The Curated Object

Exhibitions Zurich. Perfume--Bottling Seduction. The Museum Bellerive. The Curated Object

Le Dandy

Le Dandy, Baccarat, D’Orsay, 1922
© private collection

Galle

Vaporisateur, Überfangglas, geschnitten und geätzt, signiert GALLE 
© Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Collection of Applied Arts; Photo: Collection of Applied Arts

Nuitde Noel

Nuit de Noêl, Baccarat, Caron, 1922
© Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Collection of Applied Arts; Photo: Collection of Applied Arts

Perfume: Bottling Seduction

December 2, 2011-April, 11, 2012 

Exquisite flacons, sophisticated packaging, suggestive advertising spots – perfume, the scent of seduction, is presented using all these means. Consequently it is not just the perfumes themselves that are masters in manipulating our senses but also their various forms of packaging. Whether they are flowery and fruity, powdery or sweet, these scents beguile our senses. Every fragrance creates its own atmosphere that requires an appropriately designed container. Special containers for fragrant essences were already made in pre-Christian times. Many of today’s perfumes bear the name of a Parisian haute couture house and their packaging must therefore reflect the fashion style of the particular brand. This exhibition shows perfume bottles along with their respective ensemble of packaging, advertising and perfume. Starting with the first glass containers of antiquity it presents objects by famous designers as well as rarely shown creations right down to the present day, and recounts stories about the containers of these volatile essences. 

For more information please visit: The Museum Bellerive

 

Exhibitions Zurich. Black and White: Designing Opposites. MUSEUM FÜR GESTALTUNG ZÜRICH . The Curated Object

Nicolas Le Moigne

PODIUM vases black, Courtesy: HELMRINDERKNECHT
contemporary design gallery, Berlin, Photo: © www.tonatiuh.ch

Gabriel Orozco

Black Kites Perspective (front horizontal), 1987-2008, Photo: Gabriel Orozco, © Courtesy of the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York

Anita Moser

Rorschachstiefel, 2007, Photo: fxjaggy/u.romito, © ZHdK

Philippe Decrauzat

Peripheral Vision, 2009, Photo: Stefan Altenburger, © Collection Museum Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich

Martin Margiela

Vintage Wedding Dress, Maison Martin Margiela, Linie O Artisanal, Paris, 2005, Photo: Maria Tuszynska-Thrun, © Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg

Kienzle

Tischuhr, Hamburg, 1960, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Design Collection,
Photo: fxjaggy/u.romito, © ZHdK

Trix and Robert Haussmann,

Broken, 1984, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Design Collection, Photo: fxjaggy/u.romito, © ZHdK

Gareth Pugh

Collection Spring Summer, Paris, 2009, Photo: © Chris Moore/catwalking.com

Elio Martinelli

Cobra, 1968, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Design Collection, Photo: fxjaggy/u.romito, © ZHdK

Albert Kriemler

Akris Netted Dress, Re-Edition from the Ian Hamilton Finlay-Collection, Spring/Summer 2009, 2010, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Applied Art Collection, Photo: fxjaggy/u.romito, © ZHdK

Black and Whites: Designing Opposites

November 9- March 4, 2012

Black and white polarize and are seen as radical and particularly expressive. The two colors are shaped by contrasts such as light and darkness or life and death. Common to both is a claim to absoluteness but also the expression of demarcation or distance, as well as protest. The ways in which they are used relate to specific cultural circles and are illustrated in various social phenomena. In architecture, design and fashion black and white generally stand for values such as abstraction, elegance and timelessness, but beyond this understanding there opens up an entire cosmos of motifs and cultural traditions. Thus design in black and white interprets this cultural spectrum or reformulates it. With its rich contrasts this exhibition explores the design potential of the outermost extremes in the spectrum of colors. Following an introduction to the cultural and social meaning the spotlight is turned on the idea, application and effect of black and white in architecture, design and fashion of modernism and the present day.

