Defining Design

Words by Margaret Hancock Davis Margaret is Senior Curator at JamFactory.

With design playing a more overt part of programming in many of our national institutions, and the mere definition of design being challenged we thought it timely for our Senior Curator Margaret Hancock Davis to discuss the zeitgeist with curators across the country.

EWAN MCEOIN

HUGH D.T. WILLIAMSON SENIOR CURATOR OF DESIGN NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA.

SIMONE LEAMON

HUGH D.T. WILLIAMSON CURATOR OF DESIGN NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA.

Previous page: TeamLab design studio Moving creates vortices and vortices create movement 2017, TeamLab, Tokyo (design studio). Photo courtesy of TeamLab and NGV. Right: Neri Oxman, Vespers, Series 1 and 2 Masks, from The New Ancient collection, 2016, Mediated Matter Group, design collaborator, Stratasys, Ltd, manufacturer. Photo courtesy of the artist and NGV.

MHD: It has been three years since the NGV appointed the inaugural Hugh D.T. Williamson Senior Curator and Curator of Design. What do you feel has inspired the shift towards greater design presence in programming at the NGV?

EM & SL: The NGV has a rich history and association with design. From the 1850’s when the Gallery first opened its doors to the citizens of Melbourne, the practice of collecting decorative arts and design, has created an important and diverse collection of ceramics, glass, metalwork, jewellery and furniture on which to build upon.

The NGV’s ground breaking exhibition Melbourne Now in 2013 was the catalyst for a new approach at the NGV, and opened up possibilities for creative collaborations between artists, designers, curators and the public. In recognition of the design and architecture presentations and their contribution to the success of Melbourne Now the NGV created in 2015, with the generous support of The Hugh D.T. Williamson Foundation, a new curatorial department and two new curatorial positions focused on contemporary Australian and international design and architecture.

Design and architecture has become an integral part of the NGV’s thinking across all aspects and platforms of the institution. In recognition of this central role for design NGV has developed a long-term design strategy that embeds design within the institution and informs an ambitious program of design and architecture exhibitions and programs.

In reaction to the growth in the influence, complexity and ubiquity of design there is an appetite and need for meaningful opportunities to experience, examine, communicate and think about design – what is has to offer, what it is used to create. The NGV Department of Contemporary Design and Architecture embraces an important role to collect, present and examine the most interesting trajectories of design and architecture since 1980 to the present day.

The 2017 NGV Triennial allowed us to take the exploration of contemporary art, design and architecture to the next level, and to evolve ideas the Gallery began to explore in Melbourne Now. The exhibition was a platform on which to present a global snapshot of contemporary art and design practice, to create a space for inspiration and conversation, and to give voice to some of the pressing issues of our time. It represented a broad range of disciplines - including: painting, sculpture, prints, drawing, photography, furniture and product design, games design, architecture, fashion, textiles, dance and participatory art. The exhibition broke with the contemporary gallery convention of presenting disciplines separately, in preference for an integrated, multidisciplinary display of contemporary creative practice.

MHD: What are the key trends you see in the design industry that are influencing your programming and acquisition choices?

EM & SL: Design in its varied dimensions is powered by creativity. Enriching culture and society, design allows us to express, question, propose and test ideas about life and the world. The scope for design expands and accelerates every day. Design thinking intersects with disciplines including economics, health, science, ecology and technology.

Through research and active engagement with the local, national and international design community, the NGV Department of Contemporary Design and Architecture is strategically collecting and exhibiting important examples of furniture and object design, architecture, jewellery, graphic and multimedia design, game and VR design.

Since 2015, the NGV Department of Contemporary Design and Architecture has both commissioned and acquired significant contemporary Australian and international design works for the NGV Collection. Each of these works challenge our understanding of design and represent an important moment in the development of the designers practice. Through these objects we can interpret some of the ways that contemporary designers produce objects and environments as a form of communication.

Highlights to date include: Ore Streams 2017, Studio Formafantasma (designer); Bridge table, large, prototype 2010, Joris Laarman (designer) Joris Laarman Lab (manufacturer); Vespers, Series 1 and 2 Masks, 2015, Neri Oxman (designer) Mediated Matter Group (design collaborator), Stratasys, Ltd (manufacturer); Santa Cruz River 2017, Alexandra Kehayoglou; Moving creates vortices and vortices create movement 2017, TeamLab, Tokyo (design studio); 50 Manga Chairs 2017, Oki Sato (designer), Nendo, Tokyo (design studio).

