No. 10
January 24, 2003
Immediate Release
Contact:
Karen Gysin
612.375.7651
karen.gysin@walkerart.org
DESIGNS
THAT CREATE THE BACKDROP FOR OUR EVERYDAY LIVES TO BE SHOWCASED IN THE
EXHIBITION
STRANGELY
FAMILIAR: DESIGN AND EVERYDAY LIFE
TRAVELING
EXHIBITION TO PREMIERE AT THE WALKER
JUNE
8–SEPTEMBER 7, 2003
The prolific output by designers from the
fields of architecture, product, furniture, fashion, and graphic design that,
particularly over the past decade, has evolved a new landscape of products and
spaces will be examined in the Walker Art Center exhibition Strangely Familiar:
Design and Everyday Life, premiering in Minneapolis June 8–September
7, 2003. As producers of the objects, spaces, and messages that surround us,
designers play a crucial role in the creation of contemporary cultural
sensibilities. Occupying a greater awareness in the public’s consciousness and
a ubiquitous presence in the human-built environment, designers’ verbal/visual
messages, manufactured objects, and forms of shelter and transportation create
the backdrop for our everyday lives.
The multidisciplinary exhibition Strangely
Familiar will feature approximately 40 innovative projects, drawn
internationally, that amplify four themes across a range of disciplines: the
design of extraordinary spaces and objects that reference and transform
commonplace objects and conditions; the multifunctional object that changes
both shape and use, thereby blurring the traditional relationships between form
and function; portable structures that respond to nomadic conditions of
lightness and ephemerality, thereby undermining long-held architectural
principles of site-specificity and permanence; and polemical objects that force
us to reconsider our relationship to products—that dictate new rituals of use
and expectations of performance.
A major theme of the exhibition is the
re-presentation of the everyday with extraordinary projects that foreground
what is commonplace. For example, MVRDV’s design of the Netherlands’ pavilion
at Expo 2000 in Hanover, Germany, transforms the typical elements of the Dutch
landscape such as water, windmills, forests, and flowers by simply but
dramatically stacking them, creating a spectacular example of artificial
nature. On a more domestic scale, Chicago-based Garofalo Architects’ Markow
Residence transforms the typical suburban house with dynamic additions that
evolve from the complex geometry of computer software, producing a hybrid
structure that is at once familiar and strange.
The multifunctional object also displays
intrinsically hybrid qualities, whether in the form of furniture or clothing.
Moreno Ferrari’s pioneering Transformables collection for CP Company of
Italy features garments that convert into, for instance, inflatable armchairs,
a kite, or a tent. Martin Ruiz de Azua’s Basic House is conversely a
garment-sized shelter, a cube of metallic material that weighs only a few grams
and can be transported in one’s pocket until needed. The mixing of product
functions is a cornerstone of contemporary furniture design as witnessed by
Julian Lion Boxenbaum’s Ruggelah Chair that unrolls to form a bed. On an
architectural scale, Tumble House is a six-sided structure designed by
Koers, Zeinstra, and van Gelderen of the Netherlands that allows users to
rotate the building to six different positions. Each option changes the
interior functionality of elements; for example, a door becomes a window or
skylight.
Another theme within the exhibition explores
the users’ behavior in relation to the designed object. This takes many forms,
ranging from greater physical interaction to the reconsideration of common
routines and rituals. Allan Wexler’s Gardening Sukkah is an outdoor
structure that contains all the necessary implements to plant, harvest, and
prepare a meal to celebrate the Jewish Sukkoth festival. This self-contained
environment is also portable since the building rests upon a wheelbarrowlike
base. Product designer Michael Anatassiades develops objects that highlight
human interaction and product responsiveness. For example, his Social and
Anti-Social Lights only perform their function in the presence or absence
of sound. Sometimes the object questions our habits of consumption or comments
on the world of goods around us. For example, Anthony Dunne + Fiona Raby,
designers from London, are interested in how people interact and adapt to
electronic products. In Dunne + Raby’s Placebo Project, users are given
the opportunity of living with a newly created object—for instance, a table
embedded with compasses whose needles spin wildly when in contact with electromagnetic fields, such as
those emitted by cell phones or a computer. Paola Ulian’s Greediness Meters
are rulers made from chocolate (both white and dark varieties) that measure
their own rate of consumption.
Other projects explore the role of a
participatory or “do-it-yourself” design. A series of products by do create of
the Netherlands requires the physical interaction of the user for their
ultimate realization. Do Hit is a cube of metal that comes with its own
sledgehammer to transform it into a chair; Do Break is a ceramic vase
with a special coating that allows the user to smash it without destroying the
piece—the resulting pattern thereby “customizes” the object. Nucleo Global
Design’s Terra Armchair is a cardboard form and package of grass seeds
that allow the customer to grow their own outdoor seating. The Copenhagen-based
www.fortunecookies.dk developed Felt 12x12, a series of small square
pieces of felt, as a system for the user to devise various types of garments,
from vests to a wedding ensemble.
