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| Grey bloom Vase by Michael Eden |
The exhibition dedicated to British design is taking place in the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Art. Where one could see the history of the development of design from the XIX century to nowadays. As far as I am concerned the number of works is pretty poor for so long period of history and it is not clear how some objects are possible to correlate. In spite of the fairly modest size, the exhibition has a rather impressive scope of designers presented there. The room is filled with design objects made of different materials with the use of huge range of technologies from carved furniture to object made by laser cut and 3D printer.
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| WMF Cutlery by Zaha Hadid and Toast rack by Christopher Dresser |
The metal works of industrial design father Christopher Dresser are placed adjacent Zaha Hadid and Patrick Schumacher, his works looks very modern and not inferior to Zaha Hadid’s objects.
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| Wey Furnishing Fabric by William Morris |
On the walls there are some textile samples of the most successful textile designer and manufacturer of his day William Morris. If works of Dresser look harmoniously in the mix of contemporary designers while the textile of Morris near exhibits of young fashion designer such as David Koma, Areana Page looks weird. Because his masterpieces were made of natural materials, by hand and they are given the sense of uniqueness, value and has the narrative.
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| Claris Anemone by Sarah Angold |
Nowadays we have got the variety of materials, high technologies which allowed to produce fast for the mass of people, but designers will always be inspired by old craftsmen. So Christopher Pearson has taken as a basis Morris´s famous pattern “Willow boughs” (1887) and used modern technologies to create “wallpaper” with a dynamic, changing pattern. Also Sarah Angold combined ultra modern design with tradition of artistic craftsmanship. She produced details by laser cut which require careful manual assembly.
Organizers declare that this exhibition is a dialogue between design art of the XIX and XXI centuries, as for me the dialogue does not happen because some exhibits look random. But I strongly recommend you to go to this exhibition and to get acquainted with designers.
Diana Bakeeva
IAD, Level 4
Image sources and courtesy
http://collections.vam.ac.uk
http://www.arts-museum.ru
http://www.sarahangold.com
http://www.zaha-hadid.com
http://www.edenceramics.co.uk
Diana, your title is straight to the point! I felt the same being on this exhibition - confused and lost in random objects. Although both as textile patterns and plastic parametric necklace I found fascinating the link between them seems strained. So that is true that the narrative in a whole exposition is missed.
ReplyDeleteOlga Lyatifova, Level 5