DESIGNWEEK

After an industry colleague failed to get me named as curator for Sofia Designweek, the steering committee invited me to give one of the keynote addresses. As the time of the event approached I was filled with anxiety at the prospect of a phalanx of designers all descending en masse upon a menacing foreign airport. I thought, how does one pick a designer out of the throng of average tourists?

No, for me it would be Justin Bieber world tour t-shirt I’d gotten on eBay.

As I approached the waiting area at the gate, I saw two of them standing, whispering to each other. A tall slender man greeted them, then walked away to board the plane. I introduced myself to them. I just wanted to know who he was. 

“Oh you do not know him—that’s Stefan, he is very famous!”

“I don’t know him, and I do not care about fame,” was my reply. I wasn’t exactly new to this rodeo.

 

***

 

I had first attended Designweek in Berlin. They had installed me and my friend in a very ambitious, though poorly executed, “design” hotel in the Mitte district.

“I need to get a gun today,” my friend said. “And on our day off we need to go to Wannsee. I want to see the place where the Nazis drafted the Final Solution.”

“Why do you need to have a gun?” 

“It’s for the deal I need to close.”

Gun and deal were news to me.

The committee thought it would be a great idea that I have a conversation with Hella Jongerius about copy-culture. Mrs Jongerius was not terribly enthusiastic about that. Her husband turned out to be the moderator.

Back in the hotel room, as I ran through the events of the afternoon, my friend asked if wanted to see his gun.

“Perhaps it is better if I do not see your gun.”

The next day we went to Wannsee. “A better experience than your subsidized Designweek, traveling from Designweek to Designweek all year long—so decadent,” according to my friend. 

It was a 40-minute walk from the U-Bahn to the site of the lakeside villa.

’Fuck, why is it closed?’ 

‘Because it’s Sunday.’ 

“We need to rent water bikes to get closer!’ 

And so we did. We just had to get a bit closer and that would be it. He got off the water bike, entering the grounds located at the rear of the Villa Marnier. 

‘I’ll be right back, I just want to walk where Adolf Eichmann smoked his cigarette. You stay here.”. 

***

 

After checking into the Designweek-partner hotel, we went to a restaurant. A designer sitting across from me, seeking eye contact from Stefan, looked at my iPhone cover with disgust. ‘It’s a Louis Vuitton’. 

She tried to be polite, her eyelids closing slowly. ‘Ohhh, where did you get that?”

 ‘From China, of course!’

Predictably, the conversation segued to travel plans; then died.

I figured out the man at our table who had everyone’s attention was Stefan Sagmeister, one of the reigning gods of graphic design. 

“I hate design for designers,”’ he pontificated in an Austrian accent heavy with baggage. Everyone sat there in awe. This man had worked for U2, after all.

Meanwhile, sponsored cars waited outside for us. For some reason, I ended up in Stefan’s.

‘So vut kind of design du you do?’ He asked, accentuating how every “w” in his verbal arsenal would henceforth be pronounced as a “v.”. “Are you tze guy that made zose colorful copies?”’ 

He actually knew my work, and honestly that caught me by surprise. My Rip-off collection had given me a dose of micro-fame. The collection was bought by the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen almost immediately but also got me excommunicated and blacklisted by many “professional” designers. 

 I was impressed that he was so well informed. Yet I didn’t want him to know that.

“I bought ven I earned my first monney ze Drooog chandelier mit olll ze lightbulbs.”

Here I am in a cab, I thought, with a guy that buys Dutch design; whereas I have the uncontrollable urge to when I have some money to immediately destroy it upon purchase. 

The venue was a Soviet-era, a type of giant spaceship-style colosseum in the middle of a public square.. First up, a Polish furniture designer who showed around 40 different chairs for different clients in 40 minutes. “For this next project, I decided to design a chair…”

People were already falling asleep around me.

At last, it was my turn and while I was talking about the ceramics and glass I’d made. After the Q&A, I told the audience I love karaoke and sang Madonna’s like a Virgin in my soaked T-shirt, dripping in sweat. ‘I made it through the wilderness / Somehow I made it through.””

