designed each year, which can be seen for one season, most recently by Anselm Kiefer with his work »Solaris (for Stanislaw Lem)«. Past artists have included John Baldessari, David Hockney, Cy Twombly, Kara Walker, Franz West, Rosemarie Trockel, Jeff Koons, Tauba Auerbach and Maria Lassnig – names as larger than life as the 176 square meter curtain itself. The applied large-scale images are produced and installed using an innovative process. They are produced on a PVC net, which is fixed to the iron curtain using magnets. This technique means that Eisenmenger’s original iron curtain, which is a listed building in Vienna, remains untouched. Due to the requirements of the Monuments Office, it can be seen for three months at a time during the summer months.

Cao Fei, » The New Angel«, 2022, »Eiserner Vorhang«, museum in progress, Vienna State Opera, 2022/2023

It goes without saying that an equally high-caliber, independent, international jury is responsible for selecting the artists, which – alongside Daniel Birnbaum and Bice Curiger – is also headed by the influential curator Hans-Ulrich Obrist. Long before he became a superstar of the art scene, Obrist curated many projects as a congenial partner of the then still young art initiative – in which he found ideal conditions to realize extraordinary projects – and has remained with it in an advisory capacity to this day. He describes Josef Ortner, with whom he was on friendly terms until his death in 2009, as a »pioneer among the museum founders of the 20th century. His approach was to go beyond the institution as we knew it and to devise new rituals for spaces in which we encounter art.« In his statement on the museum in progress, he also mentions the Internet as an early form of presentation of art of initiative: “The transmediality of the Internet already contains the idea behind an »immaterial« museum, offering more democratic access to art content beyond rigid media boundaries. With the founding of the digital museum in progress – a virtual exhibition space for contemporary digital art – the art initiative aims to keep pace with its progressive aspirations for itself and describes the project, which is still at a very early stage, as a »experience space for new forms of art« and also »platform for artists working with the latest technologies and digital media«. A current example of the museum in progress ‘s cross-media art presentation is the project »raising flags«, which has been realized since 2023 at various locations, in virtual exhibition spaces and in the media spaces of newspapers and magazines, and for which 35 international artists designed flags, including illustrious names such as Thomas Bayrle, Wade Guyton, Martha Jungwirth, Laure Prouvost, Christian Robert-Tissot and Erwin Wurm.

»raising flags«, museum in progress, Ladakh, 2024

Divided into two project phases, the first part, entitled »National Flags of Ideas«, deals with questions of social coexistence in challenging times, while the second part – »The essence of wind and the wind of change« – deals, as the title suggests, with movement in the wind and the wind of change in the figurative sense – to be shown at numerous locations, including Vienna and Ladakh (India) as part of the sā festival (June 2024) and soon at the festival sommer.frische.kunst festival in Bad Gastein (July 2024). The curators Kaspar Mühlemann Hartl and Alois Herrmann are calling for this to be continued: »Institutions, companies, but also private individuals who have the means to display a flag in a publicly visible manner are invited to participate in the project.« Certainly not a coincidental invitation, considering that the museum in progress was understood by its founding members Kathrin Messner and Josef Ortner as a social sculpture (loosely based on Beuys!), whose understanding results from the »expanded concept of art«, which does not limit art to a completed work, but includes the creative thinking and action of the individual, also in its collectivity. A consideration that the unconventional museum has always included in its work.

Author Andreas Marks, an internationally recognized expert on Japanese art, in particular on ukiyo-e prints, writes in the introduction that, in spite of the best estimates, no one has actually made a serious attempt to count Hokusai’s surviving works. Not only the artist’s extraordinary productivity, but also the major problem of attribution, among other things, represented major hurdles. While researching this colossal collection, he himself tried to exclude paintings, prints and drawings with dubious signatures or seals, as well as works that could have been executed by his students in the master’s style. »With these rules in mind, and with the requirement to count multi-page prints as one work, as well as counting every single book illustration I could find, I managed to document almost 7,200 works that can be attributed to Hokusai with certainty. A selection of almost 800 of these works is presented in this book«, summarizes Marks and releases the reader into Hokusai’s world—to whose tangibility and understanding he provides a guide in the form of a fascinatingly detailed monograph on 722 pages.

Structured into life and creative phases, the book guides the reader through the life and work of the great Japanese artist. Hokusai (1760-1849) was a Japanese painter and woodcut artist of the Edo period (1603-1868), who became known above all for his iconic series »36 views of Mount Fuji«. His best-known work from this series, »The Great Wave of Kanagawa«, shows a huge wave in front of Mount Fuji—In March 2023, a print of his world-famous woodblock print was auctioned for 2.76 million US dollars. As a master of ukiyo-e printmaking, he had a profound influence on both Japanese and Western art, particularly in the Impressionism movement.

Compiled in clearly defined sections, the art book is a trusted guide through Hokusai’s life and work, whereby the depth and quality of the content is actually more reminiscent of a scholarly volume of works, were it not for the focus on large-format, color reproductions, which facilitates accessibility to such a demanding (life) work. Under the chapter names »The beginnings of an artist’s career (1779-1794)«, »The world of private poetry (1795-1798)«, »The return to commercial publications (1798-1813)«, »An exceptional book illustrator (1814-1819)«, »The creation of a legacy (1820« and »The last years (1834-1849)« one is drawn into the unsurpassed variety of themes and techniques: Landscapes like the Kirifuri Waterfall next to large-format maps of the country roads Tōkaidō and Kisokaidō or from the peninsula Bōsō; double-page illustrations from illustrated books, including sensual, imaginative eroticism (shunga) and drawing instructions such as the fifteen-volume Hokusai manga; and finally depictions of animals such as woodcut series on the theme of birds and flowers or late scroll paintings on silk of ducks in flowing water or a floating tiger in the snow.

»The (almost) complete HOKUSAI« is an unprecedented work between aesthetic-visual pleasure and academic-scientific scope, which is unparalleled even in the impressive collection of the Cologne art book publisher. It transcends the boundaries of a conventional art book, representing both a collection of historical material and a tribute to the passion for art. It is a volume with which TASCHEN makes a confident commitment to the highest possible quality in the art book market. [DM]

Hokusai
Hardcover, with ribbon marker, 29 x 39.5 cm, 6.18 kg, 722 pages
taschen.com

Hardly any other building material divides people more on the question of what »is beautiful« — not to mention its image; only asbestos would suffer from greater depression if it could feel anything. And yet, for around 2,000 years, its technological development has shaped the aesthetics of urban space like no other material. The almost endless possibilities of its shaping nourish the dream of overcoming gravity and create its bipolar nature. Thus he gives us a grandiose bridge structure that spans a wide valley in a tender gesture. Just around the next bend, however, he cuts a swath of devastation through a baroque old town, his corset embraces a once meandering stream and degrades it to a hydrodynamic death zone. Concrete. It all began so beautifully.

INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY, Kiev, F. Yuryev and L. Novikov, 1971, © Martin Püschel von Statten

The light of the sky burns brightly through a huge hole in the ceiling, through which the gods of antiquity look out at the perplexed audience. A grey firmament with a diameter of around 43 meters, completed around the year 128, arches majestically above the astonished spectators. At that time, Vienna was the Roman border fortress of Vindobona, behind which Barbaricum lay, and Berlin was nothing more than the distant future of a swampy expanse full of mosquitoes. No pillar supports this construction, which was only completed a good 1,800 years later by the Hala Stulecia (Hall of the Century) in today’s Wrocław as the largest domed building in the world. Anyone who has ever entered the Pantheon  in the center of Rome in awe and furtively thought that this technical masterpiece looked like concrete can rest assured: it is concrete.

PANTHEON, inner dome, Rome, around 128 AD, © Martin Püschel von Statten

BERLIN-MARZAHNICUM

The Pantheon in Rome is no exception; on the contrary, concrete was a decisive factor in the expansion and survival of the Roman Empire. Temples, palaces and viaducts were built quickly, cheaply and with a long lifespan using a building material that seemed utopian for the time. As sobering as it may sound to fans of ancient architecture, the reason why even the Colosseum  still stands today is a simple one: concrete. The Romans used a mixture of burnt lime, water and additives such as tuff or broken bricks to produce calcium silicate hydrate. They called this predecessor of modern concrete opus caementitium  and had been using it as mortar since the 3rd century BC. Later, entire buildings were made from it, »thick at the bottom, thin at the top« was the formula for the corresponding stability. Since, unlike today, there was no steel reinforcement in the concrete, nothing could rust inside and eventually collapse. As a result, the impressive buildings are still standing today, wind and weather cannot harm them, and even in 2,000-year-old wall plaster there is not the slightest crack to be found to this day. As exposed concrete was apparently not in vogue with the Romans, most of the buildings were clad with a wide variety of stones. From the outside, theaters, arenas and the like look like solid masonry monuments, beautiful, aesthetic, admirable. It’s all just a facade. Rome is the ancient version of Berlin-Marzahn.

Pantheon, sectional view; James Ferguson, A History of Architecture in All Countries 3rd edition.
Ed. R. Phené Spiers, F.S.A. London, 1895 Vol. I, p. 320, Public domain on Wikimedia Commons

With the fall of the Roman Empire, darkness once again descended on Europe. People retreated into holes in the ground and wooden shacks, forgetting what toilets were and, accordingly, that concrete ever existed. It was not until the middle of the 18th century that concrete was rediscovered, in England, the northernmost part of the former Roman Empire. Initially conceived as a waterproof mortar, a modern building material quickly developed, from which the first buildings were to be constructed using tamped concrete. The decisive breakthrough came with the Frenchman Joseph Monier, who patented reinforced concrete in 1867. He paved the way for the progressive technological development of concrete, which is now used to build the tallest and longest structures known to man using water, sand, cement and steel.

Concrete trowel of the »sails« of the SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE, Jørn Utzon, 1959 – 1973; Dr. Frank Köhler. Sydney Opera House;

GRAVITATION AS THE BOUNDARY OF POWER AND GRACE

Beyond being fast and cheap, concrete developed into a political issue, similar to the Roman Empire. The planned rebuilding of entire cities between Naples and Berlin, even implemented in small parts, would have been unthinkable without reinforced concrete. But no matter which political system prevails: tanks roll particularly well over concrete roads, the more exciting the construction, the greater the appreciation of its creators and financiers. Those who think highly of themselves also build a phallus in the urban landscape where there is no shortage of space, expensive and powerful, right up above the clouds. War-ravaged Europe became a playground for the dawn of modernity, entire metropolises were rebuilt in record time, satellite cities were erected and sensational prestige buildings for administration and culture were created, which – depending on political taste and zeitgeist – were intended to manifest the superiority of a system through their extraordinary elegance or massiveness. This is particularly evident in the states of the former Soviet Union. After Stalin and the confectioner’s style became obsolete, Moscow proclaimed a new aesthetic, for which the properties of concrete and its visible materiality played a prominent role: Thanks to reinforced concrete, futuristic buildings emerged, graceful, self-supporting and as visible proof of a modern society turned towards the future. On the other side of the planet too, in Brazil for example, elegant to almost daring concrete constructions bear witness to a progressive self-image. A high aesthetic standard and an unshakeable belief in progress have become a built reality before the eyes of the global public. Buildings for culture and religion exhibit a very similar phenomenon. Whether in the sweeping, soaring sails of an opera house or in the edgy, massive church buildings of post-war modernism – concrete was and is deliberately used as a contemporary and aesthetic stylistic device to create a sublime space of the highest grace.

Pilgrimage church Maria Königin des Friedens, Neviges, Germany; Flickr gottfried böhm, pilgrimage church, neviges 1963 – 1972, seier+seier. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

At the same time, the almost free form of the building material offers an effective means of representation both internally and externally. Government buildings that even play with visible concrete surfaces follow the same principle. In Brasilia, for example, an entire capital was cast in concrete; in Berlin, a massive ribbon of the federal government  stretches from east to west in velvety-looking exposed concrete. The construction of apartments for 20,000 people by the GDR in Zanzibar flourished in the 1960s: in return, Zanzibar recognized the GDR as a sovereign state.

In addition to reinforced concrete, the ferrocement construction method, which had been refined since the 1920s, was the starting point for new forms in architecture. The shell construction resulted in curved concrete shells that were self-supporting. The filigree dome of the Zeiss Planetarium in Jena, Thuringia, was the driving force behind built utopias. With a span of 25 meters, the shell is only 6 centimeters thick. Concrete, wafer-thin and stable as never before, created in 1926. In the following years, and especially after the Second World War, the shells reached ever greater spans, from pavilions to congress halls, spaceship-like structures grew into urban spaces worldwide. One of the best-known architects of so-called hypar shell buildings was Ulrich Müther, who adorned the cities and communities of the GDR with futuristic functional buildings such as canteens and exhibition halls. The elaborate technology of the hypar shells harbored a paradox of sorts: it brought a forward-looking aesthetic to every corner of the country, in which the old towns were increasingly falling into disrepair and the carefully planned large housing estates (until German reunification) often remained monotonously designed and monofunctional.

RETTUNGSTURM 1, Binz, Rügen, Germany, Ulrich Müther, 1981; Müther Archive Association, Annika Janke, Wismar University of Applied Sciences, Faculty of Design

TYPICALLY INDIVIDUAL

This brings us to the Plattenbau, the horror image of all those who today pay a lot of money to live in the former slums of the Wilhelminian era. Even if we don’t venture out of the pigeonhole into which we put prefabricated housing … no dystopian film dispenses with the aesthetic stylistic device of the ever-same and eternal gray; it casts a spell over us. Grids and repetition exert their own fascination on people, which is another reason why the prefabricated building can be included in the series of remarkable building types. In German-speaking countries in particular, prefabricated housing is often the subject of one-sided media coverage and has become, quite wrongly, a symbol of poverty and decline. Whenever social problems are reported on in Switzerland, Austria or Germany, the following agency image appears again and again in newspapers and news programs: Little girl in pink jacket sitting sadly on a dilapidated fence, gray prefabricated buildings in the background. The fact that millions of people around the world live very happily in the »Platte« is completely ignored.

