As part of a collaborative fundraising event between Elton John AIDS foundation and Whotels, six top creatives were invited to transform the distinctive Blue ‘Boris bike’ used by Londoners into a a functional work of art, to by used by visitors to London’s Whotel .


The project goes by the name WOW bikes and Ron Arad was amongst the select group including artist Benedict Radcliff, fashion designers Patrick Cox and Alice Temperley, singer Paloma Faith and illustrator Natasha Law – Who each created a completely original, bespoke bike. Arad’s design involves sprung steel arranged in tesselated forms for its wheels. The bikes are currently on auction on the intiative’s facebook page and will be available for use at the Whotel until the end of October 2011. Via:[designboom]

Website:www.starwoodhotels.com/whotels
Website:www.facebook.com/wlondonhotel

Ron Arad and his team reveal the ideas behind Curtain Call – an interactive 360 degree installation at the Roundhouse in London, 9-29 August 2011. Ron, Julian Gilhespie (architect) and Michael Castellana (industrial designer) talk about the journey so far and what you can expect.
Website:www.roundhouse.org.uk/

Image: Last year’s winning design: Breathing Bathtub by Xi Li, China
Roca, the leading global bathroom brand, together with BCD, the Barcelona Design Centre is launching the fourth edition of Jump the Gap 2010/11, Roca’s international design competition. The competition will officially launch on Roca’s stand (G30) at this year’s 100% Design.

The competition offers talented designers across the world the opportunity to showcase work based on innovation and design within the bathroom area. The winning project will receive a prize of 5000 Euros which will be presented at 100% Design 2011. The winner will also benefit from a targeted PR campaign that will promote the winning design along with its creator(s).

With this initiative, Roca seeks to transmit a fundamental message of its philosophy: “designing today for tomorrow’s projects”. As part of its ongoing emphasis on creating unique experiences for bathroom spaces, Roca is continually identifying, creating and developing innovative ideas within the design world. Therefore, Jump the Gap continues to search for new solutions that enable society’s needs to be reconciled with the specific features of each home. Roca is firmly committed to the search for conceptually innovative ideas that form a bridge between today and tomorrow, between dreams and reality.

This year’s judging panel is made up of a number of leading figures from the field of architecture and design including:
• Ron Arad, designer and architect, UK
• Gilda Bojardi, editor in chief Interni magazine, Italy
• Josep Congost, design manager Roca Innovation Lab, Spain
• Javier Mariscal, designer, Spain
• Marcel Wanders, designer, The Netherlands

The contest is open to product or interior designers and architects, as well as product design, interior and architecture students worldwide. Participants must be under 35, and can register online at www.jumpthegap.net from 23 September 2010 when the competition officially opens at this year’s 100% Design.

Closing date for registration is 14 January 2011 and the deadline for online submissions is 29 April 2011.
Entries may be individual or from a group of two people.

www.roca.com
www.jumpthegap.net
www.bcd.es

MARC NEWSON Important early “Pod of Drawers”, 1987 Fiberglass-reinforced polyester resin core, blind-riveted sheet aluminum, paint. 50 3/8 x 27 1/2 x 17 1/4 in. (128 x 69.9 x 43.8 cm.) Produced by Basecraft for Pod, Australia. From the edition of ten plus two artist’s proofs and one prototype. ESTIMATE $300,000-500,000

Phillips de Pury announced the highlights from its June 9th New York Design auction. The sale will offer additional works from The Halsey Minor Collection. Part I was sold in a single-owner evening sale held at Phillips de Pury on May 13th, including Marc Newson’s prototype Lockheed Lounge for $2,098,000, a new world record for the artist.

JASPER MORRISON “Carrara Tables, Variation N° 16 + 1”, 2005
Carrara marble-covered aluminum honeycomb, brushed metal. Largest table: 11 x 65 3/4 x 15 1/4 in. (27.9 x 167 x 38.7 cm.) Produced for Galerie kreo, France. Number seven from the edition of 12.
ESTIMATE $30,000-40,000

The Halsey Minor Collection
Mr. Minor, a technology entrepreneur, founded CNET Networks in San Francisco in 1993. Since then he has amassed a highly important collection including works by contemporary designers Marc Newson, Martin Szekely, Jasper Morrison, and Ronan & Erwan Bouroullec, as well as mid-century masters Paul Dupré-Lafon, Jean Royère, and Diego Giacometti. The arrival to market of these and other major works presents a critical opportunity for buyers.

