150 years of the MAK

Curated by Tulga Beyerle and Thomas Geisler, “Exemplary: 150 Years of the MAK” celebrates the institution captained by Peter Noever for many years and now in the hands of Christoph Thun-Hohenstein.

Vienna’s MAK is one of the most prestigious institutions on the international stage and “Exemplary: 150 Years of the MAK – from Arts and Crafts to Design” is the title of an exhibition curated by Tulga Beyerle and Thomas Geisler to celebrate the Austrian museum’s 150th anniversary.

Founded in 1863 by the Emperor Franz Joseph and inspired by the South Kensington Museum in London – later renamed the Victoria and Albert Museum – the MAK logo features two griffons (Catherine Rollier’s 1987 original one was restyled two years ago by Perndl+Co). The museum has always been seen as both a collector of special pieces and a place for the research and training of Arts and Crafts creatives – people accustomed to using their hands.

“Exemplary: 150 Years of the MAK – from Arts and Crafts to Design”. Section Konstantin Grcic. Photo © MAK/Mika K. Wisskirchen

The project by Tulga Beyerle (guest curator and currently director of the Kunstgewerbemuseum, the museum of decorative arts in Dresden) and Geisler (curator of the MAK design collection) filters its rereading of the permanent collection through the conceptual lens of nine of the most interesting and influential voices on the contemporary creative panorama: Jan Boelen, director and founder of Z33; the duo Dunne & Raby; graphic designer Stefan Sagmeister; trendsetter Lidewij Edelkoort; designer Konstantin Grcic; director of Berlin University’s Design Lab Research Gesche Joost; fashion expert and founder of Moondial Sabine Seymour; researcher Hilary Cottam; and critic Hans Ulrich Obrist.

“Exemplary: 150 Years of the MAK – from Arts and Crafts to Design”. Section Stefan Sagmeister, Malcolm Sayers, Jaguar E-Type, 4.2 S1 Coupe, US, 1967. Photo © MAK/Mika K. Wisskirchen

The exhibition centres on a comparison between the outstandingly rich and exemplary MAK collection (ranging from Adolf Loos to the present day) and the sensitivity of today’s avant-gardes, in a reiterated confirmation of the institution’s original mission to achieve an organic fusion of tradition and innovation. The exhibition project develops via an intense dialogue involving the pre-eminent collective invited; it is divided into nine sections and comprises several media directions, including not only objects and writings but films specially commissioned for the exhibition. The nine experts were asked to explore and vivisect the substantial resources of the MAK archives and write a story that winds through appendixes and subtractions, and features personal impressions, accompanied by specific historic references, in a balance of past and present or, rather, past and future.

Neri Oxman, Corset Arachne, 2012. In collaboration with Prof. W. Craig Carter (MIT, Cambridge, USA). 3D printed by Stratasys (Multi-Material Technologie). Photo © Yoram Reshef

Every section expresses in (totally exhaustive) snippets the approach and stance of its commissioner/curator. Kostantin Grcic dialogues with journalist Hubert Filser of the Süddeutsche Zeitung and his “cosmos of the exemplary” comprises classics such as Jim Nature, Philippe Starck’s 1994 portable television, the LC95A lounge chair by Maarten van Severen and Jasper Morrison’s Plywood Chair. Designers Dunne & Raby (Fiona Raby teaches at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna and Tony Dunne is the founder of the Design Interaction programme at the Royal College of Art in London) called on English designer Alex McDowell to lecture on the impact of science fiction and social fiction on (concrete) everyday reality: they did so by intentionally presenting texts rather than objects and a long table is laid out with open books to highlight selected key written passages from the utopian and dystopian works of Edward Bellamy – Looking Backward 2000–1887, 1888 – and Margaret Atwood – Oryx and Crake, 2014.

“Exemplary: 150 Years of the MAK – from Arts and Crafts to Design”. Section Hans Ulrich Obrist. In the front: Peter Noever, Sepp Müller, Michael Embacher, Model (1:140). Projekt CAT – Contemporary Art Tower, Austria, Vienna, 2009. Photo © MAK/Mika K. Wisskirchen

The two pioneers of critical design believe that the use of text allows visitors total freedom of interpretation. Stefan Sagmeister, known for his stunning LP covers – including ones for Lou Reed and the Rolling Stones – focuses on pure beauty and debates the power of icons, whether 2D or 3D, with artist and photographer Elfie Semotan; his platform of wonders features the 3D-printed sofa Random Pak Twin (2006) by Marc Newson and a splendid bright red 1961 E-Type with the registration plate MAK 150, a Jaguar classic deemed a quintessential example of the coming together of elegance and technology. “Exemplary: 150 Years of the MAK – from Arts and Crafts to Design” is an totally relevant, fresh and detailed exhibition celebrating an institution captained for many years by Peter Noever and, since 2011, in the capable hands of its new director Christoph Thun-Hohenstein who, in keeping with his new guidelines “Change through Applied Art” and in a city with a present- past such as Vienna, has shown his ability to look to the future.

“Exemplary: 150 Years of the MAK – from Arts and Crafts to Design”. Section Lidewij Edelkoort. Photo © MAK/Mika K. Wisskirchen

Until 5.10.2014
Exemplary: 150 Years of the MAK – from Arts and Crafts to Design
MAK
Stubenring 5, Vienna

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150 years of the MAK

Curated by Tulga Beyerle and Thomas Geisler, “Exemplary: 150 Years of the MAK” celebrates the institution captained by Peter Noever for many years and now in the hands of Christoph Thun-Hohenstein.

What if the edge could connect?

The value of solidity

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