For more information please visit: 

MUSEUM FÜR GESTALTUNG ZÜRICH

 

Exhibitions Zurich. Type in Motion. Museum für Gestaltung Zürich. The Curated Object

H5 (François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy & Ludovic Houplain), Logorama, 2009, © Autour de minuit, Paris |

Kevin Blanc, Tiger Dust, music video for Yello, 2009, © Yello 

 H5 (Antoine Bardout-Jacquet & Ludovic Houplain), The Child, music video for Alex Gopher, 1999, © by the authors

H5 (Antoine Bardout-Jacquet & Ludovic Houplain), The Child, music video for Alex Gopher, 1999, © by the authors 

Jenny Holzer, Visitor Center Novartis Campus, 2006/07, © 2006 Jenny Holzer, member Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY

NoDesign.net, Jean Louis Fréchin & Uros Petrevski, Wanomirror, interactive mirror, 2009, © by the authors

MK 12 / FX Cartel, Stranger than Fiction, film still from the opening credits, 2007, © Participant Media

Kyle Cooper / Imaginary Forces, Se7en, film still from the opening credits, 1995 © Imaginary Forces

Saul Bass, North by Northwest, film still from the opening credits, 1959, © Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

 

Type in Motion

February 2 - May 22, 2011

 

Whether on the computer screen, on television or even on building facades – through the digitalization of everyday life we regularly encounter type in motion. The exhibition in theMuseum für Gestaltung Zürich shows these new ways of reading the world.

The digitalization of everyday life has led to the situation that everywhere today we see words, sentences, or indeed entire texts, that move – whether it be on the computer screen, on television or on the facades of buildings. Designers employ considerable ingenuity to use dynamic typefaces in very different kinds of appliances. In this way they expand and change the ways in which we can “read the world”. We react more attentively, we obtain a great deal of information, much of it constantly updated, on a small surface area, or we are entertained in a surprising way. Often the rhythm of these texts is harmonized with music or sounds that we hear at the same time.

This exhibition shows for the first time the most important tendencies in the field of type in motion, using music videos, title sequences from feature films as well as inter-active space installations. These focal points of the extensive universe of dynamic typography are surrounded by commercials and short films, media facades, motion graphics for TV and radio, digital post-cards and logos from all over the world.

Rhythm and Music

The moving text in a moving image is often closely linked with music. In music videos this is particularly visually and acoustically obvious in the case of song texts that can be read and heard simultaneously, heightening each other’s effect and at times inviting us to sing along. Ever since Bob Dylan’s epoch-shaping “Subterranean Homesick Blues” from 1967 and the first music videos of the 1980s this connection has lost nothing of its apparent attraction. Clips for Prince, Alex Gopher, No Doubt, Wir sind Helden, Kanye West or Yello show that this development has grown to cover all genres and styles of music.

Feature films and advertising

At the start of a feature film there is usually a title sequence that, through its content and design, sets the mood for the world of the respective work. The often substantial amount of text about the persons involved in the film, which today is usually found in the credits at the end of the film and thus forms an elaborate final motif, can, with help of animated typeface, be presented in an attractive form. Like in an advertising film the design possibilities extend from a sober and functional kind of lettering to playful or monumentally and spatially invasive typographical presentations.

Public space

Media facades that dominate entire buildings have been attracting increased attention in urban space for quite some time now. For instance the eBoard, which is replacing the printed poster more and more and allows changing texts to achieve a high density of information on a limited surface area. A further advantage is that the contents of the texts can be kept up to date. The additional aspect of movement expands outdoor advertising to include striking new qualities. With around 120 works by over 80 designers the exhibition “Type in Motion” offers a wide ranging report on these significant changes in the contemporary communication and media worlds. Using experiments with lettering presented in the form of interactive installations, the exhibition also allows us a glimpse of the future.