Highlights from Mr. Minor’s collection include an important early Pod of Drawers, 1987, by Newson. The chest, with an estimate of $300,000-400,000, is one of the earliest examples made by the artist and bears a complex and arresting arrangement of riveted aluminum panels. The work, based on a famous bombé chest by Art Deco designer André Groult, was originally purchased by a private New York collector who happened upon Newson’s Sydney workshop in 1987.

Mr. Minor is a devoted collector of mid-century French masters including architect and decorator Paul Dupré-Lafon. The Design sale will offer a number of works by Dupré-Lafon from Mr. Minor’s collection including a rare and important drop-front writing cabinet, veneered with Macassar ebony and finished in Hermès leather, ca. 1940, estimated at $100,000-150,000.

Mr. Minor, a distinguished collector of contemporary art and design, assembled his collection as he built his business, with enthusiasm and unswerving devotion.

JEAN ROYÈRE Rare and important “Salon Sculpture” sofa and two chairs, ca. 1955 Beech wood, fabric. Comprising one sofa and pair of armchairs (3). ESTIMATE $180,000-200,000

Jean Royère
Phillips de Pury’s Design department continues to offer major works by Jean Royère whose elaborate upholstery and voluptuous forms were a reflection of the buoyant mood of postwar France. Both sculptural and playful, Royère’s silhouettes are a dynamic counterpoint to the strict lines of Modernism.

The Design department will offer a rare Salon Sculpture sofa and pair of armchairs, ca. 1955, at $180,000-220,000. The sofa and chairs, anchoring the sale’s group of works by Royère, are sterling examples of French mid-century design: their shapely lines offer surprising lightness and grace. Another major highlight by Royère is a free-form coffee table, ca. 1957, with wrought iron ring feet. The work, known as a Yo-Yo table, will be sold with an estimate of $80,000-100,000.

Perriand & Prouvé
Designers Charlotte Perriand and Jean Prouvé stood hand-in-hand at midcentury, the pragmatic parents of postwar modernism in France. Together they devised economic solutions to the problems of daily life in everyday places: schools, dormitories, offices. Their highly-collectible works continue to attract strong attention from collectors.

The Phillips de Pury Design department will offer key works from these designers including a Very rare curved cabinet, ca. 1960, by Perriand, estimated at $140,000-180,000; as well as a Tunisie bookcase, ca. 1952, by both designers, from the Maison de la Tunisie, Cité Universitaire, Paris, with an estimate of $80,000-120,000. A selection of works by Prouvé include two very rare façade panels, 1949-1950, from the elementary school at Bouqueval, France with respective estimates of $60,000-90,000 and $80,000-120,000.

CHARLOTTE PERRIAND Very rare curved cabinet, ca. 1960 ESTIMATE $140,000-180,000

Chandigarh
In 1947, after the partition of India, Prime Minister Nehru commissioned the planning and construction of Chandigarh, a model city which would serve as the new capital of the Punjab and would be built in the foothills of the Himalayas. In the 1950s Swiss architects and designers Le Corbusier and his cousin Pierre Jeanneret undertook the design and completion of the capital complex, including sectors for housing, government offices, industry, and commerce.

Phillips de Pury will offer a selection of works from Chandigarh including, among others, a Solar Day bas-relief by Le Corbusier with an estimate of $18,000-24,000 as well as a Demountable desk by Jeanneret with an estimate of $35,000-45,000.

HARRY BERTOIA Important early “Dandelion” sculpture, ca. 1958
ESTIMATE $130,000-150,000

Early Bertoia Sculpture
In 1957, renowned American designer and sculptor Harry Bertoia travelled to Italy on a grant from the Graham Foundation to study early Greek and Etruscan works. Newly energized, he returned home and began creating freestanding three-dimensional works that expressed “joy and energy by radiating outward.”

Shortly after his trip, he conceived his Dandelion series of sculptures, the first of which, according to his son Val Bertoia, the Phillips Design department will offer in June with an estimate of $130,000-150,000. Standing nearly 7 feet, his Dandelion sculpture is a literal representation of that flower with clearly articulated “seeds” comprising welded metal rods.

Contemporary Venetian Glass
Phillips de Pury & Company continues to champion works by key contemporary glass designers working in the furnaces of Murano. Continuing a thousand-year tradition of Venetian glassblowing, four artists in particular represent the future of Italian art glass. In its June auction, the Design department proudly offers hand-blown and shaped vases by Yoichi Ohira, Laura de Santillana, and Ritsue Mishima, and a hand-blown glass sculpture by Cristiano Bianchin. All four artists were exhibited in 2009 at the 53rd Venice Biennale.