Portability and modularity are perennial
themes within architecture but have gained momentum in recent years as
architects embrace more fluid conditions. Markko Hedman’s work explores the
early-20th-century concept of the “minimum house” in contemporary circumstances.
For example, his Wooden Cube is a two-piece mobile summer cabin that
unpacks itself like a matchbox, doubling the size of its interior, while his SNAIL
project employs modular units that can be arranged in various interconnecting
configurations to form unique living and working environments. Renowned
Japanese architect Shigeru Ban’s Paper Loghouse was developed in
response to the devastating earthquake that struck Japan in the mid-1990s.
Using simple materials—cardboard tubes for walls, a canvas roof, and crates for
a foundation—Ban created an easily assembled shelter for victims of this
natural disaster. A re-creation of the Paper Loghouse in the galleries
will allow visitors to see the beauty and ingenuity of Ban’s work.
LOT-EK: Mobile Dwelling Unit
Continuing the theme of portable
architecture, the Walker Art Center will debut a new project from Ada Tolla and
Giuseppe Lignano of the New York-based architectural firm LOT-EK, known for its
amazing transformations of industrial objects. Commissioned by the University
Art Museum at the University of California at Santa Barbara, the Mobile
Dwelling Unit transforms a standard, 20-foot-long shipping container into a
personal living space. A series of slices into the body of the container
allows various sub-volumes to be pushed out
for greater interior space and to be pushed in for shipping. The sub-volumes
contain different functions, including a kitchen, media center, bedroom, and
bathroom. Since the shipping container is already integrated within global
shipping, rail, and trucking systems, the unit is also highly mobile. The MDU
will be installed outdoors in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.
Telematic Table Project
The exhibition will also debut a prototype
of the Telematic Table designed by Marek
Walczak, Michael McAllister, Peter Kennard, and Jakub Segen. Like a regular
table, the Telematic Table is designed for social interactions but utilizes
digital technologies and an innovative interface to facilitate learning more
about the arts. The prototype was commissioned by the Walker Art Center with
funding provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. Through an
international competition, the winning project was selected. The Telematic
Table will provide social learning experiences in the Walker’s expanded
facility scheduled for completion in 2005. Designed to create links between
disciplines and ideas in the Walker's programming, it also fosters connections
among visitors by identifying items of mutual interest. The table’s innovative
gestural interface allows multiple users to drag with their fingers, at the
same time, digital objects from “pools” of available information, providing
museum visitors greater access to the Walker’s diverse resources.
Opening Weekend
A Preview Party celebrating the
exhibition will take place Saturday, June 7, followed by an opening-day lecture
or panel discussion on Sunday, June 8. Program details will be announced.
Related Events
Focusing on exhibition themes, the Walker’s
annual Summer Design Series will bring renowned architects and designers from
around the world to the Twin Cities every Tuesday evening during the month of
July. Details on all related events will be announced.
Catalogue
An illustrated 272-page catalogue, available
at tour venues and through Distributed Art Publishers (D.A.P.), will include
essays by exhibition curator Andrew Blauvelt, Design Director at the Walker Art
Center; Aaron Betsky, Director of the Netherlands Architecture Institute and
former curator of architecture and design at the San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art; Jonathan Bell, freelance design critic based in London,
editor of such books as Carchitecture: When the Car and the City Collide
and The Transformable House; and Jamer Hunt, cultural anthropologist and
director of the graduate program in industrial design at the University of the
Arts in Philadelphia.
Exhibition Tour Schedule
Lille 2004, Cultural Capital of Europe
Musée de l'Hospice Comtesse, Lille, France
September 4–November 28, 2004
Additional venues to be announced.
Funding
The North American tour of Strangely
Familiar: Design and Everyday Life is made possible by generous support
from Target Stores. Additional support for the exhibition is provided by the
Mondriaan Foundation, with support from the Netherlands Culture Fund of the
Dutch Ministries for Foreign Affairs and Education, Culture and Science.
Opening events are made possible by Lowry Hill Investments. Promotional
assistance provided by MPLS.ST.PAUL Magazine.
Major support for Walker
Art Center programs is provided by the Minnesota State Arts Board through an
appropriation by the Minnesota State Legislature, the Lila Wallace-Reader’s
Digest Fund, The Bush Foundation, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation through
the Doris Duke Fund for Jazz and Dance and the Doris Duke Performing Arts
Endowment Fund, Target Stores, Marshall Field’s, and Mervyn’s with support from
the Target Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, General Mills Foundation,
Coldwell Banker Burnet, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the
National Endowment for the Arts, American Express Philanthropic Program,
Honeywell, The Regis Foundation, The Cargill Foundation, U.S. Bank, Star
Tribune Foundation, 3M, and the members of the Walker Art Center.
The Walker Art
Center is located at 725 Vineland Place,
at Lyndale Avenue
South, Minneapolis, one block off Highway I-94.
For public
information, call 612.375.7622.
Gallery hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday,
Saturday, 10 am–5 pm;
Thursday, 10 am–9
pm; Sunday, 11 am–5 pm; closed Monday.
http://www.walkerart.org