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Elevation of the Human Spirit through Postmodern Design: Alessandro Mendini >

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\n","publishDate","2024-04-25T13:15:39.000000Z","authorCredit","Don Carroll",[],"coverPosX","coverPosY","articleUrl","https://www.phillips.com/article/143852472/creativity-and-inventiveness-in-brazilian-design","auctionEditorialID",2114,"editorialID",4532,"flocklerID",143852472,{"_3122":3146,"_3124":306,"_3125":3147,"_3039":3148,"_3128":3149,"_3130":3150,"_3132":3133,"_259":3151,"_3135":1414,"_3136":245,"_3137":3152,"_234":-5,"_3139":3153,"_3141":3154,"_3143":3155},"https://flockler.com/thumbs/sites/889/emergence-of-the-master-lead-a8e6f2e1-3a57-4d2c-a972-a8710f2a0587_s600x0.jpg","1960: Ettore Sottsass designs a series of \"Mirrors with wooden frames\" for Galleria Il Sestante, Milan.\n\n","The Emergence of the Master","

Ettore Sotsass, Jr., Rare mirror, circa 1960. Design London.

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By Fulvio Ferrari, author of 'Ettore Sottsass: Tutta la Ceramica' and 'Sottsass: 1000 Ceramics'

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Seven large technical drawings, each on a 1:1 scale, and numerous models for a series of mirrors are still preserved in the Galleria Il Sestante Archive. These works were intended for an exhibition that opened in May 1960 on Via della Spiga in Milan, where Galleria Il Sestante was located.

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Poster for the Collection of wooden frames and objects exhibition at Galleria del Sestante, Milan, 1960. Image: Il Sestante Archive-Museo Casa Mollino, Turin.

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Who was Ettore Sottsass in the late 1950s? At this time, he was a forty-something, unconventional, and penniless individual. Marisa Scarzella, alongside her sister Lina, founded a novel, creative channel, a "gallery", to draw a conduit between ordinary life and the mysterious world of art. Instead of established artists to form the backbone of Il Sestante, the Scarzella sisters turned to obscure, yet promising talents to provide a new generation of artists with invaluable opportunities: Giò and Arnaldo Pomodoro, Nanni Valentini, Franco Bucci, Del Campo, Renato Bassoli, and Ettore Sottsass collectively constituted the founding members of this incubator of visionary creativity.

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Sottsass was the only architect within this collective of artists, yet in essence he was an artist at heart. Rather than limiting himself to the confines of the traditional practices promoted by the architecture faculty in Turin, where he obtained his degree in 1939, he found nourishment for his creativity in the studios of painters. It was within these unconventional spaces that his artistic spirit flourished.

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A blueprint drawing of the present Rare mirror. Image: Il Sestante Archive-Museo Casa Mollino, Turin.

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Sottsass was a precise and meticulous man, the son of an architect, who inherited a rigorous work ethic from his father, characterized by personally sketching the frameworks for his creations. In 1953, he wrote that "architecture uses the same principles as painting." Indeed, he believed the frame had the potential to create a calm space around a work of art. The genesis of the designs for the Collection of wooden frames and objects exhibition can be found in a surviving tempera painting from the same year.

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A tempera painting by Ettore Sottsass, 1963. Image: Il Sestante Archive-Museo Casa Mollino, Turin.

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Sottsass's legacy transcends mere industrial and mass-produced design. His creations were first conceptualized as singular works of art. Later projects, such as the Elea computer for Olivetti, are now universally admired as artistic masterpieces. He once wrote: "Design doesn't mean giving shape to a product... For me, design is a way, it's a tool for discussing life."

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This philosophy was extended in the late 1950s, when the artist Agenore Fabbri introduced Sottsass to the furniture manufacturing company Poltronova; he perceived furniture not as a collection of static objects but as a designed experience of a space’s essence.

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Gloria Bianchino, who meticulously catalogued thousands of Sottsass's drawings, writes: “Ettore's myth is inseparable from the realm of art. His sophisticated and cultured sketches reflect a deep engagement with abstraction and later with informalism, positioning him as a central figure in Italian design and beyond.”

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In a reflection on his artistic journey, published in an interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist in 2007, Sottsass recalled his beloved painting teacher Luigi Spazzapan, who imparted the belief that an artist must follow the path of magic — an anarchic approach to creation that goes against conventional constraints and penetrates the essence of the moment.