For more information please visit: Museum für Gestaltung Zürich 

 

Exhibitions Zurich. Chandeliers – Jewels of Light. The Museum Bellerive. The Curated Object

Susan Liebold, XU.GOSA, 2008; lamp glass technique using borosilicate-glass elementsand LED; photo: Ronny Koch © Susan Liebold

Baccarat, Solstice Comète, 2010; crystal © Baccarat

Baccarat, Solstice Comète (detail), 2010; crystal © Baccarat

J. & L. Lobmeyr, chandelier for the New York Metropolitan Opera, after a design by Hans Harald Rath, 1966; photo: Michael Rathmayer © J. & L. Lobmeyr, Vienna

Alicja Wasielewska, Morph Chandelier, 2009; Photo: Alicja Wasielewska © Alicja Wasielewska, Kutno

Venetian chandelier, 1930-1950; glass © Dieter Keller, Luzern

J. & L. Lobmeyr, «Chineserluster» fort he Scala Theater in Vienna, after a design by Carl Witzmann, 1922; photo: Michael Rathmayer © J. & L. Lobmeyr, Vienna

Chandeliers – Jewels of Light, exhibition view, Museum Bellerive, 2010; Photo: Betty Fleck, Studio Publication, Zurich University of the Arts © ZHdK

Chandeliers - Jewels of Light

December 3-March 27, 2011 

The Museum Bellerive promises to bring light to this rather gloomy time of year. Its exhibition,“Chandeliers – Jewels of Light” traces for the first time the conceptual development of the chandelier as an article of daily use, an ornament, a symbol and a luxury item all in one – interwoven with a creative and imaginative love of experimentation.

Whether made of rock crystal glass or plastic hardly any other design theme has undergone such a varied and fantastical development as the chandelier. The production of a chandelier has always combined very different kinds of craftsmanship with the latest in technology. It brings together practical and decorative values, symbolic content and luxury with a delight in experimentation in terms of both art and design.

Chandeliers already existed in the Middle Ages. In the 17th century the Sun King Louis XIV made them into a “must-have” item in the palaces of ruling dynasties and their inherent symbolism elevated chandeliers to a princely status symbol. Fortunes were spent on “light fixtures consisting of several arms, that hang from a cable in the centre of a room”, as this desirable object was described in the Oeconomische Encyclopädie (1773-1858 ) by Johann Georg Krünitz. Frederick the Great was fascinated by chandeliers, buying models en masse in France for his own craftsmen to imitate. The invention of the light bulb and the arrival of the chandelier en miniature in the living rooms of the middle classes made it into merely a decorative object. Today the chandelier no longer hangs just in the centers of power, of luxury or culture but can also be found in organic food shops and night-clubs, in shop windows or in a hair stylist’s. Architects use it as counterbalance to their reduced designs and see the chandelier as part of their spatial concepts. It even illuminates the kitchens of flat-sharing communities – the former anti-bourgeois concept of the naked light bulb hanging from an electric cable appears to have fallen out of favor. The chandelier was – and regularly still is – an expression of the zeitgeist, today just as much as 300 years ago. The pieces selected for the exhibition range from the oil lamp to the light-emitting diode, from a Bohemian Baroque chandelier to Philippe Stark’s extravagant chandelier for Baccarat. A design drawing dated 1720 from the workshop of Giovanni Battista Metellino for a chandelier with rock crystal ornaments is to be found in the exhibition as well as a contemporary interpretation of a chandelier detail by Berlin artist Martin von Ostrowski in Sanssouci Palace. Lighting designers such as Ingo Maurer also experiment with the material, and the artistic positions of the Californian Jason Rhoades and urich artist Ursula Palla explore the hidden potential of this object.

For more information please visit: The Museum Bellerive 

 

EXHIBITIONS ZURICH. EVERY THING DESIGN: THE COLLECTIONS OF THE MUSEUM fur GESTALTUNG ZURICH. THE CURATED OBJECT.