Les choux de creéteil »Cauliflower settlement«, Créteil near Paris, Gérard Grandval, 1969—1974, © Martin Püschel von Statten

Buildings and urban structures emerged around the globe, representing national pride in technical achievements in the form of typified housing. Residential buildings were built that aspire to the stars like rockets or imitate flowers in their floor plans. Some cities, such as Vienna and Genoa, experimented in type construction with »housing machines», which despite their massive bodies – and thanks to the possible formwork shapes of the concrete – have a high design standard and undoubtedly enable high-quality living in sometimes exciting buildings. Furthermore, the technological developments in concrete also made it possible to create regional aesthetics in mass housing construction, where the design of the type buildings is based on brick Gothic or Islamic floral ornamentation, for example. The evolving technology of infra-lightweight concrete (ILC) offers completely new possibilities in urban and residential construction. Conventional concrete has to be insulated with an additional material, which means that a building consists of several layers. Even exposed concrete thus becomes just a shell, which makes neither economic nor ecological sense. ILC, on the other hand, combines statics and thermal insulation. So-called expanded glass, which is produced by foaming used glass, makes the stable concrete particularly light. Tiny air pores provide the necessary insulating properties, as air is a poor conductor of heat. Now that smaller buildings have already been constructed with ILC, plans for high-rise buildings made of the new material are well advanced. Various institutions and engineering firms are experimenting with the use of specially shaped, prefabricated elements, which in turn open up completely new paths in type construction. As the private and public merge into a single unit in terms of materiality, the technical innovation of infra-lightweight concrete becomes a test of aesthetic perception: Exposed concrete is the defining element in both urban spaces and intimate living areas.

CHEONGGYECHEON, a recreational area around 11 kilometers long in the center of Seoul, after the highway was demolished in 2005, © Martin Püschel von Statten

WITH ALL MY LOVE …

… we need to talk. About the fact that the forests of the Roman Empire were burned in the lime kilns that made the construction of ancient metropolises possible in the first place. We need to talk about the countless beaches and riverbeds of our planet that are being transformed into highways by concrete mixers or growing into the sky in the form of skyscrapers so that the gods no longer have to look at their creation through a hole in the concrete lid. At eye level with the universe, the industrialized world celebrates progress and with it the fairy tale of limitless growth that blocks the view of finite resources. Sand is one of these. As early as the 1st century BC, the Roman master builder Marcus Vitruvius Pollio wrote that good sand must crunch between the fingers for building. Desert sand does not do this – but sand that has become a massive problem for the stability of entire coastal regions due to overexploitation; the construction boom does not even stop at protected river systems. The suction trunks of specially designed boats provide the building materials industry with supplies, which are inexorably dragging the habitats of flora and fauna into the abyss through erosion. And thus also those of humans. Another sticking point is CO₂, as the cement industry produces at least 7 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. On the one hand, energy production for burning lime consumes large quantities of fossil fuels, and on the other, the greenhouse gas is also produced by the chemical reactions in the cement.

We will not be able to do without concrete as a building material for the foreseeable future. The younger generation in particular is called upon to publicly question the prevailing policy: Answers are provided by the increased mix of materials, exclusively recyclable insulation materials and the promotion of timber construction. Wood is very durable and flexible, it is a renewable raw material, binds large amounts of CO₂ and can be reused. Concrete should only be used where it is really necessary, for example in building cores and bridge structures. New technologies allow innovative type elements and now even high-rise buildings to be made of wood. This does not detract from the aesthetics, as wood also adapts to many shapes, and the individuality of a building is retained through the appropriate façade design. Cities will continue to grow – with the increased use of natural building materials, we can help to harmonize high-quality architecture and ecological construction.

Built with everything that was there: ROMA-VILLA, Soroca, Moldova, © Martin Püschel von Statten

What is the connection between a car and the visual arts? A motorized car is auto-mobile and autonomous; it was built to be on the road. The same applies to art: it stems from an inner movement, stands on its own and is constantly seeking new paths. Interesting things have emerged from both encounters.

The beginning. You learn it in creative writing. Presumably. It is recommended to start a speech or an article––preferably with rhetorical finesse––with a joke or at least a bon mot. Here, however, everything starts with an obituary. It just has to be, since he was so important: a brief remembrance of Marcello Gandini, the great Italian designer who left us forever a few months ago. His legacy is motorized and enchanting. Not only car enthusiasts feel that certain something when they stand in front of a Lancia Stratos, a Lamborghini Miura, but above all the Lamborghini Countach, which proves that automotive design of this kind is undoubtedly one of the points of contact with fine art and its sculptural bodies. Leaving aside the pleasure of sitting in these vehicles and being able to drive them, smelling their scent and enjoying their sound, it is their pure form and materiality alone that are so powerful that we are touched aesthetically and sensually. This is why cultural society has long paid homage to the mobile, which the Italian futurist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti brought into the museum in 1909 with the statement that a car roaring is »more beautiful than the Nike of Samothrace«. At first, it was mainly photography and advertising graphics that took an artistic approach to the then very young technology. Then, in 1951, a museum, the famous MoMA in New York, decided to exhibit eight vehicles of equal value – curated by architect Philip Johnson. When the same institution finally added the first automobile to its collection of art and design 21 years later––an Italian Cisitalia 202 GT––it was finally established as a cultural asset. This is interesting, because Battista »Pinin« Farina, who had created the car in 1946, was not an artist but a designer. Nevertheless, those responsible at the MoMA did not question its inclusion in the fine arts at the time––apparently because the object-related aesthetic quality in form and material created an appropriate effect. Thanks to the simple clarity of its design, the immensely appealing big thing oscillates between toy character and living being thanks to its softly shaped body, the many sympathetic curves and the puppy-like front. This immediately perceived attraction, or rather beauty, caused the red sports car, which was ultimately created as a utility object, to tip into a new dimension: from object status to work of art.

Cisitalia 202 GT (1946), Pininfarina Design Studio, Cambiano, Turin

In this context, it is worth noting that while works of art have existed for tens of thousands of years, the examination of the automobile in art is very recent. However, the first reflections on the then unusually fast-moving and thoroughly technoid vehicle emerged at the beginning of the 20th century, and many an artist such as Pablo Picasso (Facel Vega), the writer Erich Maria Remarque (Bugatti), the musician John Lennon (Rolls-Royce) or the artist Joseph Beuys (Bentley) moved the vehicle, which soon became part of their private living space, with great awareness and pleasure. The 1960s and 70s marked an early high point, when the artistic approach to the automobile also expanded into a contemporary freedom of interaction––through depiction in paintings and photography, in which movement, technology and form are reflected. And today? Seventy years after that boom period, the situation is quite disparate. It seems as if everyone involved in the automotive world is subject to a fundamental uncertainty––the manufacturing companies and associations, the politicians with their different orientations and the extremely heterogeneous clientele in terms of demands and preferences. It is an interplay characterized by the insight into environmental pollution and consumer constraints, but also by the enthusiasm for innovative technologies and materials as well as the will to reform transport intelligently. Not for a long time has there been so many new concepts, technologies and designs to present, learn about, discuss and weigh up. In this respect, it is also up to the art scene to react to this.