Mid-Century Scandinavian
The restrained lines and expert craftsmanship of Scandinavian design have enjoyed strong recent appeal, a sign that serious collectors remain committed to well-built, considered works. Phillips de Pury continues to offer the finest examples of this robust category.

The Scandinavian highlights in the June New York auction include a rare wingback armchair by Frits Henningsen, ca. 1935, which bears an estimate of $50,000-70,000. The dramatic shaped backrest and animated cabriole legs of the chair lend it a vital energy. In keeping with that organic form, the Design department will also offer a massive Knobbed-style vessel, 1950s, by renowned Danish ceramicist Axel Salto. The work will be sold with an estimate of $12,000-18,000. Other highlights include a Grasshopper chaise longue, ca. 1968, by Preben Fabricius & Jørgen Kastholm, with an estimate of $15,000-20,000, as well as a rare pair of Skater chromed steel and leather chairs, ca. 1968, by the same designers and with an estimate of $20,000-25,000.

Studio Ceramics
The Phillips de Pury Design department continues to champion the highly collectible works of British studio ceramicists Lucie Rie and Hans Coper, two towering figures of 20th-century ceramics, both of whom worked together for a period in Rie’s Albion Mews studio in London. Of the nearly fifty lots from important private collections, highlights include an extremely rare late Cycladic bud pot ,1976, by Coper, estimated at $60,000-90,000 and a Monumental sack pot with disc (ca. 1974), also by Coper, estimated at $50,000-70,000. Of Rie’s many lovely works on offer, a standout is her Exceptional tall flattened vase, ca. 1970, at $20,000-30,000, noted for its white flowing glaze and delicate manganese speckle.

Contemporary Design
Phillips de Pury, a market leader in contemporary design, continues to offer works by significant cutting-edge designers including Atelier Van Lieshout, Rick Owens, Ron Arad, Iván Navarro, and the Campana Brothers.

In total, the Phillips de Pury & Company Design auction will include 229 lots of important 20th-century and contemporary design from a range of categories including French mid-century, Scandinavian mid-century, American studio craft, British studio ceramics, Venetian glass, and contemporary limited edition design, among others.

Website:www.phillipsdepury.com/

Ron Arad’s multi-disciplinary work has long been described to defy categorization, covering an array of genres including art, design, sculpture and architecture. In his current exhibition at the Barbican Centre, Arad’s work is presented in such a way that it responds to each of the categories. The opening room encourages visitors to play, touch and interact with the work in such a way that reminds viewers that each piece is a functioning object, designed for every day life.

The rest of the exhibition is curated in accordance with a much more traditional gallery display. Ropes and ‘Do Not Touch’ signs separate the works from the viewer, elevating each piece to ‘high art’ status. This mode of presentation evokes an appreciation of the stunning sculptural beauty behind these functional design pieces.

The whole exhibition explores three decades of Arad’s work from his early post-punk approach of assembling products from ready made parts to his exclusive and highly polished statement objects. The exhibition also includes a display of some of Arad’s intricate architectural designs.

Ron Arad: Restless, which opened on 18 February has received rave reviews and is a must see for anyone who appreciates art / design or indeed beauty on any level. the show closes on 16 May so make sure you don’t miss the boat.

As per usual, a picture speaks a thousand words so here’s a selection to whet your appetite:

Throughout the course of the exhibition Barbican has hosted a series of events and discussions around Arads work. These have included:
- The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party
- Design Vs. Art panel debate

On Thursday 6 May the Barbican Centre hosted an evening of fantasy and imagination in the form of a whimsical Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. The Barbican’s Garden Room was transformed into a dream like wonderland adorned with floating edible treats and fantastical fairy lights while the fancy costumes worn by guests added to the atmosphere of wonderment.

The Mad Hatter’s Tea party was part of the Ron Arad: Restless events season, and offered visitors to the exhibition the chance to mingle with other design/ art fans in the magical atmosphere.

Food was provided by concept chef and artist Caroline Hobkinson who created quirky culinary delights for the night, such as gigantic cupcakes, enormous cucumber sandwiches and magic potion jellies.

Headpieces by acclaimed taxidermist and jeweller Reid Pepper set the standard for costumes with her collection of unique creations modelled by the waiters. Peppard’s provocative taxidermy headpieces challenge the boundaries between the real and the unreal. These pieces were from her debut Vermin Collection which transforms London’s rats and pigeons into macabre objets d’art.

