Konstantin Grcic Panorama

Konstantin Grcic's exhibition at the Vitra Design Museum might be described as a retrospective that looks to the future, that narrates the only “Panorama” there is to tell, i.e. the present: where the boundaries between private and public living space and workspace are increasingly blurred.

I think we can fairly and without embarrassment say that Konstantin Grcic is the most capable designer on the scene today. I have chosen the word “capable” carefully because, of all the possible ways of being a designer and doing design, he has opted for one of the hardest and one that requires great effort on the part of the person observing it, otherwise there is no point. Working with this tension and to this standard does indeed make him the most capable.

“Konstantin Grcic – Panorama”, Vitra Design Museum

The Vitra Museum opened a Grcic exhibition on 21 March, organised with Z33 – House for Contemporary Art in Hasselt. The title of the exhibition is actually “Konstantin Grcic – Panorama”; this conveys not so much, or solely, the vision of Grcic but the horizon against which the German designer’s objects stand out to form what is, indeed, a “Panorama”. In the three rooms on the ground floor of the museum, these objects are placed in mini plug and play sets (as in the first room), with a video and audio back-up, panels and immaterial presences, all attempting to narrate our times and with political, sociological, anthropological and technological incursions.

The exhibition might be described as a retrospective that looks to the future, but with an individual suggestion that narrates the only “Panorama” there is to tell, i.e. the present: where the boundaries between private and public living space and workspace are increasingly blurred; the concept of living is in crisis; the digital drive coexists with analogue nostalgia and with the digital past (“Life Space”), the intimate with the scientific, the utopia with the dystopia, external references with those inside the history of design and the void of space with the solid of people (“Public Space”). Those in the business must then take the results of this research and square them with clients, public, costs, mechanics, moulds and waste (“Work Space”). The fourth room on the top floor of the museum (“Object Space”), finally, contains a sort of unorthodox and non-chronological biography by illustrating some of the designer’s archives, alternated with pieces designed by him and by other or anonymous designers: a personal story developed via the display case, in turn perfectly inserted into the historical saga of so called “essential” contemporary design.

The four rooms described are more like “dioramas” that create an effect of reality, an overall look (διά “through” + ὅραμα, "view", from the verb ὁράω, "I see ") around the warmer and truer reality, which we touch via the collection of pieces that inhabit the exhibition. It is the products that steer the narration. Here, you can also appreciate the capability of the curators who guide the visitor’s “pan” (from the Greek πᾶν, "everything") and “orama or wide view”, i.e. “the whole gaze”, towards those objects. The setting disappears and they become the true protagonists of the exhibition: a beauty that is never saccharine, never contemplative and as unobtrusive as possible; sometimes they are even repelling and for that reason, perhaps, so fascinating and so true.

What about the designs? After following his work for a few years, it is my feeling that Grcic is a cautious and slow designer who produces a few well thought-out pieces. But on visiting the exhibition, you remember that he has been working for 20 years and that some of his most iconic works are well past their first decade (e.g. Mayday dated 1998). Again, it is a story with a non-linear and non-chronological development that alternates radical research (360° stool) with intuitive objects (Tom & Jerry stools for Magis), precision works (Authentics) with unpolished pieces (e.g. those for Mattiazzi or the sofa for Classicon), industrial pieces with limited editions for galleries (the latest marvellous Man Machine collection of glass furniture for Galerie Kreo), lesser-known products for famous design brands with famous products for lesser companies i (e.g. the Spanish company BD, Barcelona Design) – all in a to-and-fro that makes it hard to separate the young Grcic from the more mature one, the more mainstream one from the more adventurous one.

“Panorama” shows the results of a process that does not pretend (feign) to satisfy (or manipulate) the visitor’s curiosity, as occurs in many of today’s design exhibitions. This makes Grcic the most capable. The reality expressed by his projects panders to no one but is contained within a partial “Panorama” that is blurred, fragile and critical, like the one we live in but where the designer does the work for us and the projects are his silent expression, presented in all their truth and in the truth of the profession without any fiction. Apart of course from that surrounding the self-effacing and shy persona that is Grcic, despite having been born at a time when the design public also needs to create “personalities”.

By the way, I have been told that, at the start of every project, Grcic repeats a mantra to the young people working in his studio: “Make it simple, radical and beautiful”. Most KGID designs are precisely that but the biggest question remains: how does Grcic manage to convince his clients to produce pieces like that and take a risk on a trajectory that often, from the very start and in total honesty, manifests a certain non-marketability and, moreover, with a sign that might tower over the image of the other designs in the catalogue and even outshine the identity of the company itself. So, one last “capable”. I wonder how many compromises had to be made between the model of the Chair One mould, exhibited here and dated 2002, and its actual production in 2004… But, it is as if those passages were naturally absorbed by the design: absolute, essential and real. One of the very few (non-Pop) icons that our contemporary era can boast.

“Konstantin Grcic – Panorama”, Vitra Design Museum. Photo James Harris

Until 14 September 2014
Konstantin Grcic – Panorama
Vitra Design Museum
Charles-Eames-Str. 2, Weil am Rhein

Konstantin Grcic Panorama

Konstantin Grcic's exhibition at the Vitra Design Museum might be described as a retrospective that looks to the future, that narrates the only “Panorama” there is to tell, i.e. the present: where the boundaries between private and public living space and workspace are increasingly blurred.

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