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When we look at Sottsass's creations, we don't merely see mirrors; we encounter magic.

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Elevation of the Human Spirit through Postmodern Design: Alessandro Mendini >

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\n","2024-04-22T19:02:00.000000Z",[],"https://www.phillips.com/article/142895617/the-emergence-of-the-master",2109,4506,142895617,{"_3122":3157,"_3124":306,"_3125":3158,"_3039":3159,"_3128":3160,"_3130":3161,"_3132":3133,"_259":3162,"_3135":1414,"_3136":245,"_3137":3163,"_234":-5,"_3139":3164,"_3141":3165,"_3143":3166},"https://flockler.com/thumbs/sites/889/human-spirit-0fa58f9c-fd64-41c8-9b5e-d0b7bde9462f_s600x0.jpg","Learn about Alessandro Mendini’s radical interpretation of Kandinsky.","Elevation of the Human Spirit through Postmodern Design","

Alessandro Mendini, 'Kandissi' sofa, circa 1979. Design London.

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Flourishing in Italy from the mid-1960s and into the early years of the 1980s, the avant-garde Radical Design movement imbued conceptual ideas across broad philosophical and artistic ideologies into the making of everyday objects. An influx of new and innovative materials, shapes, and colors inspired postmodern designers to investigate unprecedented forms of expression, transforming conventionally designed objects into works conveying loftier meanings, including commentary on society and the human experience — items made to furnish and navigate the surrounding environments served as a perfect medium for this dimension of creative exploration. In the late 1970s, specifically, the bold and unrestrained aesthetic of these progressive works enthusiastically rekindled an affinity for decoration and ornament which had been eschewed in the preceding decades by the austerity of modernism’s ‘form follows function.’

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At the forefront of this movement, Alessandro Mendini contemplated the inherent potential of objects to elevate the human spirit, a concept he expressed in a series titled ‘Objects for Spiritual Use,’ which he exhibited at the 1978 ‘Stanza del Secolo’ at Palazzo Diamanti in Ferrara. Included in this collection was Mendini’s prototype of the present ‘Kandissi’ sofa along with a coordinating mirror also inspired by the artistic works of Wassily Kandinsky, and his famed ‘Proust’ armchair which paid homage to Paul Signac’s paintings, all as examples of ‘redesigns’ which inquired into and conveyed the notion that design can no longer be original — that ‘one can do nothing but redesign'. Mendini explored this idea of artistic intervention for the redesign of objects in two antithetical directions: in the first, he fashioned his own postmodern translations of some of the most celebrated historical modern art and designs by legendary predecessors including Gio Ponti, Marcel Breuer, and Charles Rennie Mackintosh, among others. For the second mode, which the present sofa falls under, Mendini applied his interpretations of renowned artists’ iconic styles such as Kandinsky’s synaesthetic abstract compositions and Signac’s neo-impressionist taches to the silhouettes of everyday furniture pieces.

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Original poster of "Bau.Haus one" exhibition, the first Studio Alchimia collection illustrating the present 'Kandissi’ sofa together with other objects, including the 'Ondoso' coffee table, 1979. Graphic project: Alessandro Guerriero. Design: Michele de Lucchi.

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Regarding the poetic and spiritual essence of furniture, Kandinsky’s artistic output would have naturally lent itself to Mendini’s series, given the artist’s 1911 treatise ‘Concerning the Spiritual in Art’. In this text, Kandinsky contemplated the effects of color on the human psyche, including the perception and phenomenal effects of blue and yellow, which in turn Mendini has applied as the predominant colors for his own postmodern interpretation. In this way, Mendini has forged a connection between spiritual existence and everyday — or banal — life through the imbuement of Kandinsky’s philosophical considerations into this furniture for a casual, domestic setting, in order to make intellectual contemplation more widely and readily accessible.

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These works were some of the earliest statements to emerge from Studio Alchimia, a historically significant collective that incubated collaboration and creative experimentation for societally critical, radical designs. It was here that Mendini created his first pieces to catalyze dialogue on the concept of ‘banal design,’ optimistically advancing the idea of mass intellectual production as an accessible reality instead of a previously assumed utopian dream, including the present ‘Kandissi’ sofa. While this end state of mass adoption was never reached due to the inherent exclusivity of these limited production designs along with the lack of a sales strategy to widely market the series, the existing works symbolize an optimistic perspective for the ideal position of design within society.

