Daimler Contemporary
Minimalism
And Applied II
Introduction
The 'Minimalism and Applied II' exhibition is intended as a series of arrangements of art and design objects 'in dialogue'.
Gail Hastings
- Charlotte Perriand
In her art, Gail Hastings addresses the theories of Minimal Art. A new
aspect of this artistic direction was to draw the viewer in to take responsibility
and to participate in the perception of art. From this starting point,
Hastings' works create spaces which seek to involve people as physical,
intellectual and aesthetically competent beings. Two furniture classics
by Charlotte Perriand have entered into a physical dialogue with Gail
Hastings' 'Sculptural Situation'. Perriand (1903-1999), one of the 20th
century's most innovative interior designers and furniture designers worked
on perfecting a reduced formal vocabulary aesthetically and functionally,
but throughout her life linked these efforts with an ambition to enhance
in a new and radical way the quality of the social conditions under which
people live together
Gail Haistings
Charlotte Posenenske
- Ferdinand Kramer
Charlotte Posenenske's lean sculptural oeuvre, developed between 1966
and 1968, stands out succinctly against the - horizon of the sixties avant-garde
scene in Germany: firstly because of its quality - the power and logic
with which it unfolds - and then again because of the decisiveness with
which it was brought to a close. For our 'Minimalism and Applied II' exhibition
we have choosen three work types by Posenenske: the Diagonale Faltung
(Diagonal Folding) made gray sprayed aluminum from 1966, examples of the
Vierkantrohre der Serie DW, 1967, (Square tubes series DW) made of cardboard
as well the architecture related reconstruction of her Raumteiler (Space
divider) from 1967.
Ferdinand Kramer
was one of the initiators of the 'New Frankfurt' in the 1920s. This was
the most significant example of a socially oriented architectural Modernism
for the working classes, realized as a temporal and intellectual parallel
with the model homes on the Weissenhof estate in Stuttgart. In retrospect,
it is possible to rediscover Kramer as an outstanding representative of
minimalist architectural and design practice. He always developed his
designs by analysing function and use, always meeting the highest aesthetic
demands, whether for a door handle or a large-scale ensemble of buildings.
The Posenenske and Kramer couples used to meet frequently in the 1960s
for conversation and joint excursions, which meant that Charlotte Posenenske
was able to get to know items such as Kramer's folding furniture or corrugated
cardboard table from close to, in friendly proximity.
Martin Boyce - Jean Prouvé
Martin Boyce constantly recombines his sculptural alphabet to form new constellations, shifts and spatial articulations, like an anagram grouping the letters of an opening sentence to form new sentences on the border between sense and nonsense: tree structures and room dividers consisting of structurally fragmented lines and areas; pieces of furniture that reveal their sheer functionality through radically reduced iron structures; diagonally distorted iron garbage containers telling of the cyclical disposal and return of utopian designs. Boyce was able to rediscover the convergence of historical and modern forms in transitional areas from free to applied art in the architecture and furniture designs of Jean Prouvé, his work forms the second foundational module for Boyce beside photographs of four 'Concrete Trees' created in 1925 by the brothers Joel and Jan Martel.
George Henry Longly
- Rupert Norfolk - Dom Hans van der Laan
Longly's sculptural work is concerned with the presentation of materials
and shapes, and with atmospheric factors in venues devoted to art, shining
a spotlight on these venues' existing structures, proportions and functions
in a specific context and on what these mean for the mechanics of an exhibition.
The light sculpture Lighting Proposal #4 addresses the viewer's mood and
the way he or she experiences the space, and the floor sculpture Culturally
Conceived in Industrial Terms (after Memphis), 2008, translates the functional
aesthetic of Jean Prouvé's designs into an abstract configuration.
Rupert Norfolk
Rupert Norfolk's work can in particular be identified with the transgressive
energy of moves from the real to the abstract, then back from the abstract
to the real. Daimler Art Collection acquired two typical floor sculptures
by Norfolk, which exhibit alternating qualities of appearance: metallic
hardness against the soft fall of fabric, standard technical proportions
against folds falling unregulated.