The NGV Department of Contemporary Design and Architecture is especially proud of the one hundred plus acquisitions and commissions of contemporary Australian design, including: Gyro, table 2016, Brodie Neill (designer); Material Studies: Spark Rings 2016, Sean O’Connell (designer and maker); and, Standing Place 2017, Elliat Rich (designer), Luke Mills (maker). The Department in collaboration with the NGV Department of Indigenous Art, is also contributing to the commission and acquisition of contemporary works by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander artists and designers. Recent acquisitions include a significant collection of lei and body adornment from the Torres Strait featuring works by Ellarose Savage, Nancy Kiwat and Matilda Nona.

KEINTON BUTLER

MUSEUM OF APPLIED ARTS AND SCIENCE (MAAS - POWERHOUSE MUSEUM, SYDNEY OBSERVATORY AND MUSEUMS DISCOVERY CENTRE), SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA.

MHD: The position Senior Curator of Design and Architecture at the Museum of Applied Arts and Science (MAAS), was created in 2016, as the inaugural curator, what assumptions regarding design and architecture were you keen to challenge?

KB: Established in 1879, MAAS sits at the intersection of the arts, design, science and technology and is uniquely placed to demonstrate how these disciplines impact Australia and the world. MAAS has been collecting objects of contemporary design for almost 140 years.

When I became Senior Curator at MAAS (with a focus on design and architecture) I wanted to facilitate a critical dialogue on design, both within the museum and with the wider design community. The expectations and demands being placed on designers today are varied and complex since they are increasingly asked to tackle our biggest global issues. At MAAS we see ourselves as carrying out an important role in design education and it is vital that we are responsive to changes in the wider social and technological landscape and to the subsequent shifts in the design industry. MAAS enlists a critical approach to design research with an emphasis on cross-disciplinary thinking, whilst examining the key issues emerging in contemporary design, architecture and the built environment. We aim to provide a platform for meaningful public engagement while embracing contemporary methods of content delivery, learning and collaboration. We are particularly interested in design practice that reflects the evolution of the discipline and demonstrates this through our exhibitions, public programming and collecting plans.

MHD: Your first curatorial project for the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia, Common Good recently opened. What were your aims for this project and how does it show the design and architecture strategy of MAAS?

KB: With Common Good, my intention was to profile designers from the Asia Pacific region that are responding to important social, economic and environmental challenges. The exhibition reflects the diversity of contemporary design practice in our region and explores the continually evolving field of design through an expansive selection of innovative projects, ranging from material explorations, contemporary craft, video game design, speculative practice and large-scale architectural interventions. The exhibition was developed with an outward focus in order to represent global developments in design. I created a clear thematic framework for the objects on display, with a strong design narrative aimed at challenging traditional museological conventions of display and classification.

MHD: What has been a highlight acquisition/s for the collection recently? What does it say about contemporary practice?

KB: MAAS recently acquired the Rare Earthenware project, 2015 by design research studio Unknown Fields, a partnership between Australian born speculative architect Liam Young and Kate Davies. Rare Earthenware was the result of an expedition to Inner Mongolia, in which toxic mud was collected from a radioactive rare earth tailings lake and was used to craft a set of ceramic vessels in the shape of Ming Dynasty porcelain vases. Each vessel is sized in relation to the amount of toxic waste created in the production of three items of technology; a smartphone, a laptop and an electric car battery cell. This project represents a new wave of designers emerging from speculative design. Speculative designers debate the possible social implications of our scientific and technological advancement essentially finding solutions to problems which haven’t yet materialised

Top right: Ger Community Hub by Rural Urban Framework, Common Good exhibition, MAAS. Photo: Zan Wimberley. Right: Rare Earthenware by Unknown Fields, Common Good exhibition, MAAS. Photo: Zan Wimberley

REBECCA EVANS

CURATOR OF EUROPEAN AND AUSTRALIAN DECORATIVE ARTS ART GALLERY OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA.

MHD: The Art Gallery of South Australia has had a long history of displaying decorative arts alongside visual arts throughout its galleries. How have you been working to challenge these established modes of presentation and do you feel there is a difference when you display design objects?

RE: The integration of decorative arts into the Art Gallery of South Australia’s permanent Australian and international collections predates my tenure as decorative arts curator by a number of decades. In the 1960s former Curator, Dick Richards, started displaying historic silver in the Australian Wing and there is a rumour he displayed a series of Holden cars as a celebration of South Australia’s motoring heritage but I’m still searching for photographs of this!. In the late 1970s, then Curator of European Art, Ron Radford AM, asked Adelaide-based furniture designer Khai Liew to assist with the acquisition of key Barossa Valley furniture, which have remained a staple of the Gallery’s Australian category. Radford also famously bought Marc Newsom’s LC1 Chaise Lounge, 1986, a prototype shown at Roslyn Oxley’s, an early incarnation of the iconic Lockheed Lounge, 1988.