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\n","2024-04-21T14:14:00.000000Z",[],"https://www.phillips.com/article/142878599/elevation-of-the-human-spirit-through-postmodern-design",2110,4503,142878599,{"_3122":3168,"_3124":306,"_3125":3169,"_3039":3170,"_3128":3171,"_3130":3172,"_3132":3133,"_259":3173,"_3135":1414,"_3136":245,"_3137":3174,"_234":-5,"_3139":3175,"_3141":3176,"_3143":3177},"https://flockler.com/thumbs/sites/889/fig-2_196890-d7fb336e-2504-453f-95cb-5b2ae8f5ce93_s600x0.jpg","The timeless allure of Diego Giacometti’s ‘Grecque’ low table and ‘X’ form stool.","Antiquity Made Modern ","

The present 'Grecque' low table in the summer house of the original owner, circa 1971. Photo: Private family archive.

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At the heart of Diego Giacometti’s familiar style lies an admiration for Antiquity, an interest the artist carried with him for his entire life which initially stemmed from a trip to Egypt in his youth. The influences of ancient Greek and Roman eras lent themselves into proportional ideals present in his furniture designs, which he masterfully executed in bronze.

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The present ‘Grecque’ low table and ‘X’ form stool serve as highly desirable and authoritative examples from the most mature period of Giacometti’s artistic career. At this time, he had achieved notoriety for his recognizable, iconic style and conveyance of inimitable sincerity in his precise craftsmanship. From the early 1960s through the remainder of his life, the works to come out of Diego’s atelier embodied a fresh refinement of artistic vision. By meticulously molding his plaster casts, each work possesses individualistic authenticity in its finished state, complemented by the rich patination he supervised himself to bring uniqueness to the distinctly sculpted quality of each piece.

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This dedicated approach to detail in his craft attracted the attention of an elite clientele during this period of his career, resulting in a wide range of diverse and important commissions. His ability to play to his clients’ personal tastes led to delightfully intentional nuance within his works, demonstrative of both keen observational skills and thoughtful concern for all aspects of the pieces he produced, while confidently maintaining his own identity for an overall aesthetic that is quintessentially ‘Diego Giacometti.’ The breakthrough to such self-assuredness in his practice from this decade onward commanded increased demand for his artistry which is still beloved today.

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Giacometti’s works present themselves as sophisticated pieces that fit perfectly into social, domestic settings. The accompanying image from the early 1970s shows the ‘Grecque’ low table enjoyed in situ within the original owner’s summer house living room, just a few years after it was purchased from Diego. This style materialized through Giacometti’s skillfully developed abstraction of textural details and cast motifs echoing ancient Etruscan artisanship, resulting in works that honor the aforementioned appreciation of Antiquity while showcasing his expressive range of varied patinas. These pieces echo the austerity of classic ideals while simultaneously meeting the viewer with a convivial sense for modern living. This balance is further complemented by the tension between the hardness of the cast bronze and the softness of the warm patination for finished works which are both strong and inviting.

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Diego Giacometti, ‘Grecque’ low table, designed circa 1965, produced 1968. Design London.

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Far from foldable — as were the curule chairs that inspired this form within Giacometti’s oeuvre, which were designed to be easily moved and transported during Ancient Roman times — the present ‘X’ form stool gained its foundations within the artist’s range when Aimé Maeght returned from a flea market with a Spanish wrought iron chair in a similar style. The design’s traditional form amused Giacometti and inspired him to create the present design as an elegant and reimagined homage to stylistic notions of the distant past.

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Diego Giacometti, 'X' form stool, troisième version, designed circa 1960, produced 1967. Design London.

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These two pieces come to Phillips bearing a pristine provenance, having been acquired directly from the artist at the time of production and having since remained in the same family. They are excellent demonstrations of Diego Giacometti’s expert abilities to blend the disciplines of sculpture and the decorative arts for timeless masterpieces of modern design.