But how does art do that? Imagine being an artist yourself, and it wouldn’t be a matter of designing a car, i.e. initiating a complex process and shaping technology, safety, economy and brand language into an overall design. Nor would it be a matter of buying one and getting by with hobbies, everyday pragmatism and a credit line. Rather, there would be absolute freedom of making. On the one hand, you would be standing in a frighteningly empty space, thrown back on your own head, on your own ideas and abilities, and on the other hand, you would be surrounded by countless real vehicles and types that you could deal with, their images, their history and stories, the implications and philosophical aspects of automobile culture. Oh holy Christophorus! If necessary, we could also ask Apollo with his chariot of the sun for inspiration, who, after all, would also be responsible as the god of fine arts. So what to do? What strategies are recommended for an artistic approach to the subject? Well, you could stylize the car and present it in its specific capacity as a design icon, as can be found in museums or in object photography very early on, but also in the hyper-realistic oil paintings of Don Eddy in the 1970s. Art generates a »image of the car«, which is not far removed from myth or fetish. And advertising is only too happy to pick up on this appeal when it comes to marketing this important industrial product: »Unique like a work of art« or »The most beautiful form of technology«, as VW and Alfa Romeo deliberately alluded to in their advertising.

Fabian Oefner, »Disintegrating X – Lamborghini Miura SV (1972)«, 2018

The intellectual, rational path is also conceivable: analysis. Fabian Oefner’s oeuvre is a very impressive example. The Swiss artist, who lives in the USA, developed a very unconventional approach to the automobile through meticulous visual dismantling. For example, he accompanied an Italian restoration team as they carefully dismantled one of the rare cars for maintenance and photographed more than a thousand components of the car’s original technology in individual shots in their workshop. These are then used to create digitally generated compositional views of a vehicle based on the principle of exploded views. Oefner’s aim is to use this analysis to visualize the complex functional structure of such an object and to amaze us with the paradoxical coincidence of design and disintegration, as he calls it: »I want to explore what surrounds us like this and arouse people’s curiosity.« Of course, we are aware that up to 10,000 individual parts normally come together to form a multifunctional module under the bodywork of a standard motor vehicle, behind the dashboard or in the upholstered seats. However, we always forget this. In view of these images, we have to realize for better or worse that the beauty of a Cisitalia 202 GT, as shown in the MoMA, or the silver Lamborghini Miura SV  by Fabian Oefner is de facto not as materially homogeneous as the massive marble sculpture of the Nike of Samothrace in the Louvre. An automobile is a magical work of technology and skill. No wonder the French philosopher and Citroën DS enthusiast Roland Barthes once wrote: »I believe that the automobile today is the fairly exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals. In other words: a great epochal creation designed with passion by unknown artists …« So there we have it again, art. So the automobile itself can be seen as an object of art. However, with its smooth sheet metal, which virtually invites surface design, it can also be a canvas or a picture support. The Paris-based designer Sonia Delaunay, for example, presented her avant-garde fashion in 1925 in a stylistically adapted Citroën, painted in a check design. Pablo Picasso also painted a car in 1958, more precisely the left flank of a car of the same brand, a blue Citroën DS 19. A journalist had visited him in exile in France with this car, and the artist, who was obviously very pleased about this, even signed his secretly painted motif. The most famous series of artistically designed bodies or creatively interpreted vehicles was initiated by the BMW brand in 1975: the BMW Art Car. Up to the current project by Julie Mehretu, which is presented in the cover story of this Chapter №X, titled »STATE OF THE ART«, 20 examples have been created to date on the basis of various BMW models––designed by Calder, Lichtenstein, Warhol or Koons. This strategy of artistic creation could be described as a reaction, as a specific view of an everyday object that is very central to people, whereby it naturally changes significantly and is viewed and treated completely differently after processing.

Asta Gröting, »Goethe’s traveling carriage, Adenauer’s Mercedes and my Smart«, 2012

A fourth approach to art attempts to explore and elaborate on the profound, on hidden qualities. The effect is often a poetic quality that suddenly turns the previously banal into the extraordinary. Such ambiguity is well exemplified in a work by Asta Gröting, whose title actually describes it completely: »Goethe’s traveling carriage, Adenauer’s Mercedes and my Smart«. The artist, who works in Berlin, installed three sub-views of this strange compilation of vehicles, each of which has an inherent importance: the genius writer’s carriage for the world, the Federal Chancellor’s limousine for post-war Germany and finally the knobbly little car for herself. However, you don’t see what is obvious, but what is normally hidden, i.e. the chassis, dampers, etc.––and you are supposed to think for yourself, pondering about mobility itself, about technical diligence, travel, history and the German people. The basis are scans of the originals, the end product is a soft form or thin layer of polyurethane that lies succinctly on the gallery floor.

Erwin Wurm, »UFO«, 2006

Another creative impetus used by art is the strategy of alienation, with which it creates uncertainty in the perception of familiar things and thus hopes to raise awareness. While excessive irritation can sometimes cause aversion, playing with change in a light-hearted way can be quite fun. This is why works such as those by Austrian artist Erwin Wurm, which make use of a humorous deformation that retains a socially critical tenor but is more likely to make you smile. Think of his delivery van, whose rear end bends up against the wall of a house, or the fat cars that have been created since the 2000s. Wurm transforms an existing car with styrofoam, fiberglass and polyurethane so that it is almost crushed by its bulges––an obese body that is more than a reflection of the affluent society. Or he lets it float like a cloud-like blue disc, like a dream vision or a UFO, with the original greenhouse of a Porsche 924 inside. The audience recognizes that it was originally a normal car, but cannot escape the deformation of form and meaning. With a similarly playful irreverence, the Scotsman Chris Labrooy quoted the iconic Palm Springs motifs of mid-century modernist painting, as we know them from David Hockney. However, in his digital painting series »Palm Springs Porsche 911«, Labrooy cheekily replaced the shimmering water of a pool with twelve equally blue Carrera RSs, which bob close together and visually simulate the waves with their typical roofline. A contemporary further development of pop art painting, which even back then liked to devote itself to the car, only the VW Beetle, and not its sporty descendant.

Chris Labrooy, Series »Palm Springs Porsche 911« (Twelve Porsche 911 Carrera RS in a pool), n.d.

The next path that art could take would be that of questioning. By transposing the automobile from its usual position and form into a completely absurd one, viewers experience an irritating sense of uncertainty. Conrad Shawcross does this very skillfully by hanging a Lotus at an angle and upside down. The appearance and functionality, indeed the entire type of vehicle, are thus counteracted: from a desirable sports car, it becomes a huge, useless and helpless thing.

The last of the tactics presented here goes even further––provocation. It is particularly popular with artists who love dramatic and powerful actions. In addition, the public reacts most intensely to this, which is easy to do with the automobile as a workpiece, because in our product world it is not only one of the most expensive, but often also one of the most personally cherished possessions.

