Grassimesse Leipzig 2024 Compact: Aleksander Rasztawicki - Leichtigkeit 'Do we still need wood, metal and plastic?' asks Hochschule Wismar graduate Aleksander Rasztawicki in context of his Diploma project Leichtigkeit, Lightness. A rhetorical question for Aleksander doesn't believe that we necessarily do. For Aleksander all we need is paper. Or more accurately all we need is vulcanised fibre, a material first patented in 1859 that is produced from cotton via a process which, in many
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Grassimesse Leipzig 2024 Compact: vondingen As discussed with Grassimesse Project Manager Sabine Epple, in order to stage Grassimesse during Covid it was necessary to place exhibitors in the permanent exhibtion spaces by way of guaranteeing the legally required distancing. A concept that exhibitors and visitors very much took to and which thus has continued post social distancing reality, and that very much not only to the agreement of exhibitors and visitors but to the benefit of the
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Grassimesse Leipzig 2024 Compact: Faculty of Angewandte Kunst Schneeberg - Me and My Chair The exhibition A Chair and You at the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig, may have ended but its traces can still be felt at Grassimesse 2024, being staged as it is to a large degree in the A Chair and You scenography. Or more accurately the A Chair and You colour and atmosphere scheme, the more extreme elements of Robert Wilson's scenography having been removed. And the soundtrack in the
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Grassimesse Leipzig 2024: smow-Designpreis Winner - Nadja Schulze Following on from the co-winners of the inaugural Grassimesse smow-Designpreis Hevesi Annabella/Line and Round and Cornelius Réer the winner of the 2nd edition is Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule, Halle, Interior Architecture Masters student, Nadja Schulze for her lighting projects LiLa, Bow and 360°. The latter a wall mounted lamp, family of lamps, that can be rotated through, well... 360°. A rotation that not only results
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The 2024 Grassimesse Leipzig jury have two important tasks: selecting from the myriad international applications received those creatives entitled to exhibit within the exhibition halls of Leipzig's Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst, and thereby maintaining the ongoing quality claim of the Grassimesse in context of contemporary craft, design and applied art, and awarding amongst those selected exhibitors six of the seven Grassi Prizes.* Their first task was completed in late summer. Their
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In these dispatches we've oft and long and deep reflected over the (hi)story of, and contemporary reality and relevance of, the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig's annual Grassimesse. So no need to repeat ourselves here, just an urgent need to get to Leipzig and the 2024 Grassimesse with its promise of not just some 78 exhibitors from 8 nations across a wide range of contemporary craft, applied art and design genres, but also, and amongst other specials, a showcase of Ukrainian
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In the exhibtion A Chair and You at the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig, there is more than A Chair and You can look at them, study them, explore them, converse with them. But not sit on them. In the presentation Stühle zum (Be)Sitzen on the first floor landing of the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig, there is more than A Chair and You can look at them, study them, explore them, converse with them. And sit on them. Thirteen chairs which unite more than just thirteen
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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
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In 1949 Edgar Kaufmann Jr. the, then, Director of the Industrial Design Department at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, reflected, not uncritically, that "as more and more new chairs become available to the buying public, the problem of selection begins to be bewildering." A truism that has lost nothing in contemporaneousness over the decades; and also a very nice eyewitness observation from the early days of the rise of the post 1939-45 War American furniture design industry. And of its
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Badekarren in Katwijk by Wilhelm Gutmann, 1908 (Image Public Domain, courtesy of Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main) ... ... Wilhelm Gutmann used the occasion of Grassimesse Leipzig 1920 to present...... .......we no know. Or more accurately, in terms of Wilhelm Gutmann generally we no know hardly nothing. Certainly we no know an awful lot more than the we no know about the other Grassimesse 1920 designers featured thus far in these dispatches. Despite the fact that, arguably, there should
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A living room design by Gertrud Lincke featuring two Arbeitskojen, Work Bunks/Berths, on the left and right, home office à la the 1920s (undated, but before 1927, possibly 1924/5) In 1926 the Dresden based architect Gertrud Lincke will opine that "women are decisive, paramount, when it comes to setting up a home", and that not because of what you think, but because, "they are the most negatively impacted by the housing crisis and all that comes associated with it". However, she will lament
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An (early) interior (and possibly early furniture) by Dr Josef Frank, undated, but before 1915 "Living rooms intended to serve more than purely representational purposes are not works of art or well-coordinated harmonies in colour and form, whose individual components (wallpaper, carpets, furniture, pictures) comprise a finished whole in which they are inextricably linked", opined Dr Josef Frank in 1919, and that not least because, "any new item added would be perceived as awkward,
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Chairs by Elisabeth von Baczko realised by Korbmacher Kapsch, Bremen Just a few short years ago Dr. Karl Schaefer, the new Director of the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne, opined that furniture and interior design required "a clear, well-disciplined architectural appreciation for the corporeal and its dimensions, for the tectonic and for the material, a certain dryness and an unapologetic sincerity" and for all "penetrating, deliberative understanding more than unbridled fantasy",