Marcel Duchamp*, Rotoreliefs, 1924-1936, edition 1959/60 / Only in catalog: Noel

Pemberton-Billing, Compass Camera, 35mm rangefinder camera, Manufacture Jaeger-Le

Coultre S.A., CH, 1938, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Design Collection, Photos © ZHdK

Only in catalog: Harry Bertoia*, Diamond Chair, easy chair, 1948, Knoll Inc., US,

Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Design Collection / Louis Majorelle, Pommes de pin,

armchair, 1903, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Applied Art Collection, Photos © ZHdK

  

Irma Boom, catalog „Every Thing Design − The Collections of the Museum für

Gestaltung Zürich“, 2009

 

Only in catalog: Anton Stankowski, Hallo bestellt die Stuttgarter Illustrierte, poster, 1937 /

Only in catalog: Josef Müller-Brockmann*, Peter Huber (photo), Weniger Lärm, poster,

1960, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Poster Collection, Photos © ZHdK

 

Herzog & de Meuron, Jingzi-30, hanging lamp, Belux AG, CH, 2005, property of the Swiss

Federal Office of Culture, as a permanent loan to the Design Collection of the Museum für

Gestaltung Zürich, Photo © ZHdK

 

Susi Berger, Ueli Berger, Soft-Chair, easy chair, Victoria Design AG, CH, design 1967,

production 1970-1974, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Design Collection, Photo © ZHdK

 

Adolf Loos, Service mit Bodenschliff Nr. 248, carafe and champagne glass, J. & L.

Lobmeyr, AT, 1931 / Only in catalog: Kurt Zimmerli (product development, design),

Sigg-Bottles, drink bottles, Sigg AG, CH, 1983-1990, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich,

Design Collection, Photos © ZHdK

Advico Young & Rubicam AG, Ruedi Külling, Bic, poster, 1961, Museum für Gestaltung

Zürich, Poster Collection / Only in catalog: Gerwin Schmidt, Ein kultureller Dialog −

Arabische Kalligraphie aus dem Besitz des Sharjah Art Museums, flyer, 2004,

Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, Graphics Collection, Photos © ZHdK

Every Thing Design

April 3- July 19, 2009 

A veritable feast for the eyes, this huge exhibit of more than 400 objects is divided into ten large blocks, further segmented into imaginative clusters where color, form and influence play off of each other. The first two units set the exhibit's overarching theme, by probing the nature of designed objects-- primarily functional ones, ranging from teapots to textiles-- and how they've changed (and remained constant) over the decades. After "Change" examines objects that have gone out of fashion, "Constancy," offers works that are still in circulation. Other areas like "Authorship" and "Process, Technique and Function," look at the personal stamps and working methods of various designers, while "Design Reloaded," pairs early icons and new interpretations of them. Drawn from the Museum's four areas of concentration-- design, graphics, applied arts, and posters-- the objects presented here travel a narrative arc that bears witness to the determination of designers to constantly reevaluate their charges and challenges. An accompanying catalog, designed by Dutch book artist Irma Bloom, is a master work itself, a stout little creation that presents one work per page, for a total of 800 pages that goes above and beyond the objects selected for this exhibit.

For more information, please visit : 

http://www.museum-gestaltung.ch

Posted by JoAnn Greco 

Exhibitions Zurich. THE APPEARANCE OF BEAUTY – ASPECTS OF ZURICH INTERIORS. Museum Bellerive, the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich. The Curated Object

Heidi Bucher, Interior view of Villa Bleuler, 1991 © Jean Pierre Kuhn, Gockhausen

 

THE APPEARANCE OF BEAUTY – ASPECTS OF ZURICH INTERIORS
March 7-June 8, 2008

Taking advantage of an anniversary — “50 Years of Archaeology and Conservation in the Canton of Zurich” — this exhibition examines the design of peaux intérieures of various epochs. It tells of historical periods of the Canton of Zurich when people loved both lavish wall decoration and simple décor, and when craftsmen could produce even the most complicated kinds of ornament. Decorative, stucco, and glass painting, as well as wallpaper and floorings, were carefully matched to the architecture of the rooms. While much of the decoration was destroyed in the course of time, some has survived in the form of models or collector pieces. These have now been placed side by side with today’s designs, thematic translations by contemporary artists that present the conservation and archaeology study collections in a new light. The beautiful appearance of the peaux intérieures is accompanied by works of the artist Heidi Bucher.