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Elevation of the Human Spirit through Postmodern Design : Alessandro Mendini >

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\n","2024-04-22T14:28:00.000000Z",[],"https://www.phillips.com/article/142879388/antiquity-made-modern",2111,4502,142879388,{"_3122":3179,"_3124":306,"_3125":3180,"_3039":3181,"_3128":3182,"_3130":3183,"_3132":3133,"_259":3184,"_3135":1414,"_3136":245,"_3137":3185,"_234":-5,"_3139":3186,"_3141":3187,"_3143":3188},"https://flockler.com/thumbs/sites/889/brazile-03777b7f-2080-428b-a079-25469db9ba4f_s600x0.jpg","Discover the remarkable provenance of this iconic family treasure.","A Masterpiece of Brazilian Modern Design","

Joaquim Tenreiro and Regina Bolonha, Unique coffee table, circa 1957. Design London.

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By André Visockis

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Rediscovered in recent years, the present unique coffee table designed by Joaquim Tenreiro in the late 1950s, emerges as one of the most extensively documented pieces from the designer’s oeuvre. The unprecedented scale as well as the 70 hand-painted tiles that lay across the top, made it a truly distinctive piece already at its conception.

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The table has a remarkable provenance, passing through three generations of the Profili family to the grandchildren of Arturo and Enrica Profili. As many other Italians, they came to Brazil in the post-war years and were an essential influence on São Paulo's cultural development at that time. Mr. Profili arrived in Brazil in 1948 as a journalist to work at the newspaper 'O Fanfulla'. Well connected, he was integral to the foundation of São Paulo's Bienal de Artes, and, as its general secretary, welcoming foreigners was an important part of his duties. On the second edition of the Bienal, in 1953, there was a room dedicated to showcasing the work of Walter Gropius, who stayed in town for a few months. Profili and Gropius immediately bonded, and the Swiss architect was soon creating the conceptual sketches for Arturo’s residence in the São Paulo neighbourhood of Morumbi, one block away from Lina Bo Bardi's iconic ’Casa de Vidro.’ Arturo then hired his friend and renowned architect Oswaldo Bratke to execute Gropius’ designs.

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By the late 1950s, the home was constructed and urgently in need of furnishings. Bratke selected several pieces of furniture that were on the showroom floor of Tenreiro’s shop, ready to be delivered. This coffee table was amongst them and remained in the family’s possession when they moved back to Italy in 1962. When the Profilis relocated back to Brazil in 1965, in the town of Itapecerica da Serra, the table’s rectilinear form fit easily into their newly designed home which was influenced by the vernacular ‘Bandeirista’ architecture style with its typical square and rectangular floor plans.

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The present unique coffee table in the Profili’s house, Itapacerica da Serra, Brazil, 1970. Photo: Private family archive.

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The coffee table can be seen in archival photographs from Tenreiro's store in São Paulo and it is also present in the cover of the seminal book 'Madeira, Arte e Design'. This publication, though modest in size, holds immense significance in comprehending Tenreiro’s way of thinking and approach to creating design as well as artworks.

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The tiles were hand-painted by the artist Regina Bolonha. It is unknown whether the theme was proposed by Tenreiro or by Bolonha, but there is no doubt that Tenreiro created the wood structure to specifically highlight the tiles’ composition. This is evidenced by the short, bevelled feet and the dark frame enclosing the tiles matching the color and width of the painted motif, creating a perfectly seamless and harmonious composition. Despite the table’s visual lightness and simplicity, there is no shortage of technical consideration in its construction; Tenreiro was, first and foremost, an extremely skilled carpenter, and it was this mastery in craftsmanship that enabled him to become one of Brazil’s most important modern designers.

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The present unique coffee table in Profili’s house, Itapecerica da Serra, Brazil, 1970. Photo: Private family archive.

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Joaquim Tenreiro and Regina Bolonha, Unique coffee table, circa 1957 (detail). Design London.