Conrad Shawcross, »Golden Lotus (Inverted)«, 2019; installation view Saatchi Gallery, London

It is understandable that a video intervention by Swiss artist Pipilotti Rist, in which she smashed the windows of parked cars in Zurich city center with a steel flower while prancing past, was not viewed without emotion. The sculptures by French artist César Baldaccini had a comparably echoey effect. In the context of Nouveau Réalisme, in 1960 he began to press car bodies into so-called Compressions dirigées, so that the public was suddenly not standing in front of a conventional sculpture, but in front of a metal cube that was nothing other than the result of a scrap metal pressing and contained a complete car. The contemporaneous works of the US American John Chamberlain, who assembled individual dented and rusted metal parts of defunct road cruisers into highly decorative sculptures, also became well known. The art world had to react to this provocation––a creative tactic that eventually weakened in its authentic, formal-aesthetic and socio-critical effect, so that conceptual successors such as Kevin Beasley can no longer do justice to it. You always have to be careful that it doesn’t become too banal, as was the case in 2011 when the Karlsruhe Center for Art and Media mounted its exhibition »Car Culture« with numerous deformed vehicles, Beetles placed on top of each other in balls, a Mercedes rolled over by a tank or an SL filled to the brim with oil. HA Schult, who is not exactly sure of his style, was also involved with a car wreck installation »Crying Cars«.

Dirk Skreber, »untitled (Crash 1)«, 2009

What is important is the intense effect due to a new type of work statement that occurs in this thematic field related to the automobile: the decay of the glamorous product, the brutality of deformation or the dangerousness of fast movement. Dirk Skreber achieves this with skill. His everyday vehicles wrapped around steel poles are shocking, as it is impossible to escape the force of the assumed accident and the inevitable lethality of mobility associated with it. Interestingly, this effect of disturbance is mixed with a sense of cruel sculptural beauty. The best way to reassure oneself about a possible good outcome is with Marshall McLuhan’s ambivalent analysis of the times from 1964: »Behind the wheel, we transform ourselves into superhumans.« Nevertheless: the automobile in question … is dead.

The end. And so this text ends as it began––not with a joke, but once again with a memento mori. A remembrance of the many beautiful automotive companions of mankind that have lost their lives through fate––be it an accident, a burst piston, a natural disaster or simply shameful neglect and the associated nasty rust. After all––here, in the protected environment of art, we can be sure of the safety and care of our favorites.

If you talk about technology and contemporary art in the same breath, it is very likely that it is about the fusion of the two. But what happens when the focus is placed on the intrinsic creative process of art and technology? When artists tap into the solution-oriented creativity of engineers and integrate the supposedly sober quality of their work into the flow of their own reflections?

BMW demonstrated this as part of this year’s collaboration with British artist Es Devlin at Art Basel 2024. The creation process and the final realization of her multimedia work SURFACING is based on the in-depth exchange between BMW engineers and the artist. In a recorded conversation, we gain an interesting insight into the mental dynamics, the associations that form when supposedly contrasting disciplines come together, with Devlin emphasizing the act of creation as a common link: »I find it very fascinating that while driving along we are actually creating something, it’s not a burning or distraction, it’s a creation, we’re actually building water out of molecules—of hydrogen and oxygen—that seems to me quiet extraordinary that that’s what’s happening.« She thus refers to the previous explanation of the technical aspect and potential of hydrogen, simultaneously drawing parallels between art and science and continuing her 30-year-long exploration of the close interplay between humans and technology.

Based on her own artistic considerations and those of the BMW research team on the subject of hydrogen as a sustainable source of energy and movement, the multimedia work SURFACING was created—consisting of a total of four works. The impressive installation Surfacing (2024) masterfully combines water, energy and movement—elements that are also implemented in the BMW iX5 Hydrogen vehicles—a pilot fleet that is testing hydrogen fuel cell technology in selected countries under everyday conditions.

The BMW iX5 Hydrogen is regarded as a pioneer and trailblazer of a technology that ascribes a key role to hydrogen as a versatile energy source in the energy transition and thus in climate protection. »I learned a lot from the BMW engineers about the wonderful symmetry of the system that works in the hydrogen fuel cell: The energy used to separate the hydrogen atoms from the oxygen is recovered when the hydrogen is recombined with oxygen in the vehicle. The only by-product, in addition to the energy released to power the vehicle, is water,« the artist breaks the complicated process down to the essentials and provides an insight into the part of the advanced technology that is essential to her.

What is particularly interesting about this collaboration is the simultaneous forms of cognition between art and technology, whereby the underlying statement is as universal as it is topical: »As we move forward, we realize the crises that we face with climate, that sense that no borders are getting in our way, that sense that porosity—from Germany to Japan and from your minds to the minds of all the other engineers—allows collective thinking and connected solution finding to me seems to be very much how an artist would approach it and it sound very much like engineers are doing as well,« the artist aptly states, thus describing two different and simultaneously interwoven forms of reflection and knowledge acquisition, whose creative potential BMW has precisely demonstrated with this exciting collaboration. [DM]

»We will be making our cultural statement at Villa Necchi Campiglio«, promises Dr. Peter Goetz, Managing Director of Gaggenau, describing this year’s contribution as »an evolution of the extraordinary, consisting of two frames and a circle—a true work of art.«

The installation is located in the glass pavilion—wrapped in semi-transparent material—of Milan’s iconic Villa Necchi and is divided into two contrasting but interconnected areas. These refer to the harmonious balance between the existing and the pursuit of the new—a staging developed together with the Berlin creative agency Anomaly, which aims to present the timeless appeal and fascination of the brand in symbiosis with the contemporary lifestyle. On the one hand, the current world of Gaggenau is presented, while on the other, visitors are immersed in a visionary staging of the latest product innovations, while being enveloped by an atmospheric soundscape created by composer Dirk Haubrich.

For the realization of »The Elevation of Gravity«, Gaggenau also worked with the architecture firm 1zu33 and other cooperation partners such as the Bavarian manufacturer Schotten & Hansen, the Italian natural stone specialist Salvatori and La Marzocco, manufacturer of high-end espresso machines.

In addition to fully integrated induction, this unique presentation shows the new »masterpiece« in the luxury refrigerator sector, and for the first time you can also take an exclusive look at the Gaggenau »Icons of the Future«. Certainly an exciting prospect, with a company that has revolutionized the home kitchen time and time again and whose history dates back to 1683.

But it is not least the technological progress, a clear design language combined with perfect functionality that makes Gaggenau more than just a manufacturer of high-quality household appliances—it is the authentic drive to deal with a changing world and at the same time to open up new territories in staging that open up a view into the future. [DM]

Space, movement and energy have always been central motifs in Julie Mehretu’s work. For the design of the 20th BMW Art Car, she transformed a two-dimensional motif into a three-dimensional representation for the first time, with which she succeeded in bringing dynamism into form. »Julie Mehretu is the perfect artist for the early 21st century. Merging her work with the shape of a speeding vehicle borders on perfection,« says Pritzker Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Madeleine Grynsztejn. According to her, the perfect prerequisite for creating a »rolling sculpture« that can be grasped from a distance, »because you have to look at many of her large commissioned works from a distance to really understand them.« Her special understanding of space and speed is brought to life by the former director of the House of Art in Munich, Okwui Enwezor, summed it up as follows: »Julie Mehretu’s work encompasses various questions of movement, she brings dynamism into form.«

Julie Mehretu used the color and form vocabulary of her monumental painting »Everywhen« (2021 – 2023), which is currently being presented as part of a major retrospective at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice and will subsequently become part of the permanent collection of New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), as a basis.

