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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For all that the annual Leipzig Grassimesse is and always has been as a sales fair, a place to peruse, discourse with and purchase, contemporary craft, applied art and design, and thereby an opportunity to support contemporary craft, applied art and design practitioners, or perhaps more accurately an opportunity to support those practitioners whose practice you most enjoy, it has also always been a platform for creative schools and their students to present their works and approaches and
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Unlike a great many international craft, applied art and design fairs, entry to the annual Grassimesse Leipzig is strictly by jury selection. And has been since the first edition in 1920. 'twas, in many regards, one of the pillars on which the event established its reputation. And one which helps it maintain that reputation. The 2023 Grassimesse jury recently convened to review the abundance of applications for this year's edition, up some 33% on 2022, and, and perhaps more satisfyingly,
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Although the Grassimesse has been staged, with readily understandable pauses, since 1920, the Grassimesse smow-Designpreis is being staged for the first time in 2023. Which means a highly impressive roster of innovative, intelligent, imaginative, informative, designers from back in the day can't win it. Have, if one so will, missed out But you can win it and the associated €2,500. Or can if your reading this before Friday May 12th Sunday May 21st, the new extended, deadline for entries.
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The 2023 edition of the Grassimesse Leipzig will see the inaugural awarding of the €2,500 smow-Designpreis. The first dedicated design prize in the institution's long (hi)story. Entries are were open until Friday May 12th. But what if that first Grassimesse smow-Designpreis had been awarded not in 2023, but 1923? Who might have won? Who would the 1923 Grassimesse jury have selected from the many possible candidates? ???? A smow Blog fantasy final four....... Back in 1923 the
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For the first time in its long and illustrious history Leipzig's Grassimesse will award a dedicated design prize at its 2023 edition. More specifically, will award the €2,500 smow-Designpreis. The call for entries is now open, and you are all cordially invited closed....... Tracing its history back to 1920, the contemporary Grassimesse began as an, if you will, response on the part of Dr. Richard Graul, Director of the, then, Kunstgewerbemuseum Leipzig, the contemporary Grassi Museum für
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Upholstered furniture is called upholstered furniture for a reason, yet how often do we consider the upholstery rather than the furniture; or more accurately, how often do we consider the upholstery that makes furniture upholstered furniture? How often do we consider the upholstery that makes upholstered furniture such a singular genre of furniture? How often do we consider the upholstery that bequeaths upholstered furniture such a singular status? With the exhibition Deep-seated. The Secret
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We published our first monthly list of exhibition recommendations on November 1st 2013, one of those short, superficial, posts we used to compose, having as we did back then endless time on our hands; and an intervening nine years that means that with this list for November 2022 we are entering our tenth year of helping you advance your cultural education. While being very much aware that the vast majority of you have never visited a single one of the circa 450 new exhibitions we've carefully
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Following smow Turin's thoroughly unexpected, if in no way undeserved, victory in the 2021 smow Song Contest, it's off to Piemonte for the 2022 edition. A 2022 smow Song Contest being held very much in context of events 20 years previous....... 2002 was a very different world than the one we know today. In 2002, for example, following the ousting of the Taliban girls were allowed to attend school in Afghanistan; Chechens stormed the Dubrovka Theater in Moscow demanding an end to Russia's
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What is a chair? You sure? With the exhibition Chairs. For children only! the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig, explore the (hi)story of and developments in children's seating, and in doing so not only allow for insights into an all too often undervalued, underappreciated, ignored, genre of furniture, but also forces you to reconsider your response to what you thought was a very, very straightforward question... Chairs. For children only!, Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst,
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Although cultures very often arose in splendid isolation, only very few remained splendidly isolated for very long. For much like a young child who having learned to walk intuitively understands what a powerful tool mobility is/can be and seeks to exploit it to the fullness of their abilities, so too did our youthful human civilisations very quickly understand that there was, in all probability, a world beyond their own, and began wandering, at first in their immediate vicinity but
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"I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it is always June", ponders Anne Shirley in Lucy Maud Montgomery's 1915 novel Anne of the Island. "You'd get tired of it", sighs her adoptive mother Marilla Cuthbert by way of reply. "I daresay", responds Anne, "but just now I feel that it would take me a long time to get tired of it..." Thoughts we very much concur with as we survey and contemplate the varied profusion of new architecture and design exhibitions sprouting forth in June
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After a long, challenging, year the smow Song Contest finds itself exactly where it was: Rotterdam. Not just the location, but the stage, the decoration, the costumes, even the bier en frieten exactly as they were twelve months ago. The decisive, defining, difference between the 2020 smow Song Contest and the 2021 smow Song Contest being the new understandings, the new perceptions, the new perspectives, the new vitality, the new passions, the new desires, the new old new, articulated by the