Next weeks event Wiff Waff takes place on Thursday 13 May from 6.30–10pm in Barbican Art Gallery. This will be a ping pong tournament inspired by Ron Arad’s love of ping pong and Wiff Waff – ping pong’s Victorian precursor. The tournament takes place in the gallery using Arad’s own stainless steel ping pong table and specially commissioned paddles by London-based Troika.

Come Along Play Ping Pong from Barbican Centre on Vimeo.

Find out more by Pippa Irvine
Via:[FADwebsite]

On 29th October 2010, a panel of top-notch professionals from the two, supposedly delineated worlds of Art and Design, came together to take on the debate of ‘design versus art’. Throughout the past four decades, the face and public perception of design has changed dramatically, mutating from the post punk, DIY rebellion of the 1970’s, to standardised mass production in the 80’s .

By the 90’s we were living in an era of globalised design and glossy finishes and with the millennium came the decade of a booming art market with design becoming increasingly recognised as a stand alone art form in it’s own right. This progression eventually culminated in the coining of the phrase ‘Design Art’ and the ‘naughties’ are the two disciplines more blurred than ever.

In the light of the Barbican’s current show; Ron Arad: Restless which showcases the works of the internationally acclaimed artist, architect and design maverick, the art versus design debate rears it’s head once more.

The panel members included Simon de Pury (Chairman of Phillips de Pury & Company), Patrik Fredrikson and Ian Stallard of Fredrikson Stallard, dealer Oscar Humphries of Timothy Taylor Gallery, artist Pae White and Tim Marlow, writer, broadcaster and Director of Exhibitions at White Cube. In a fascinating debate lasting almost 2 hours, the panellists explored the implications of the intertwined markets for art and design, addressing the key questions.

Where do the basic differences between the two disciplines lie then?

PF: As designers we can be much more accommodating to our clients requests. If we design something in blue but they want it in red, it’s out job to design it to suit them. You have to work to make things that within people’s everyday lives – Of course it doesn’t work that way in art.

PW: Artists seem to have a greater level of freedom with their work, a sense of ‘artistic immunity’ to the rules of practicality. We’re not constrained by barriers of what is practical such as if something is flammable or how well it deals with wear and tear etc.

SdP: For me there isn’t a great difference between the two. If something is truly great, it was done by a truly great artist. Ultimately a beautiful design is just great art. Ron Arad is a great artist. Top collectors are no longer content with a master artwork on their wall; they want to surround themselves with beauty in their furniture and cutlery.

Does this not lead to a danger than anything considered good, becomes labelled as art?

SdP: I believe in a total blending of the boundaries including art, architecture, sound and design.

Where is the agenda for the new perception of design being set? Has the market had the dominant influence or is there has there been a creative change?

SdP: It’s almost certainly market led. It started with a few designers putting work into large art auctions and they made huge prices. Everyone suddenly pricked up their ears. Galleries began displaying design pieces within their walls because they realised they could make great profits.

TM: So essentially it is just very clever marketing working to push up design prices in the same way the art market boomed this decade.

Were boundaries between art and design laid out from the beginning of your train – in art / design school?

OW: Not at all – where I studied car design was seen as one of the most artistic, sculpturally orientated courses.

PF: I studied at St Martin’s and there were certainly no boundaries there. It was so free you could literally drift off and do what ever you wanted. By mixing with other students in the bar you’d get influences from all different creative courses and ideas would become meshed and interwoven.

Has ‘good design for all’ become exclusive design for the few?

SdP: I wouldn’t say so. Take Jeff Koons for example, the most expensive living artist today. HE makes unique, million dollar art works but also sells beautiful, mass produced towels available to all. There does seem to be a natural association between quality and rarity but this is not always the true case.

OH: Design is such a democratic medium, many designers are involved in a range of projects from unique or limited edition pieces to some fantastic mass produced items. It’s all about getting the right split.

TM: Artists have to make the majority of their sales through the gallery, where as designers get the best of both worlds from the exclusive to the commercial.

Does design have the potential to overtake art in superiority?

SdP: Art cannot become superior to art!

OH: We are sophisticated enough to recognise that good design is an art from. Ron Arad made room for himself in the art world and paved the way for other designers to follow behind him. As a result, the overlap between the two disciplines is ever increasing.

Is it fair to say artists are not meant to be commercial animals whilst designers are?

PF: For designers, commercialism isn’t such a dirty word but it still has low connotations. As high end ‘artistic’ designers we can’t win. We get kicked for being too arty and kicked for being too commercial.