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After several years of preparation, and a lot of, at times (very) heated, discussion, this past March saw the staging of the inaugural Grassimesse Leipzig in the city's Rathaus. Instigated by Dr. Richard Graul, Director of the Leipzig Kunstgewerbemuseum by way of a response to, an answer to, the increasing concerns amongst many professional creatives regarding the quality of contemporary objects of daily use presented at the bi-annual Leipzig Fair, for all the quality of the novel machine
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As Europe begins to ardently shake of the last remnants of winter and the first green and blue and yellow and white specks appear in parks and gardens, as the chance that summer might just arrive becomes tangible.... October can seem a mighty long way away. Unimaginable. But it is approaching. As is the 2024 Grassimesse. The path thereto has been laid and until Wednesday May 15th are all called upon to apply....... Staged in and by the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig, and
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3D printed ceramics by Babette Wiezorek, as seen at Grassimesse 2023, Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig For all that a Wilhelm Wagenfeld is popularly known as one of the more craft orientated designers of the early 20th century, he was no adherent to 'tradition' as understood as doing that which has always been done, and was no adherent of, no fan of, craft as an unchanging practice, railing against those who practised craft as such as participants in a "Maskentanz", a Masked Ball, a
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Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle - Faserland oder 8mm und 100% Bio, Grassimesse 2023, Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig Cutting straight to the chase, in our post from the Burg Giebichenstein Kunsthochschule Halle Jahresausstellung 2023 we noted "as ever we may have missed things, in fact we know we did": the project Faserland oder 8mm und 100% Bio was that thing we knew we'd missed. Whereby we still don't know where it was hidden, for we can't remember a single square centimetre
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The H2L lounge chair by Studio Machwerk, as seen at Grassimesse 2023, Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig One of the joys of Grassimesse is that it has never been about big names and star turns, anyone and everyone can apply. All you have to do is convince the jury you deserve to be there. As newbies Studio Machwerk did. And did. Established in 2022 (possibly 2023, yes, we've forgotten, but certainly not before 2022) by Christopher (Ebert) and Josef (Ehnert), both graduates of the Faculty
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Adobe by Ralf Stauss / Papier Langackerhäusl, as seen at Grassimesse 2023, Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig As previously noted in these dispatches, in the 18th century serious attempts were made to employ Papier-mâché as a material for furniture construction, primarily in context of the so-called 'japanning' of the period: a fashion, a t****, in 18th and 19th century Europe for 'Oriental' lacquered goods that saw European craftsfolk develop their own local alternatives, not least as a
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Andreas Möller - Weberei Hamburg & Flying8, as seen at Grassimesse 2023, Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig In the earliest years of the Grassimesse one of the more regularly encountered products was handwoven textiles, textiles being as they are and were the sort of product where the hand versus machine, craft versus industry, debates of the early 20th century can be particularly well, and particularly well focussed, undertaken. And that not least because textiles stand, in many regards,
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New Sources by Matthias Gschwendtner, as seen at Grassimesse 2023, Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig Developed by Matthias Gschwendtner in context of his Diploma Project at the Universität der Künste, UdK, Berlin New Sources sees, and simplifying more than is perhaps prudent, Matthias employ Artificial Intelligence, 3D scanning, algorithmic modelling and robotic milling to form silver birch branches into the necessary components for a chair. Which, yes, does sound like an awful lot of
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Let's be honest, it wouldn't be smow if it followed the rules and did that which you'd expected it to. Thus it should have come as absolutely no surprise to anyone that the inaugural Grassimesse smow-Designpreis produced not the expected one, but two, joint, co-winners: Budapest based designer Annabella Hevesi and her studio Line and Round I O and Nürnberg based glassmaker Cornelius Réer....... smow co-founder Martina Stadler reads the laudatio for Cornelius Réer (m) Annabella Hevesi / Line
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While in many regards being selected to participate at the Grassimesse can be considered an accolade in itself, the event also awards a number of prizes: some specific, others general, all well worth winning. Ahead of the opening of the 2023 edition the winners of the seven Grassi Prizes were announced on Thursday evening in the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig. Selected by the 2023 Grassmesse jury from the 80+ exhibitors, the victorious seven are....... Grassipreis der Carl und
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Arising from the discussions and discourses of the earliest years of the 20th century on the production of, materials of, forms of, and relationships with our objects of daily use in context of the increasing industrialisation of the, then, Germany, and in context of the increasing globalisation of the, then, Europe, the Leipziger Grassimesse1 quickly established itself amongst both avant-gardists and those of a more traditional persuasion, and in doing so became, arguably, one of the more
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