»I saw the model of the BMW M Hybrid V8 in front of the finished painting in my studio and wondered what would happen if«, says Julie Mehretu. »Now the BMW Art Car is a remix of my painting, and it looks as if its radiator grille kidney grille has breathed in the painting.« Here, the artist evokes the abstract visual form of the vehicle, which is the result of digitally altered photographs overlaid with several layers of dot grids, neon-colored veils and the black markings characteristic of her work.

The fusion of image and vehicle was realized with the help of 3D mapping, with which the motif was transferred to the contours of the vehicle, and elaborate foiling, which makes it possible to use the fully designed BMW M Hybrid V8 at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. »I saw the car at Daytona and the experience was overwhelming. Designers, engineers, aerodynamicists and so many other creative minds are working on taking this vehicle to its limit. So many dreams come true when it’s time to hit the racetrack,« says Mehretu.

With their collaboration, Julie Mehretu and BMW have created a concept that goes beyond the design of the 20th BMW Art Car. Together with Mehret Mandefro—Emmy-nominated producer, author and co-founder of the Realness Institute which is committed to strengthening the media ecosystem in Africa—the artist with Ethiopian roots will organize workshops in eight African cities over the course of nine months, creating a forum for artists to meet, exchange and collaborate on a translocal level. The results of the workshops will then be presented together with the 20th BMW Art Car at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town. [Red.]

The project by the trio Jo Rychlik, Lukas Treibenreif and Rio Grande is preceded by a journey during which they use the new all-electric Kia EV9 as a mobile laboratory for their creative exploration. These led the art collective through natural landscapes, which they captured and digitized with the help of innovative technology. Her most important tool was photogrammetry, a type of 3D scan that takes thousands of images of an object and converts them into three-dimensional data using an algorithm—human impressions are thus transformed into digital data before they are translated into a physical work of art. »By using resin, a liquid resin, we were able to bring our digital impressions back into the physical world through 3D printing, creating an artifact that symbolizes both our connection to nature and our technological advancements,« explains Jo Rychlik, Co-Founder of OBJ.Studio, adding: »It’s about exploring and reflecting the connections between the natural and the technological.«

The resulting artwork »Anthropogenic Artefact: #001«, a transparent, 25x26x29 cm artifact, is a physical enclosure of memories, a symbiosis of nature and technology. »This work is an appeal to perceive not only the beauty but also the complexity of nature as we embark on the path of technological innovation. It represents the challenge of shaping our technological progress in harmony with nature without destroying it any further,« the artists’ statement says.

With this in mind, the collective used the stylish and exceptionally spacious Kia EV9 not only as an environmentally friendly mobility partner and mobile studio during their data collection, but also as a way to be reliably supplied with sufficient power for the elaborate scans in the midst of nature. In other words, a mutually beneficial connection that, in a broader interpretation, should be read as an appeal for a more harmonious coexistence between the artificial and natural worlds. The collaboration between OBJ.Studio and KIA is also an invitation to everyone to explore and re-evaluate the fascinating and often complex relationship between man, nature and technology. [Red.]

»It fascinates me to see how modern technology expands my art and makes it accessible to a completely new audience,« says Esther Mahlangu, who is considered one of South Africa’s most important artists. She received international acclaim for her Ndebele paintings, which she removed from the traditional context of (house) wall painting and transferred for the first time to canvases, carpets or everyday objects—including the 12th BMW Art Car created in 1991.

The BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA has now been created as a contemporary homage to this and certainly also as a deliberate reference to the current collaboration with the New York artist with African roots, Julie Mehretu, who is designing the 20th BMW Art Car. As part of the renowned Frieze Los Angeles art fair, the BMW Group has now presented a new interpretation of the vehicle using an innovative fusion of art and innovation.

The BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA, which takes its name from Esther Mahlangu’s first son, features electrically animated film segments that combine the changing color technology developed by BMW with the artist’s characteristic visual language. The latest development stage of the color change technology for vehicle surfaces developed in cooperation with E Ink is thus impressively presented—the versatility of these electrophoretic color changes turns the all-electric sedan into a dynamic work of art.

The animatable film segments extend in two strips each over the roof, hood and rear as well as over the sides of the vehicle. Similar to an e-book reader, there are several million microcapsules in each E-ink film. The color particles contained in them are changed in their structure and arrangement by electrical voltage. The BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA is equipped with 1349 foil segments, each of which can be controlled individually, in order to display the complex ornamentation in true detail. Thanks to the innovative flow technology, the 88-year-old artist’s characteristic colors and geometric patterns can be depicted in ever-changing compositions.

The animations are accompanied by an equally extraordinary sound by Renzo Vitale, Creative Director Sound at the BMW Group. To unite the sound worlds of the BMW brand and the South African Ndebele culture, he used sound sequences of Esther Mahlangu’s voice and the sound of the feathers she used for drawing. They are combined with the sounds produced by colored pencils in the BMW design studio and the acoustic signal that can be heard as feedback when operating the touch display in the BMW i5. The result is a sound mixture that is gently intoned at the beginning of each color change and becomes more and more intense as the animation progresses.

»The BMW i5 Flow NOSTOKANA is a tribute to the history of the BMW brand and continues the story of our global cultural commitment in a special way. It combines art and design through progressive technology. Here, technology itself becomes art,« summarizes Adrian van Hooydonk, Head of Design BMW Group. [Red.]

With their gallery project Bruises, Florence Provencher-Proulx and Isaac Larose redirect our attention to a playful, spontaneous aesthetic, far removed from the currently stylistically dominant, visually uniform modernity. Their focus is on the craftsmanship and furniture design by artists from their French-influenced home region of Quebec.

Chapter Where did the idea for your gallery project Bruises come from and what’s the creative vision behind it?

Florence Provencher-Proulx During the first pandemic lockdown, Isaac and I started collecting various pieces. With everything closed down, we saw an opportunity to do an exhibition reflecting the current situation by reuniting contemporary artworks with our found objects. The inaugural exhibition, »Une maison sans ami« (a friendless home), took place in an abandoned garage filled with sand to create a surreal atmosphere. Our aim was to delve into the theme of social disconnection, using the allure and amusement of unconventional objects to fill a void.

Chapter Your curation is a mix of found objects and works of contemporary artists bringing forward a »Québécois perspective«. Can you define this particular term and elaborate on it a little bit more?

Florence Provencher-Proulx A main portion of our curation focuses on craftsmanship and furniture design from Québec that are scarcely found elsewhere, combined with works of Québécois contemporary artists. Being French Canadians, we’re deeply inspired by our French heritage and love to include great French designs in our curation such as Yves de La Tour d’Auvergne’s functional sculptures that were showcased in our first show.

Chapter Can you tell us about the process of selecting individual pieces for Bruises and if you happen to know anything about their story and provenance?