How do you envisage this art / design relationship progressing in the next decade?

SdP: The boundaries will continue to blur to the point that they will eventually have to be rebuilt even more rigorously than before. It’s the typical cycle of history.

OH: I believe art galleries should remain first and foremost spaces for are and essentially the delineation in a good thing.

PW: Galleries are always shifting. As we move forward with the new concept of including design in gallery spaces, they seem to simultaneously be moving back with an ever increasing focus on artists who were fashionable over a century ago.

Does Design at it’s best have a moral obligation to reach out to as wide an audience as possible?

PF: Designers shouldn’t feel too panicked by the need to appeal to a huge audience, this can be incredibly restrictive. If all design worked on this basis no one would have experiment with new ways of creating beautiful designs and concepts.

Ron Arad: Restless – 18th February – 16th May 2010

http://www.barbican.org.uk/ronarad

Kate Bush, Head of Art Galleries, Barbican Centre, said:
“Ron Arad first hit the headlines in 1981 with the opening of his now legendary studio and workshop
One Off in Covent Garden and he has been an unstoppable and uncategorisable force in world design ever since. I am delighted that Barbican Art Gallery is to present Ron Arad’s first major British exhibition, and to share with our audiences the many different facets of this extraordinarily creative artist. “

Bringing together over 120 works, Ron Arad: Restless features some of Arad’s most celebrated pieces. Rover Chair,1981, a car seat salvaged from a scrapyard mounted on a steel frame, that famously caught the eye of Jean Paul Gaultier, and catapulted Arad firmly into the design world’s Hall of Fame; Well-Tempered Chair,1986, a reinterpretation of the overstuffed club chair using four thin sheets of tempered steel bent and held together by wing nuts; and animated in the gallery space Reinventing the Wheel, 1996. Inspired by a children’s toy featuring a globe floating inside a sphere, this bookcase has a wheel-within-a-wheel construction and can easily be rolled around while the shelves remain level.

Movement, play and an element of risk or surprise are key characteristics of Arad’s work: chairs rock or roll; shelves flex and sway, spiral-shaped vases bounce and lights coil in a snake-like motion.

For this exhibition, Arad’s team have devised special mechanisms for some of the works to demonstrate
their range of motion but also to bring them to life. The exhibition culminates in a large area
featuring Arad’s own ping pong table, made from stainless steel, surrounded by a wide selection of
manufactured chairs ranging from modular sofas and screw stools to sprung chaises and upholstered armchairs of exaggerated forms. Visitors are encouraged to experience the works, sit or recline or play a game of table tennis.

Arad continues to expand the boundaries of design by constantly experimenting with new technologies. For Swarovski, Arad designed Lolita, 2004, a chandelier made up of 1050 LED lights embedded within 2,100 crystals and the first to have its own mobile phone number. Text messages appear at the top of the chandelier and wind down the ribbon curves, creating the impression that it is slightly spinning. Lo-Rez-Dolores-Tabula-Rasa, 2007 is a table made of a thin sheet of Corian illuminated with images using 22,000 fibre-optic pixels. It is displayed in a dark room for full effect.

The exhibition also features a specially designed set of eight floor-to-ceiling LED screens.
Dramatically placed near the entrance of all the upper galleries, each screen transmits a changing
display of words and images relating to the surrounding works, including digital renderings of chairs
or quirky facts about the design process and materials used.

Architectural projects featured include the rotating mountain-top restaurant and gallery Les Diablarets, Gstaad, Swizerland; the recently opened Mediacite shopping complex, Liege, Belgium;
and the Design Museum in Holon, Israel. Due to open February 2010, this dramatic new building,
Arad’s most ambitious yet, is characterised by five bands of Corten Steel which undulate dynamically
around the museum’s internal spaces.

Highlighting the significance of process and the innovative use of materials in Arad’s work, the exhibition also offers an insight into the development of objects from initial idea to end product. Rarely seen prototypes, from different stages of the design process, are displayed together with finished works. Short films including early footage of Arad at work in the studio or pieces being manufactured are shown. The exhibition also includes two workshop settings which feature pieces part-way through the production process, offering visitors a real sense of how the works are crafted and made.

Over the past two decades, Arad has collaborated with leading manufacturers, including Alessi, Capellini, Moroso, Notify and Vitra, successfully adapting his designs to affordable materials and industrial techniques. Initially a one-off piece made of sprung steel, Bookworm (1993), a flexible yet sturdy curving shelf with built-in bookends, was later produced in plastics by Kartell in three different lengths that could be endlessly combined and arranged. Whilst Vitra produces the now classic, moulded plastic stacking chair,Tom Vac (1999), the chair was originally conceived for a sculpture entitled Domus Totem consisting of a stack of 100 chairs made for the 1997 Milan Furniture fair.

