While the rest of the international design museum community retreat from the warmth of the summer sun, taking shelter in the cool of their depots and archives, Leipzig's Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst are busy preparing for one of its annual highlights: Grassimesse. A craft, applied art and design fair instigated in 1920 which has witnessed, and survived, the highs and lows of the past century in Leipzig and environs. And which since 1920 has been by invitation only: anyone and everyone can apply, but only those who can convince the international jury of the quality of their work, the conceptual quality, the material quality, the technical quality, et al of their work, are granted access to the institution.
That first Grassimesse jury was populated by the likes of, for example, and amongst many others, Peter Behrens, Walter Gropius, Gerhard Marcks, Josef Hoffmann, Bruno Paul or Richard Riemerschmid1, the 2024 jury featuring in addition to Olaf Thormann, Director of the Grassi Museum and Sabine Epple, Curator of the Museum’s Modern Collection, and since 2000 responsible for the Grassimesse, the likes of, Christianne Weber-Stoeber, the former director of the Deutsches Goldschmiedehaus, Hanau, Chantal Prod'Hom, the former director of the Musée de Design et D'Arts Appliqués Contemporains, mudac, Lausanne, or Toni Piskac, the former Head of Workplace Consulting & Space Planning at Vitra and who now runs the interior architecture practice studio tnpx.
A 2024 Grassimesse jury who recently convened, a 2024 Grassimesse jury who have now passed judgement......
....... and a 2024 Grassimesse jury who have whittled the ca. 300 applications, a notable increase on 2023's ca. 250 which itself was up around a third from 2022s, an indication of the Grassimesse's vitality and relevance, have whittled that ca. 300 down to 78 exhibitors; a mix of individual creatives and studios/collectives, a mix arguably a little less international than last year, if still featuring exhibitors from 8 nations, including Italy, Netherlands, Lithuania and the Germany who provide by far the biggest number of exhibitors. And an international mix which, if we're correctly informed, which we believe we are, will be extended through the presence of creatives from Hong Kong, Ukraine and Scotland in the curated 'Specials' section of Grassimesse, alongside students from design schools in Wismar, Hildesheim, Halle and Schneeberg.
And a mix that while the largest groups are, as so oft, jewellery and ceramics, whereby as Grassimesse always tends to elucidate jewellery and ceramics aren't necessarily jewellery and ceramics, also features, and particularly pleasingly so, certainly from our perspective, from our very singular view of the world, a, we'll argue, higher than average number of furniture designers and brands including one notes the presence of a Behrens and a Schinkel, names that have long since left their mark on furniture and interior design. Elsewhere amongst the selected 2024 exhibitors one finds a Hoffmann, a Berger, a Marcks, two Menzels, a Frank and a Votteler.
We can't however find a Gropius amongst the 2024 exhibitors. Or a Paul. Or a Riemerschmid, but the hope must be that there are exhibitors present with the potential to transform furniture design, furniture production and interior design as a Richard Riemerschmid once did. Or indeed as a Peter Behrens once did. Or a Karl Friedrich Schinkel. For lest we forget, Grassimesse isn't just the opportunity to present your work in the ever glorious Grassi Museum, nor only the opportunity to sell your work to a critical and knowledgeable and discerning public, nor only the opportunity to see your work added, potentially, if you're very lucky, to the Grassi Museum collection, but there are 5 prizes to be won. Including the €2,500 smow-Designpreis. And to win the smow-Designpreis, or indeed any of the Grassimesse prizes, you've got to be doing something beyond the obvious, beyond the easy, predictable and conventional.
Grassimesse prizes the Grassimesse jury will award — the 2024 Grassimesse jury, obviously, that first Grassimesse jury having disqualified itself on account of the great many possible conflicts of interest — with the winners to be announced on the evening of Thursday October 24th in the foyer of the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Johannisplatz 5–11, 04103 Leipzig.
The 2024 Grassimesse can subsequently be viewed and enjoyed until Sunday October 27th.
1see, Die Werkstatt der Kunst, Vol, XIX, Nr. 12, 22nd December 1919, page 79
Full details on the 2024 Grassimesse, including information on, and links to, the 78 selected exhibitors, the 78 who made the most convincing arguements to the jury, can be found at www.grassimesse.de