Taking advantage of an anniversary — “50 Years of Archaeology and Conservation in the Canton of Zurich” — this exhibition examines the design of peaux intérieures of various epochs. It tells of historical periods of the Canton of Zurich when people loved both lavish wall decoration and simple décor, and when craftsmen could produce even the most complicated kinds of ornament. Decorative, stucco, and glass painting, as well as wallpaper and floorings, were carefully matched to the architecture of the rooms. While much of the decoration was destroyed in the course of time, some has survived in the form of models or collector pieces. These have now been placed side by side with today’s designs, thematic translations by contemporary artists that present the conservation and archaeology study collections in a new light. The beautiful appearance of the peaux intérieures is accompanied by works of the artist Heidi Bucher.

For more information please visit: The Museum of Design, Zurich

-Joanne Molina

Exhibitions Zurich. OTTO BAUMBERGER – ADVERTISING PIONEER. The Museum für Gestaltung Zürich. The Curated Object

Otto Baumberger, Wer rechnet kauft im Globus (Educated shoppers go to Globus), Poster design, 1934 © 2008 ProLitteris | Commissioned by the Kennedy for President Committee, A Time For Greatness – Kennedy for President, Boston 1960

OTTO BAUMBERGER – ADVERTISING PIONEER
October 1, 2008-February 1, 2009

Otto Baumberger (1889 – 1961) was one of the first Swiss who can be correctly described as a “poster designer,” even though his personal desire for artistic recognition would remain unfulfilled. As an employee of Wolfensberger AG in Zurich he acquired a sound knowledge of lithography techniques, and used this knowledge to advance and renew the medium, designing over 200 posters. Baumberger was ahead of his time in recognizing important aspects of consumer advertising. Without creating a style of his own, he sought the most appropriate way of conveying a message. His original, inventive images led to a reduction that reached towards abstraction, as image and lettering elements gradually formed an increasingly striking synthesis. The diversity of Baumberger’s work exemplarily embodies the history of Swiss poster art in the first half of the twentieth century, showing the development from the painterly artist’s poster to corporate design shaped by graphic art. Publication: “Poster Collection” 18, Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, ed., Otto Baumberger, G/E, Lars Müller Publishers.

For more information please visit: The Museum für Gestaltung Zürich
-Joanne Molina

Exhibitions Zurich. DAUM GALLÉ TIFFANY – DREAMS OF GLASS. The Museum Bellerive, the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, The Curated Object

Daum Frères, Vase “Libellule et soleil,” approx. 1902 – 05, Photography: Jean-Marc Baumberger/Pedro Volkert © Galerie Katharina Büttiker, Zurich

DAUM GALLÉ TIFFANY – DREAMS OF GLASS
July 7-October 5, 2008

Art Nouveau was far more than a formal renewal. It was the first artistic movement that pursued the vision of a Gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art. Many of the artists were at the same time painters, sculptors, and designers of jewelry and furniture. Their goal was the perfect harmony of living space that aimed at transforming reality into an imagined mythological world. During this period, glass production attained heights never again achieved. At the Museum Bellerive, the Museum für Gestaltung Zürich, itself famous for its Art Nouveau collection, is presenting one of the best private collections of glass objects in the world. This collection, owned by Katharina Büttiker, contains an incomparable wealth of highquality works by Daum, Gallé, and Tiffany, regarded as the most important designers in this field. The objects are shown amidst masterpieces of Symbolist art, also from the collection, which transport visitors into a dreamlike atmosphere.

For more information please visit: The Museum für Gestaltung Zürich

-Joanne Molina

Exhibitions Zurich. "Photo Graphics – Posters since 1995". The Museum für Gestaltung Zürich. The Curated Object

Cyan, Form & Zweck, DE 1995

M/M (Paris), Iphigénie en Aulide, FR 2001

Werner Jeker, Cinémathèque Suisse, CH 1984

Michal Batory, Medea, FR 2003

"Photo Graphics – Posters since 1995"
April 9- July 20, 2008, Plakatraum

Modernism in graphic design was introduced in the late 1920s through the effective combination of photography, graphics and typography. The exhibition in the Plakatraum deliberately does not concentrate on the major names from the past but instead enquires how these same elements are used today.