Born in Tel Aviv, Israel in 1951, Arad attended the Jerusalem Academy of Art. He moved to London
in 1973 and studied with Peter Cook and Bernard Tschumi at the Architecture Association. He launched his career in the early 1980s with the opening of One Off, the Covent Garden studio he created with his business partner Caroline Thorman. In 1989 they established, Ron Arad Associates, an architecture and design practice, with One Off merging as part of the company by 1993.

In 1994 Arad first taught a class in furniture design at the Royal College of Art, London. Three years
later he was appointed Professor of Furniture and Industrial Design. He merged the two departments to create the Department of Design Products, a more open, interdisciplinary and experimental programme, which has had an enormous influence on a new generation of designers, including Paul Cocksedge, Peter Marigold and members of Troika and rAndom International.

In 1987 Arad participated in two important exhibitions and attracted the attention of the art world:
Nouvelles Tendances: Les avant-gardes de la fin du XXème siècle at the Centre Pompidou in Paris
and Documenta VIII in Kassel. Recent solo exhibitions include Timothy Taylor Gallery, London, 2008;
Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2008; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2009 and Ben Brown Fine Arts,
Hong Kong, 2009.
More on Restless: www.barbican.org.uk/
www.timeout.com/
www.dexigner.com

FENOMEN IKEA deals with the complex field of mass production and quality, globality and national tastes, individual habits and quality of life, fashions in living and advertising, and asks questions such as: does IKEA offer good design? Where does IKEA get its ideas from? Is IKEA typically Swedish? Can living quarters be organized? Does living in a good environment mean that you live a good life? Is there such a thing as a collective IKEA experience? The focus here is on the early IKEA products from the Fifties and Sixties, the classics from the Seventies and Eighties and numerous objects from the experimental and individualistic “PS Kollektion” which IKEA presented in 1995 in Milan as a set of design ideas intended as a signal against exclusive and expensive products. They are contrasted with exemplary classic items by Michael Thonet, Verner Panton, Poul Henningsen and other designers, which seem comparable at first sight, but are in fact totally different. This will help to reveal the sources of inspiration, the ideas developed further, the decisions on material and product, which underlie the specific designs of IKEA products.

In the exhibition, the confrontation between the design objects will be complemented by further core aspects which go to make up the collective experience of the cult brand IKEA: communication – Scandinavian modernism and Swedish folklore; the vision of an organizable living environment, already conceived by the Deutsche Werkbund, the Bauhaus or Gute Form; practical everyday living – modular design and Do-ityourself; living with IKEA – the role of children and the family as customers; IKEA and the consequences for design, art and humour and the exchange of experiences with other “IKEAns“. Any time. All over the world.

NON IKEA is the name of a special section within FENOMEN IKEA which brings together some 25 works of art and design objects by international designers and artists. These objects take up the concepts, materials and products of IKEA and create something completely new out of them: taking aesthetic principles to extremes, introducing new functions, alienating the designs to make them subversive and provocative. Thus, for instance, the most important instrument of IKEA marketing, the catalogue which appears annually, is the starting point for two artists: Jason Salavon deconstructs the IKEA catalogue by making the text and the products disappear – leaving pure colour arrangements reminiscent of Mondrian, De Stijl or contemporary graphic design. Sebastian Vonderau uses the IKEA catalogue as a drawing pattern to create an animated film which generates the outlines of IKEA products which are continuously overlaid by lines and colours resulting in a dense structure which changes them out of recognition. Morten Steen Hebsgaard plays with the relationship between highbrow culture and cheap mass design in his reproductions or new interpretations of well-known works of art created from IKEA materials.

Designers: Alvar Aalto, Ron Arad, Béla Barényi, Alfonso Bialetti, Marianne Brandt, Hin Bredendieck, Christian Dell, Antonio Citterio, Hans Coray, Otto Griessing, Oswald Haerdtl, Josef Hoffmann, Walter Maria Kersting, Rodney Kinsman, Jacob Kjaer, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Bruno Paul, Ferdinand Porsche, Peter Raacke, Richard Riemerschmid, Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, Nisse Strinning, Gebrüder Thonet, Earl Silas Tupper, Wilhelm Wagenfeld.
www.mkg-hamburg.de/