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Elevation of the Human Spirit through Postmodern Design: Alessandro Mendini >

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\n","2024-04-22T15:36:00.000000Z",[],"https://www.phillips.com/article/142883650/a-masterpiece-of-brazilian-modern-design",2112,4505,142883650,{"_3122":3190,"_3124":306,"_3125":3191,"_3039":3192,"_3128":3193,"_3130":3194,"_3132":3133,"_259":3195,"_3135":1414,"_3136":245,"_3137":3196,"_234":-5,"_3139":3197,"_3141":3198,"_3143":3199},"https://flockler.com/thumbs/sites/889/kuramata-b5651818-d145-4ca4-b6f1-1daf6badcf35_s600x0.jpg","Learn about Shiro Kuramata, from founding member of the Memphis Group to influential legend of Japanese design.","Beauty Suspended in Time","

Shiro Kuramata, Unique monumental floor lamp, from Oblomov restaurant, Fukuoka, Japan, 1989. Design London.

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I like transient, momentary things… I like the tension of something that will only happen once, that will soon disappear.
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– Shiro Kuramata
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Paradoxically immortalizing a fleeting moment in time through the illusionary defiance of gravity, Shiro Kuramata’s Unique monumental floor lamp showcases a rare and incremental application of the fabrication technique to encapsulate florals in acrylic, which the designer had perfected just the year prior in his renowned Miss Blanche chairs. As in the chairs, the imaginative construction of cast acrylic with objects inside exemplifies the designer’s creative ability to dynamically combine light and form in curious ways within his pieces.

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Left: Detail of the present lot, Shiro Kuramata, Unique monumental floor lamp, from Oblomov restaurant, Fukuoka, Japan, 1989. Right: Shiro Kuramata, 'Miss Blanche' chair, designed 1988, executed before 1991. Sold by Phillips, New York, 7 June 2022, for $516,600.

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The brilliance behind the method to enrobe florals in acrylic lies in its contradictory nature: the sense of natural effortlessness evoked by the piece conceals the extensive effort to physically produce the effect. Deyan Sudjic summarizes the laborious process in the catalogue raisonné for the designer: “Working by trial and error, the team hit on a method of pouring acrylic to half the depth of the mold, putting in the flowers, waiting eight hours for the acrylic to go hard, then pouring in the rest to the top of the mold, and waiting another eight hours. In the early stages, the roses needed to be held in position with tweezers until the resin hardened sufficiently to ensure that they did not sink to the bottom of the mould. Allegedly, the procedure was interrupted at regular intervals by Kuramata telephoning the workshop to check on progress.” The anecdote provides insight into the designer’s keen awareness and ability to control new materials for unprecedented applications, as well as his devout commitment to the entire fabrication process.

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While the employment of artificial florals and playful colors may initially obscure the lofty and sophisticated philosophical notions conveyed in this piece, two overarching aspirations central to Kuramata’s oeuvre are achieved by the whimsical roses suspended within the columnar acrylic forms: the desire to eliminate gravity, and the aim to perpetually preserve a chance moment in time. His pursuit to convey intellectual concepts through inventive formal expressions of newly developed materials provided inspiration for a generation of Japanese designers that followed.

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This visually light and effervescent lamp, one of a series of seven similar pieces, was part of Kuramata’s designed interior for the Oblomov restaurant and vodka bar within the Il Palazzo hotel in Fukuoka, Japan. Oblomov, like many of the hundreds of bars, clubs, and restaurants Kuramata designed throughout his career, featured rhythmically repetitive, minimalistic forms made from industrial materials such as aluminum, acrylics, and glass or steel mesh presented in sleek and sumptuous, modern finishes that highlight his artistry through innovative fabrication. The vodka bar, with its chipboard walls and gold leaf trim, created a dialogue using the strong contrast between the ordinary and the opulent. The lamp’s unexpectedly colorful anodization and meticulously suspended artificial florals inspires thematic discourse on the subjectivity of luxury via the transformative act of artistic intervention upon industrial materials.

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A picture of the present Unique monumental floor lamp, in Oblomov restaurant, at Hotel Il Palazzo, Fukuoka, Japan, 1989. Photo: © Mitsumasa Fujitsuka.

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As a founding member of the Memphis Group of postmodern designers, the influence of Shiro Kuramata’s participation in the style is still apparent in his work after the formal movement ended in his continued use of commercial, industrial materials and bright colors. Unexpected, yet delightful alchemical fabrications using contemporary industrial materials made readily available by the concurrent rapid economic growth in Japan demonstrate why Ettore Sottsass Jr., his collaborator and friend, expressed an inability to dichotomize Kuramata’s work as singularly ‘art’ or ‘design’.

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