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14.9.2013—1.12.2013
MAK Geymüllerschlössel
Once again, the Geymüllerschlössel provides the backdrop for a contemporary design intervention and simultaneously opens itself to juxtapositions reaching across the eras. Starting from the location‘s history and its present use as a museum site, the MAK DESIGN SALON invites internationally renowned designers to deal with this one-of-a-kind cultural legacy in order to set up aesthetic and thematic links to the present and open up new perspectives.
While the initial intervention last year, Time & Again by London-based designer Michael Anastassiades, was inspired by the villa’s old Viennese clocks from the Franz Sobek Collection, the work The Stranger Within by this year’s salon guest Studio Formafantasma, deals with the fascination evoked by the “exotic.”
The Geymüllerschlössel’s architectural style, façade ornaments, and interior tell of that era’s bourgeois and somewhat faddish predilection for oriental cultures. The panoramic tapestry showing temples in the so-called Blue Salon provided a starting point from which the design duo set out to analyze this paradox phenomenon in which a yearning for distant places coexisted with Biedermeier “homeliness.”
The two Italians Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin, graduates of Design Academy Eindhoven, The Netherlands, have quickly become the international design world’s shooting stars thanks to fascination evoked by their multilayered and sensitive way of working. Their object series Moulding Tradition (2009), which deals with early Arabian-African influences on the Sicilian majolica that subsequently conquered all of Europe, took on a whole new urgency and significance when the Sicilian island of Lampedusa became synonymous with a looming invasion of African refugees.
Studio Formafantasma’s various series of handcrafted artifacts such as Botanica (2011) and Craftica (2012) are the outcomes of research to track down ancient techniques and forgotten resources. Like archaeologists, they derive their information from the sediments of cultural residues—but as designers they use it as inspiration for the future.
In a globalized world where the exotic is losing its significance, Studio Formafantasma’s Geymüllerschlössel intervention invites visitors to search for the foreign within themselves.
Curator Thomas Geisler, MAK Curator Design
Michael Anastassiades. Time & Again
(12.5.–25.11.2012)
Kindly supported by
While the initial intervention last year, Time & Again by London-based designer Michael Anastassiades, was inspired by the villa’s old Viennese clocks from the Franz Sobek Collection, the work The Stranger Within by this year’s salon guest Studio Formafantasma, deals with the fascination evoked by the “exotic.”
The Geymüllerschlössel’s architectural style, façade ornaments, and interior tell of that era’s bourgeois and somewhat faddish predilection for oriental cultures. The panoramic tapestry showing temples in the so-called Blue Salon provided a starting point from which the design duo set out to analyze this paradox phenomenon in which a yearning for distant places coexisted with Biedermeier “homeliness.”
The two Italians Andrea Trimarchi and Simone Farresin, graduates of Design Academy Eindhoven, The Netherlands, have quickly become the international design world’s shooting stars thanks to fascination evoked by their multilayered and sensitive way of working. Their object series Moulding Tradition (2009), which deals with early Arabian-African influences on the Sicilian majolica that subsequently conquered all of Europe, took on a whole new urgency and significance when the Sicilian island of Lampedusa became synonymous with a looming invasion of African refugees.
Studio Formafantasma’s various series of handcrafted artifacts such as Botanica (2011) and Craftica (2012) are the outcomes of research to track down ancient techniques and forgotten resources. Like archaeologists, they derive their information from the sediments of cultural residues—but as designers they use it as inspiration for the future.
In a globalized world where the exotic is losing its significance, Studio Formafantasma’s Geymüllerschlössel intervention invites visitors to search for the foreign within themselves.
Curator Thomas Geisler, MAK Curator Design
Previous exhibition of the series MAK DESIGN SALON
MAK DESIGN SALON #01Michael Anastassiades. Time & Again
(12.5.–25.11.2012)
Kindly supported by
Previous Image
Media
Exhibition View, MAK Vienna, 2013
Studio Formafantasma, The Stranger Within, 2013
Rug, Loan from: Nodus, Milan
Rug, wool, hand-knotted
Exhibition View, MAK Vienna, 2013
Studio Formafantasma, Bladder Chandelier, 2013
Loan from: Studio Formafantasma
Chandelier, cow bladders, brass
MAK Exhibition View, 2013
STUDIO FORMAFANTASMA. The Stranger Within
MAK Branch Geymüllerschlössel
Drawing Room
Exhibition View, MAK Vienna, 2013
Suspended Display Cabinet with Bouquet of Artificial Flowers
Prague, ca. 1840
MAK Exhibition View, 2013
STUDIO FORMAFANTASMA. The Stranger Within
MAK Branch Geymüllerschlössel
Parlor
Exhibition View, MAK Vienna, 2013
Studio Formafantasma, Moulding Tradition, 2009
Series of objects, Loan from: Gallery Libby Sellers, London, Studio Formafantasma
Exhibition View, MAK Vienna, 2013
Studio Formafantasma, Moulding Tradition, 2009
Series of objects, Loan from: Gallery Libby Sellers, London, Studio Formafantasma
Exhibition View, MAK Vienna, 2013
STUDIO FORMAFANTASMA. The Stranger Within
MAK Branch Geymüllerschlössel
Sleeping Room
Exhibition View, MAK Vienna, 2013
Studio Formafantasma, Botanica (Edition Geymüllerschlössel), 2013
Series of objects, Loan from: Studio Formafantasma