 Then it was time for Stefan. He presented a happy project. It all started when he didn’t feel so pretty and went to a therapist ‘ Insert clip of Stefan sitting alone on a sofa during a party building a house of cards in a $2+ million NYC apartment filled with models who looked as if they were having the time of their life. He was missing something, he knew he wasn’t happy yet he is also a graphic designer. So he suddenly had the impetus to make depression-inspired typefaces, And so on, and so on.. He decided to go on a sabbatical and meditate somewhere in the forests of Thailand. 

He photographed himself in a level-5 yoga position with his temporary mansion in the background. Of course, this would not keep him from being creative. Local craftsmen were instructed to “do some furniture.” Ach, mein Gott.

 

 ***

 

We were all invited to walk to some other venues. There is no such thing as a design overload. Even when it’s in the poorest capital in Europe. I wanted to see more chairs and sofas in Sofia. We walked through a park which hosted a weekly flea market. We passed a was a stand with handknit socks. I tried to keep myself restrained to not buy one of each.

 Another stall sold World War II memorabilia. All the proprietor’s items were displayed as you would expect. They would only sell “replica” here, but I thought the uniforms and helmets looked a little too new or made to appear old. However, it was a little too well-made. I saw a silver ring with a big skull on it, which upon closer inspection was engraved with an eagle clutching a swastika. It would make the perfect gift for my Wannsee friend.

 The Designweek handler standing next to me said,’ It’s a Jew thing! They come here and buy it for their collections.” It never crossed my mind that Sofia was a profitable marketplace for Nazi memorabilia. Socks made me happy. I promised myself not to take on more than 3 obsessions, and the purchase of the ring meant I had to drop one. While I was inspecting it in the shimmer of ring in the sunlight I thought of something Stefan had said earlier that day, ”Austrians do really well when they move out of Austria.” 

 

Bas van Beek 2019 

NO LOGO

Like a kind of Naomi Klein of design Bas van Beek agitates against the present Dutch designscene. At exhibitions, in magazines appear always the same “big names”. The same “brands” that ask big prices for small designs. Smart marketingmechanisms push up the sales and disguish contentual poverty. With his Ripp off-vases Van Beek criticizes this practice. He copied a number of designvases by buying the originals and casting them . Also he bought vases at a fair which he casted as well. The “covers” cost 95 euros a piece so that – typically Dutch – a leveling effect appears: the designvases became cheaper, the vases from the fair more expensive . Van Beek emphasizes the imitation by carrying them out in black and white and the standard printer colors ( cyanide blue, magenta red and yellow). On top of that he finishes them roughly.

In the tradition of Wim T. Schippers’ work for television Van Beek exploited what he calls “ the power of failure”. The copied designers reacted usually as bitten at his action, but despite his criticism the serie also forms a tribute to the “duped”. Trouble in Prozac-paradise. Is there anything against copying? For centuries artists learned the craft by copying their predecessors or masters. This so called “imitatio” was seen as a virtue. Not even so long ago Dutch academy of arts students also were drawing antique plasterfigures. Whether this led to any profoundness is questionable. It does lead to craftmanship. In Asia this practice still holds and it is the goal for the pupil to imitate his master perfectly. We perceive this as uninteresting , but does the West not go to far by overemphasizing originality? In the history of music it is also common place to vary on existing material. Bach also used themes by his predecessors, Strawinsky as well, while contemporary composers like Tavener and Pärt reach back for the middle ages . Within the world of design leading designers practice nothing else. The Tolomeo-lamp by Lucchi/ Fassina, meanwhile a designclassic is an interpretation of he prewar folding-arm lamp. Philippe is inspired by streamlining from the thirties. Jasper Morrison continues on the Italians from the Interbellum, while Konstantin Grcic followed initially Gerrit Rietveld, later on Eileen Gray. Joe Colombo and the peers from his generation seem to be the great example for the Bouroullec brothers. Compared to much contemporary Dutch design. I find this work many times more sensuous and wittier.

