In the latest posts we have looked at designers, fashion collections or surface elaborations, trying to establish connections between fashion and interior design. Let's continue this thread today with a simple question - what is the difference between art and design?
It may be difficult to find a simple answer to this complex question, but there is at the moment an exhibition at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam that looks at the correspondences between these two disciplines in an intriguing way.
The event, entitled "In Scene Gezet" (Setting the Scene) and featuring over fifty works of art and design objects from the '60s on, analyses art and design as equivalent disciplines in an intriguing way.
Curator of Contemporary and Modern Art Noor Mertens and Design Curator Anne van Kesteren chose indeed to create in different rooms, various scenes and stages to allow these pieces to engage in theatrical dialogues in an approachable way.
The artworks and design pieces were picked around seven themes or dilemmas: Tabula Rasa, Abject, Style, Scale (a term interpreted also as a perspective on things), Form, Mass and Order.
The work of Jan Schoonhoven is juxtaposed for example to that of Stefan Scholten and Carole Baijings of design duo Scholten & Baijings. Schoonhoven's monochrome white relief contrasts with the broad palette of different colours, shades and transparencies of Scholten & Baijings' Colour Porcelain tea service that, at the same time, looks like a colourful abstract composition.
In return Schoonhoven's relief and the light and sober chair with holes by Gijs Bakker revolve around the concept of systematic precision and repetition; Bran Bogart's paintings, based on thick materials and creating thick surfaces and depths are compared to Studio Bertjan Pot's Seamless Chair characterised by a type of upholstery that seems to melt on the frame.
A metal cabinet by artist Donald Judd in 1984 leaves visitors to wonder if they're staring at a sculpture or a functional piece, while Tejo Remy's Rag Chair made with the layered contents of 15 bags of rags (a chair that can also integrate your own discarded clothes...) can turn into an arty piece that preserves the memories of the owner and can be compared to the assemblage pieces and compressed stools of French artist César.
Artist Joep van Lieshout often strays into the domain of the designer to make a work of art: in "12 Stones - 12 Crates", for example, he plays with the standardized dimensions of everyday objects, in this case paving stones and beer crates.
Artist Barry Flanagan also subverts the accepted difference between design and art in his sculpture "Chess" by substituting sandbags for the chess pieces.
A colourful cupboard by Ettore Sottsass appears next to the works of James Rosenquist, an artist who also designed advertising boards in vividly bright colours. There are also plenty of garments and accessories by various designs including Margiela and Walter Van Beirendonck integrated in the displays.
While in some of the pieces on display irony prevails, in others there is a strong critique of consumerism (visitors are also prompted to ponder a bit about the art and design markets). All the pieces showcased remain in a liminal space between art and design.
This is actually the best thing about this concise and associative show (that also touches upon a key contemporary trend, that of featuring design pavilions into art fairs) at the Boijmans Museum – it looks at two disciplines side by side but does not attempt to provide a definite answer, but eliminates boundaries, stimulates connections and links between conventional forms of beauty (or unconventional forms of grotesque) in art and functionality in design, and invites visitors to think about the differences between the artist and designer, leaving us with a question – who is freer, the former or the latter?
Image credits for this post
1 - 6, 11 - 13 Exhibition viewes of In scène Gezet/Setting the Scene, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. Photo: Lotte Stekelenburg
7. Jan Schoonhoven, Square relief, 3rd conception, 1967. Cardboard painted white. Collection: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.
8. Scholten & Baijings, Colour Porcelain, 2012. Imari porcelain. Collection: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.
9. Barry Flanagan, Chess, 1971. Cotton, sand, cork, aluminium. Collection: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam.
10. Joep van Lieshout, 12 Stones - 12 Crates, 1987. Concrete, beer crates, glass. Collection: Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen.
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
Member of the Boxxet Network of Blogs, Videos and Photos
Comments