Florence Provencher-Proulx I like to create tension with different types of objects that become even more beautiful when combined. It’s an intuitive process. Never knowing what I’ll stumble upon, there’s also a beauty generated from the unexpected. While we may not always have provenance information, we often come across captivating anecdotes from the previous owners. In a similar vein, one of the artists we work with, Sylvie Cauchon, creates ceramic animals. We frequently receive requests from clients who want Sylvie to replicate their beloved pets. They send us various photos and personality descriptions to ensure Sylvie can recreate their pets with her unique renditions.

Chapter You recently started welding metal furniture and you also showed in London at Frieze No.9 Cork Street a fishbone chair you made with salvaged metal. Being a curator and artist as well, what are the all-binding elements of your artistic explorations?

Florence Provencher-Proulx The aim with Bruises has always been to explore the universe we’ve created without limiting it to a traditional gallery path. Creating metal pieces is an exploration that I find is retaining a Bruises footprint while also carving out my own personal identity in the work.

8 minutes and 20 seconds – that’s how long it takes for a ray of sunlight to hit the Earth’s surface. At a distance of around 150 million kilometers, this means that light travels through space at a speed of just under 300,000,000 meters per second. »8 Minutes and 20 Seconds« is also the name of the interactive installation that Marjan van Aubel designed in cooperation with Lexus for Miami Art & Design Week. Unlike what we are used to in the automotive context, this is not about the »0 to 100« figure, but about the speed of light. This is no coincidence, as the Amsterdam designer is known for using solar technology to create interactive design experiences. It is also working continuously to integrate solar energy as seamlessly as possible into our environment.

For her solar sculpture created in cooperation with Lexus, which was on show in Miami in December, she used organic photovoltaics (OPV) to transform the LF-ZC concept car into an impressive, dancing figure of light. It was very important to her to show that photovoltaics is more than just a technology, but can also be integrated into everyday life in an aesthetically and artistically appealing way.

»It’s been a joy to bring the LF-ZC concept car to life! Lexus’s ethos towards innovation, craftsmanship, and new material use resonates with my design practice. This installation invites people to interact with light and color and engages them to imagine a more sustainable, positive future. Through this partnership, I could tell a new narrative of generating energy beautifully«, says van Aubel, whose most important works include designing the roof surface of the Dutch pavilion at the 2020 World Expo in Dubai. She has also worked with brands such as Cos, Timberland and Swarovski. The sculpture, conceived by Marjan van Aubel, was created by Random Studio—an Amsterdam-based design studio specializing in immersive design experiences. The Lexus concept car is set to go into series production in a similar form in 2026. [SW]

]]> https://chapter.digital/en/dialogue-of-the-epochs/ Mon, 06 Dec 2021 15:17:56 +0000 https://chapter.digital/dialogue-of-the-epochs/ Maxime Flatry collects and deals in antiques, his focus is on French Art Déco furniture. Big names like Jean-Michel Frank or André Arbus are a daily part of his work, even though he himself, at only 31, is probably well below the average age of the typical antiques dealer and has only been working full-time in this field since last year.

Paris, Quai Voltaire. On the left bank of the Seine, you will find some of the city’s most exclusive galleries, including the Chenel Gallery, actually specialized in sculptures of antiquity. Currently, however, in addition to Egyptian and Roman busts, one can also find much younger exhibits there. Art Déco furniture from the twenties to early forties of the last century. Maxime Flatry is currently exhibiting his current pieces here. Here, the Chenel Gallery  serves not only as an empty pop-up store, but rather Adrien Chenel and Maxime Flatry have teamed up to stage a rarely seen liaison, allowing two far-flung eras, Art Déco and antiquity, to enter into dialogue with one another.

In the spirit of harmony, softly dimmed lighting was used in the gallery rooms and an overall attempt was made to create a warm atmosphere. »Ancient art is usually experienced almost exclusively in a museum context; we deliberately covered the gallery’s white walls with fabric and laid out rugs to create a more home-like atmosphere«, says Flatry, describing the curation process. In fact, the exhibition space looks more like a luxurious apartment than a classic gallery. The question of where interior design ends and art begins is obvious here.

Flatry points to a 1935 floor lamp by Serge Roche, which, along with an antique bust beside it, forms a sculptural duo. »If you removed the cables and removed all the technical elements, the lamp would also be a sculpture. The transition is therefore fluid. I sell furnishings that I want my customers to live with, but whether that’s an armchair or a piece of art to sit on, that’s up to each person to decide.«

When asked whether a dialogue of his Art Déco pieces with other epochs would be conceivable in similar harmony, Maxime Flatry has a clear answer ready: »Yes, I can’t really think of any art phase that doesn’t have a certain commonality with Art Déco. Contemporary art, for example, may not really match Art Déco in its aesthetics at first glance, but the artists’ creative approach is a similar one. Art Deco is the beginning of modernism, many pieces are really intellectually thought out. Jean-Michel Frank, for example, was a master at playing with proportions. Much like today’s contemporary artists, Art Déco is often about intention.«

Flatry uses a console table by Jean-Michel Frank, whom he so admires, as an example. »In your dimensions it is definitely massive, but its proportions make it extremely discreet; Frank tried to make things almost disappear regardless of their size.« The fact that Flatry has a genuine love for his furniture is not only apparent when talking to him; the quality with which he has the individual pieces refurbished also speaks volumes.

»It’s a matter of respect that I find the perfect restorer for each piece of furniture. Refurbishing a classic must always be done gently. And the form has to be preserved, although with fabrics you can definitely dare to do something new«, says Flatry, describing the process of refurbishing the pieces, which he often finds in an imperfect state. In the process, the search for the various pieces of furniture is a true full-time occupation. »On the one hand, I specifically look for certain furniture for clients, but of course I always keep my eyes open to see if I come across a special piece. That’s how the collection of the very pieces that I then display for free sale comes about.« The process works, as the finely selected artworks in the Gallery Chenel prove.[AD]

“INTERIEUR, Art Déco / Art Classique,” through Dec. 22, 2021, at Chenel Gallery .

In the early 2000s, Patrick McKillen, an Irish financial broker, acquired what once was an ordinary winery in Provence. He not only took over the winery itself, but also the existing team of the previous owner, the Bordonado family. Under McKillen’s leadership, a decisive turnaround was initiated – viticulture was converted to organic farming and shortly thereafter, in 2004, the plan to transform the estate into a center for contemporary art was born.

A short time later, a vision became reality: the renowned French architect Jean Nouvel was responsible for the design of the cellars and the Canadian-American architect and designer Frank Gehry created a breathtaking music pavilion. Each year, artists and architects have been invited to create site-specific works of art that blend seamlessly with the unique beauty of the Provençal landscape, with its characteristic cypresses, holm oaks, olive trees, and ancient oaks.

Since 2011, the site has welcomed guests as a luxury estate with an art center, bookstore, various restaurants, spa and, of course, the 200-acre winery, which not only has to tell a rich history dating back to Roman times, but also sells its products in its own boutique and offers regular tastings. An additional highlight was the opening of a new gourmet restaurant in April 2018 under the direction of Argentine chef Francis Mallmann.

The list of artists and architects who have created permanent works at Château La Coste is impressive: Frank O. Gehry, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Louise Bourgeois, Richard Rogers, Sophie Calle, Tracey Emin and many others have enriched the property with their creativity. The latest architectural masterpiece on the site is the Pavilion-Auditorium by Oscar Niemeyer, whose curved, glazed façade leads visitors into a 380 m² gallery.