This presentation of the work of eight designers and studios illustrates a broad stylistic spectrum created by the combination of photographic material and lettering. The works by Michael Batory, Cyan, Werner Jeker, M/M, Gerwin Schmidt, Skolos/Wedell, Leonardo  Sonnoli, and Tschumi/King clearly show that different ideas about images lead to very different uses of photographic material. The selected works also reveal very different approaches to obtaining images: image recycling using some of the limitless images available today, snapshots produced by the designers themselves, processing existing photographic originals, or photographs that are produced especially for a poster and a design idea not only reflect the manifold possibilities but also represent different intellectual approaches.

The use of typography is similarly varied. Whereas some designers deliberately restrict themselves to a limited typographical repertoire, for others the design of new expressive lettering that itself becomes an image is the central theme. Dialogues develop between individual works that are based on related approaches. Nevertheless, each position also represents an independent design intervention. They all have in common an interest in continuously exploring the relationship between harmony and tension and in producing an intellectual and emotional in-between space that the viewer can then fill.

The powerful historical photo poster stands as a legacy in the background. But whether they consciously use this model or clearly establish a distance to it, all the posters that today combine photography, typography and graphic design never convey a sense of nostalgic conservation but a vital and unpretentious contemporary quality.

For more information please visit: The Museum für Gestaltung Zürich

-Joanne Molina

Exhibitions Zurich. ALFREDO HÄBERLI DESIGN DEVELOPMENT: –SURROUND THINGS. The Museum of Design, Zurich. The Curated Object

Alfredo Häberli Design Development, Nais, 2004 für Classicon © Alfredo Häberli Design Development

ALFREDO HÄBERLI DESIGN DEVELOPMENT: –SURROUND THINGS
June 27, 2008-September 21, 2008

This first solo exhibition of the internationally renowned Zurich designer Alfredo Häberli shows the variety of products and projects that he and his studio make for firms such as Alias, Camper, Iittala, Kvadrat, and Schiffini. The exhibition — divided into five thematic areas — provides insight into the intellectual background and environment from which these works that shift between functionality, precision, lightness, and a playful charm, are created. Following the Overture, the Laboratory — conceived of as a display depot — facilitates an approach to the design process. Exhibits from Swiss design history that have influenced Häberli — the majority from the Museum’s design collection — are presented in three Chalets. Abstract houses form theatrical backdrops for Spots, in which the objects displayed offer a view of the profession of the designer and his work, while in the Lounge, Los Bancos Suizos offer a place to read and to hold events. Publication: Beda Achermann, Alfredo Häberli, eds., Alfredo Häberli Design Live, G/E, Birkhäuser Verlag.

For more information please visit: The Museum of Design, Zurich

-Joanne Molina

Exhibitions Zurich. Wouldn't it Be Nice ...10 Utopias in Art and Design. The Museum of Design Zurich. The Curated Object

Martino Gamper, Gallery Furniture, 2007 © Francis Ware

Alicia Framis, "100 ways to wear the chinese flag", 2007, Courtesy Galería Helga de Alvear

Wouldn’t It Be Nice ...10 Utopias in Art and Design
February 8 – May 25, 2008

Art and design have had an enduringly productive relationship. Artists and designers, as well as graphic artists, fashion designers, and architects, share common strategies, methods, and aims. While some artists employ design strategies to make socially critical statements, others use design as a way of reflecting everyday phenomena, emotions, or conceptual approaches. Many designers on the other hand, having dispensed with any belief in the ideal of neutrality, intervene increasingly in social, political, ethical, or ecological discourses. This exhibition confronts ten contemporary positions on the edge of reality, on the border of what is possible. Featuring: Jurgen Bey (NL), Bless (FR/DE), Dexter Sinister (GB/US), Dunne & Raby and Michael Anastassiades (GB), Alicia Framis (ES), Martino Gamper (IT/GB), Ryan Gander (GB), Martí Guixé (ES), Tobias Rehberger (DE) and Superflex (DK). A co-production with the Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève and the Haute école d’art et de design Genève.


Publication: Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève, ed., Wouldn’t it be nice… wishful thinking in art and design, F/E, JRP | Ringier.

For more information please visit: The Museum of Design Zurich
-Joanne Molina