The correct question is perhaps: how sensitive and intelligent must one copy to prevent imitations from becoming common and uninteresting? Van Beek regards copying as a phenomenon of our time and as a designer one has to do something with it! Van Beek: “ The last years the copying of images developed from VHS-videotape via DVD-disc to present-day KAZAA. The last is in effect again qualitatively a retrogressive step. The colors are often more hazy, the images more comprimated. The Rip-offs series is in that regard like KAZAA. In Asia brand merchandise is being very skilfully reproduced on a large scale. In China a new city has even been named USA so that they can write on imitations “ made in the USA”! Legally it is not allowed, but everyone is doing it , so why should it not be allowed with vases? Also he is of the opinion that the “big names” are doing it just as well, only designcritics hardly ever punch through this. Van Beek: “ Maarten Baas burns furniture, Alessandro Mendini already did this in 1974, Marcel Wanders loothes the ninteenth century, which is not any news since Mendini’s Proust-chair, Richard Hutten imitates Berlage, Hella Jongerius archeological pottery and Viktor& Rolf imitate Martin Margiela. In Art it is allowed since Duchamp, Pop Art, Warhol and Koons. Then why not in designing? Besides Coco Chanel said that the ultimate compliment one can get is being copied. Is it really so simple?

It seems like Van Beek is confusing citing and copying. The last one can not do unpunished in the Arts. As soon as artists really steal, commotion immediately follows. Think of the several affaires concerning Rob Scholten and the countless fake Picasso’s, Appels et cetera. One can cite something or someone, but then one is expected to do something with it, to add a form, a comment, to add a vision. That is my problem with many contemporary artists and designers. They are using again all sorts of forms from the seventies a new, but remain stuck in soulless imitations, that have no connection to the present whatsoever. And what does Van Beek think for example of Ikea and Jan des Bouvrie who sometimes unconcernedly plagarize products ? They earn well whilst he original risk-taking producer is left in the cold. When the German manufacturer of furniture Moormann recently went to court for two years because the Swedish furniture manufacturer had stolen an idea it almost ruined him. Van Beek: “There is no false pretence behind Ikea. It is what it is, for “the masses”. Jan des Bouvrie strongly reminds me of the Prozacian ambiance f the Oprah Winfrey show. I do not dissaprove of it and view it rather as an instrument phenomenon; he caters to a certain need.” Just like No-sign-of design-Richard Hutten as a designer Van Beek wants to operate as anominously as possible and add no new shapes. There already is plenty. Where Hutten often does tread into the designtrap, Van Beek is looking for hybrides. He screws for example an Overtoom bucket seat onto the undercarriage of an Eames-chair. The result is convincing: Leen Bakker meets El Croquis, a middleway between design gallery and recycling shop. Van Beek wants to turn design into a mass product , to “mass-producesize” and describes his work as uplifted mediocrity. He saws up Oisterwijk occasional tables into a smart nest of small tables , in which the massive oak becomes visible again. He admires this furniture because of their honest, realistic functionalism: they are strong and fulfill the demand of the market. He prefers this furniture which is itself , to designers who “improve upon” this furniture like Marcel Wanders or Jurgen Bey. Does he not follow the same procedure? Original Van Beek is not for his work is completely on a par with the by Viktor Papanek ( design for the real world ) stimulated do-it yourself designing, the car tyre sofas of Des-in (1975), or the poetic, early work of Ron Arad, Tom Dixon, Jasper Morrison, Tejo Remy, Piet Hein Eek. Originality is not his goal. Designing is simple: everybody can do it, without workshop and without subsidies.

Just like the by him admired Jan Schoonhoven, Van Beek works simply at home behind his computer. He tries not to be dependend on subsidies, but rather makes a living in a call centre. His latest project is ambitious and costly. In he footsteps of popartist Allen Jones, whose lively combination of eroticism and furniture once made him decide to become a designer. Van Beek wants to make a variation on his SM-furniture of 1969. He wants to remake them, not with women, but with Fassbinder and Von Trier actor Udo Kier in the lead part. Through a computer-controlled program he is going to cast him in polyester. Kier is interested, but the process is expensive. That is going to be a lot of phone calls.

Peter van Kester 2003