This summer Château La Coste is hosting the exhibition »Anton Corbijn: Artists & More Artists«. It is the Dutch photographer’s largest collection in France, with 40 selected black-and-white photographs of celebrities from art, music and film, including Damien Hirst, Ai Weiwei, Bob Dylan and David Bowie.

Anton Corbijn’s exhibition: »Artists & More Artists«

Another spotlight is on the current exhibition of »Pierre Paulin Program:Des idées courbes, Des formes libres« – a presentation of the timeless designs of French interior and furniture designer Pierre Paulin in dialogue with the architecture of Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer. The exhibition highlights the use of curves in the works of these two important figures of the 20th century.

Insight into the exhibition »Pierre Paulin Program:Des idées courbes, Des formes libres«

In the future, visitors can look forward to unique art presentations by Irish artist and musician Guggi, Togolese painter Afi Nayo, and the exhibition »Stay Awhile« by artist Domino Whisker. Thus, Château La Coste remains a unique abode for art and nature lovers and all those who appreciate the mindfulness and attention to detail with which it is run. [SL]

On the initiative of French racing driver and art lover Hervé Poulain, BMW launched the »Art Cars« series in 1975. Together with the then BMW Motorsport boss Jochen Neerpasch, Poulain asked his artist friend Alexander Calder to paint a car. This was the birth of the BMW Art Car Collection. Since then, the most renowned artists of their time have always been won over for this extraordinary art project.

Julie Mehretu designs the 20th BMW Art Car, 2023.

Mobility and art

»Julie Mehretu is the perfect artist for the early 21st century. Merging her work with the shape of a speeding vehicle borders on perfection«, said jury member and Pritzker Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Madeleine Grynsztejn about the choice.

In her large-format works, in which she creates an unconventional link between painting and drawing, Mehretu deals with the symbolism of mobility and dynamics – from early geological history to the social conditions of the present day. »I have loved cars all my life, as toys, as objects, as possibilities«, says the artist.

Julie Mehretu has received numerous awards for her work, including the MacArthur Award and the U.S. Department of State Medal of Arts Award. Her work has been exhibited at LACMA (Los Angeles), the High Museum (Atlanta), the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York) and the Walker Museum of Art (Minneapolis), among others. Julie Mehretu has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Design since 2021. Julie Mehretu is represented worldwide by the Marian Goodman Gallery and also exhibits at White Cube, London, and Carlier Gebauer, Berlin.

Julie Mehretu
See Gold, Cry Black, 2019
Ink and acrylic on canvas
243.8 x 304.8 cm

Art and motorsport

Julie Mehretu has been dealing with the aspect of speed and questions of scale for years, says Madeleine Grynsztejn, explaining the unanimous choice of an international jury of museum directors and curators. She would therefore have the perfect prerequisites for creating a »rolling sculpture« that can be grasped from a distance, »because you have to look at many of her large commissioned works from a distance to really understand them. It fits perfectly with the BMW Art Car, as it has a special understanding of space and speed.«

Or as Okwui Enwezor, former director of Haus der Kunst, Munich, put it: »Julie Mehretu’s work encompasses various questions of movement, she brings dynamism into form.«

BMW M Hybrid V8 – serves Julie Mehretu as a »canvas« for the 20th BMW Art Car.

Like her famous predecessors – from Andy Warhol to Jenny Holzer, David Hockney and Jeff Koons – who were able to freely implement their authoritative artistic positions and immortalize their individual handwriting, Mehretu also maintains comprehensive creative freedom in the design of the 20th BMW Art Car – »as long as it makes the car even faster«, as Timo Resch, Vice President Sales and Marketing, explains. BMW M, added with a laugh at yesterday’s announcement at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York.

In keeping with the almost 50-year tradition, this year’s 20th BMW Art Car, designed by Mehretu, will also compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans after its completion in June 2024. »The thrill of speed, the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the innovative possibilities of hybrid and fully electric vehicles to open up and explore completely new terrains of mobility and motorsport in the future«, is how Julie Mehretu describes her anticipation of this special aspect of the collaboration.

Julie Mehretu, Rolex 24, DAYTONA, 2023

Multifaceted concept

With their collaboration, Mehretu and BMW are creating a concept that goes beyond a car. Together with Mehret Mandefro – Emmy-nominated producer, author and co-founder of the Realness Institutewhich is committed to strengthening the media ecosystem in Africa – the artist with Ethiopian roots will organize workshops in eight African cities over the course of nine months, creating a forum for artists to meet, exchange and collaborate on a translocal level. The results of the workshops will be presented together with the 20th BMW Art Car at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town. [Red .]

Julie Mehretu
Haka (and Riot), 2019
Ink and acrylic on canvas
365.8 x 457.2 cm

Videography & Editor: Frank Zerban | Sound: Jamaica Suk, Electric Indigo | Creative Producer: Vanessa Mitchell

© Chapter TV 2022 | Producers: Clemens Steinmüller, Dzenana Mujadzic

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With »Peace & Quiet«, Chapter TV presents a series of visually impressive recordings that convey a feeling of calm and deceleration. Unusual perspectives and intimate insights into spaces of inspiration develop a particularly intensive effect in visual and acoustic reduction and, at times, reveal new aspects and details. In the first episode, we find ourselves in the Brancusi studio. In the center of the French capital, at Centre Pompidou, the collection offers a comprehensive overview of the work of the Romanian-French artist and thus, brings us closer to the work of one of the most important sculptors of the 20th century. Chapter was granted exclusive access to the collection.

A film by Anaïs Horn | Production Andres Damm | Sound Eilert Asmervik

© Chapter TV 2022 | Producers Dzenana Mujadzic, Clemens Steinmüller

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With the immersive live simulation »Berl-Berl« in Halle am Berghain, Danish artist Jakob Kudsk Steensen presents his latest project. Commissioned by Light Art Space (LAS) and in collaboration with sound composer Matt McCorkle, spatial sound designer Lugh O’Neill, and musician Arca, he has created a multi-layered digital installation that takes visitors back to Berlin’s origins as a swampland. Using an innovative generative audio concept and an engaging virtual universe created with digital audio and video game technology, they transformed the 1,435-square-foot space into a mythical swampland.

VIDEOGRAPHY AND EDITING: FRANK ZERBAN | SOUND COMPOSITION: MATT MCCORKLE | ART DIRECTION CHAPTER AND INTERVIEW: MAJADA DARIA RAMADAN | CREATIVE PRODUCER: VANESSA MITCHELL

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In the first episode, Paris-based designer Mathieu Peyroulet Ghilini who also devotes himself to painting and drawing in his object-focused practice, presents his Kyoto Kawara Bowl. The special nature of the bowl, created in collaboration with a Japanese ceramic master, is not only evident in its aesthetic qualities. While the Kyoto Kawara Bowl had to overcome linguistic barriers in the process of its creation, its contemporary, abstract design combined with the choice of traditional materials also continues to ensure that its description first sends us on a search for the right words.

A film by Anaïs Horn and Andres Damm | Camera and editing: Anaïs Horn | Editor: Andres Damm

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