Jacob Dahlgren
Dom Hans van der Laan was a Dutch architect, architecture theorist and
priest whose designs were based on his own minimalist system of proportions.
Laan gave his large building ensembles - the religious community complex
in Vaals in the Netherlands (1956-68) and the religious community in Tomelilla
in Sweden (1986-91) - furnishings with a characteristically minimalist
design.
Philippe Parreno
Jacob Dahlgren - Sylvan Lionni - Philippe Parreno
Jacob Dahlgren makes collecting into a principle: he takes patterns and basic graphic elements that he comes across in everyday life as decorum or objects then photographs and categorizes them, thus generating an archive linking different manifestations of similar structures. Often his spatial sculptures challenge observers to intervene actively with the object, as the installation Heaven is a Place on Earth demonstrates concretely: the piece consists of a variable number of bathroom scales positioned on the floor in a square or rectangular basic arrangement that challenge viewers to enter the area.Sylvan Lionni realizes his painting using a kind of mimetic ready-made method. The artist focuses upon the graphic and semantic surfaces of his immediate environment: lottery, baseball, supermarket, stickers, wallpaper, carpets, street signs and everyday symbols. The motifs, in this case 'solar panel' graphics, are fed into the computer and altered, in the next step, they are transferred onto a finely structured surface with uncountable layers of paint in the slow tempo of the Old Masters.
Philippe Parreno's work unites aspects of art, film, theatre and design. He creates transitional spaces of temporal, culturally and aesthetically defined commonality. In 2006, Parreno designed his Marquées series - functional indoor or outdoor light sculptures that look like early cinematic fittings. Speaking to the Penguins, 2007, a colored infrared photograph shows Parreno delivering a two-hour lecture to a colony of Penguins on a beach in Patagonia. 6:00 P.M., 2001, represents a projection of a field of light, interrupted by a few cast shadows, onto a carpet. Parreno often works within constructed realities, which he interprets as and transferres into dreamlike, virtual worlds, leading our experience beyond the boundaries of phantasmagorical and true life.
Albert Weis
Albert Weis - Eileen Gray - Sarah Browne
Since the late 1990s, Albert Weis has been making his mark with architecture-related room installations and also sculpted, drawn and photographic pieces that analyse the complexity of urban spaces and the way we orientate ourselves in these visually. Since then, the practice of visual research with a camera in Los Angeles, New York or Berlin has been accompanied by an intensive exploration of the most important architects and designers in the early 20th century, and in particular Jean Prouvé, Eileen Gray and Le Corbusier. Albert Weis is represented by a representative group of more recent work in the 'Minimalism and Applied II' exhibition. His Cabinet, 2005, creates a space within a space; the folders series consists of photographs and folded drawings; the new flexions series uses aluminium profiles bent to form crystalline structures with proportions based on Le Corbusier's Modulor.Eileen Gray (1878 - 1976, Ireland) was one of the 20th century' major product and interior designers. Her vision of creating ensembles of nature, building and an architectural ground plan with fitted and single items of furniture saw its first groundbreaking result with her E.1027 house, 1925-29, built on the French Riviera. It visualizes her ethos of a unity of landscape and cultural design, practical and versatile in use, with enormously refined detail in the choice of materials and finish.
Sarah Browne's work uses 'economies' as the dominant metaphor for social and political relationships. She investigates the influence of macrostructures in enclosed social units - forces that are determined by the nature of the social unit, but are also influenced by individual goals, desires and feelings. Her artistic techniques and materials reference a milieu of homeliness, housework and personal traces. Another focus of Sarah Browne's work is her interest in classic minimalism - for instance, in the disparities in the machine-produced object and its status as a 'useless' object of non-definable value. Originally, the artist was interested in the designs by Eileen Gray as a marginalised piece of 20th century history, and became intrigued by the sensual, emotional and user-oriented modernism cultivated by Gray.