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In a year in which the familiar glow of many a beloved cultural event is missing, one beacon continues to shine. As a virtual, and in many regards virtual, event the smow Song Contest is one that can be staged regardless of prevailing physical social distancing regulations and physical travel restrictions. And while virtual closeness and virtual travel can never, and must never be allowed to, replace the physical, the 2020 smow Song Contest does allow us all an opportunity to cross great
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On March 6th 1927 the exhibition Europäisches Kunstgewerbe opened at the Grassimuseum Leipzig, not only a presentation of contemporary European applied arts but the inaugural exhibition in the museum's (almost finished) new home on the city's Johannisplatz. With the exhibition Spitzen des Art déco the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst Leipzig stage not only a presentation of European Art déco porcelain, but a reminder of both the Johannisplatz complex's Art déco heritage and the vibrancy,
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For all the controversy surrounding smow Tel Aviv's victory in the 2018 smow Song Contest, not least the question if there even is a smow Tel Aviv, the staging of the 2019 Contest in Israel does allow for a very nice reinforcing of the central theme of the 2019 smow Song Contest.... Inarguably the biggest architecture and design story in 2019 is the centenary of the founding of Bauhaus Weimar. And whereas one can, should, argue if the school deserves its singular billing, it gets it. What
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From you have I been absent in the spring, When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim, Enticed us into the following architecture and design exhibitions....... William Shakespeare, Sonnet 98, From you have I been absent in the spring (extended, with apologies) "Bauhaus_Sachsen" at the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst Leipzig, Germany When in 1925 it became clear that Bauhaus would have to leave Weimar, Leipzig was one of the city's to offer it a new home; as history records Walter
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Much as ever increasing co-working is altering understandings of and relations to work practises and office spaces, so to is ever increasing co-habitation altering understandings of and relations to domestic practises and spaces. Albeit domestic understandings that are altering without as much public discourse as afforded those occurring in the workplace. With the exhibition Together. The new architecture of the collective the Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst Leipzig explore, and thereby
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Back in the day most everything was produced locally, every community had its network of producers, who not only produced but were also knowledge depositories for processes, materials, local conditions etc, etc, etc Back in the day. More recently production has become remote, goods being produced in anonymous factories, transported across continents, through innumerate staging posts, and thereby not only severing the link between producer and customer, but meaning ever fewer people understand
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Rely too heavily on popular representations of design from Denmark and one could come to the conclusion that Danes only started designing objects in the late 1940s, so often is one presented with Danish design books, exhibitions and newspaper/magazine/blog articles that begin, self-evidently, post-War. With their exhibition Made in Denmark. Design since 1900, the Grassi Museum of Applied Arts Leipzig demonstrate that design in Denmark does have a pre-war, and pre-design, history. Made in
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Following smow Lisboa's surprise victory in the 2017 smow Song Contest, the Portuguese capital is preparing to host the 2018 song contest: a contest being staged very much in context of the contemporary relevance of smow's historic connections.... As the anniversary of smow Lisboa's victory approaches it remains as controversial and as unexpected as it was on that muggy evening back in May 2017: not least because there is no smow Lisboa. However, never ones to look a gift horse in the mouth
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The only FAQ not answered by the smow FAQs is the one that begins, "What is smow........?" And as smow grows and grows so too does the F with which the Q is A'd. The answer in one sense is very simple, smow trade in furniture, lighting and home/office accessories through a series of showrooms and online shops. But that only partly explains "smow". Doesn't explain the how, who, why and wherefore. Nor the richness. Explaining the true smow is in many respects best achieved by exploring another
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Visitors to the Grassi Museum for Applied Arts Leipzig have long been able to rest on Jasper Morrison's Vitra Bench, an object liberally distributed throughout the museum complex. With the exhibition Thingness the Grassi Museum for Applied Arts Leipzig offers visitors a deeper insight into Jasper Morrison's oeuvre, and creative processes. Jasper Morrison - Thingness @ Grassi Museum for Applied Arts Leipzig Born in London in 1959 and a graduate of both Kingston Polytechnic and the Royal
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In northern hemispheres June marks the start of both astronomical and meteorological summer. In southern hemispheres June marks the start of both astronomical and meteorological winter. The one rejoices, the other laments .... and we don't even notice, far too busy as we are perusing architecture and design exhibitions. Our five recommendations for June 2017 features new shows in Den Haag, Frankfurt, New York, Leipzig and Brussels. "Architecture and Interiors. The desire for Style" at the
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