Over the last twenty years or so, there has been a focus in acquiring and displaying contemporary works which traverse the disciplines of craft, design and decorative arts – mostly in the areas of ceramics, glass, furniture and contemporary jewellery – with a particular focus on South Australian makers. Both Christopher Menz and Robert Reason built up remarkable collections of contemporary craft and design. Some of my favourite works collected in this period include the Rhianon Vernon-Roberts memorial collection of contemporary jewellery and Junko Mori’s forged mild steel Propagation project: Windy leaf.

Since 2014, there has been a renewed interest in the field of fashion design with the exhibition Fashion Icons: Masterpieces from the Collection of Musée Des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, France. And in 2017, the Gallery launched its Fashion Fund, a dedicated fund for the acquisition of contemporary international and Australian fashion. I’m recognising that our visitors love contemporary fashion design and are hungry for more. Besides the glamour and celebrity factor, I think it has something to do with the very physical connection we all have with fashion; we live our lives in fashion. I guess that’s one of the defining aspects of design, its relationship to the body. Whether that’s jewellery, vessels, fashion or furniture. These works are often made to assist, beautify, comfort and nestle the human body. That’s one of those things I’ve tried to do as much as possible in the display of design, not succumb to the normal ‘decorative arts and design behind glass in a showcase’ approach, but to display works on the wall as much as possible.

MHD: What are the key trends you see in the design industry that are influencing your programming and acquisition choices?

RE: I see an intriguing harmonising of traditional handmade techniques, newer mechanised and computer generating methods of manufacturing and the bringing together of craft and design. Think of Iris Van Herpen, who elegantly combines traditional haute couture labour intensive technique with 3D printing, vacuum moulding and so on. Or even Khai Lew’s 2010 Collec+tors series where he (as a furniture designer) collaborated with craftspeople Julie Blyfield, Kirsten Coelho, Gwyn Hanssen Pigott, Jessica Loughlin, Bruce Nuske and Prue Venables. In each of these cases there is a delightful coming together of craft and design and I find myself collecting and displaying works that sit within this hybrid space.

I was lucky to acquire Iris Van Herpen’s Alchemy of Light dress from her Between the Lines Spring/Summer 2017 couture collection for the gallery. Technology and handcraft were united in the making of this gown. The product of 1400 hours of work in polyurethane material, it uses the six step technical process of laser-cutting, vacuum-forming, liquid-moulding, hand-moulding via heat, hand and machine stitching.

The work straddles the world of contemporary design, fashion and sculpture. Materially it is ambiguous and intriguing; drawing the viewer in, it begs a multitude of questions, how was it made, what it is made of, what is it exactly? It’s this art that provokes that makes for a powerful tool for curators.

ROBERT COOK

CURATOR OF CONTEMPORARY DESIGN AND INTERNATIONAL ART ART GALLERY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA PERTH, AUSTRALIA.

MHD: As the one curator interviewed whose department encompasses both the visual arts and design, are there any conceptual trends that you see bridging or running concurrently in visual arts and design?

RC: Well, there’s a stack of artists – there have been throughout history – who work from or towards a design space, be this structural, product-focused, critically or relationally. Narelle Jubelin, Andrea Zittel, Atelier van Leishout, Liam Gillick to name a a few. There are designers being pragmatically forthright about how their practices impact on or shift the social sphere and looking at the means and modes of making and its distribution, the networked object whose focus is mirrored by many artists now. And there’s the monumental art-sculptural furniture of those in the Carpenter’s Workshop crowd, who I love. Then there’s people like Max Lamb who is all these things yet none of this is new. Design is always the between space. That’s maybe too much of a meta answer! If we look at it more tactically, we’re all playing out the post Normcore stream of consciousness that pulls art, design and craft into a social media realm with a different kind of ice wash traction.

MHD: What are the differences, if any, when exhibiting design versus visual arts?

RC: I guess there probably aren’t that many when it comes down to the display. Maybe I’m going to contradict myself here, with visual arts there’s usually more consultation with the artists about how this and that will be shown and a display parameters gained.

MHD: What are the key trends you see in the design industry that are influencing your programming and acquisition choices?

RC: I always think I never know this stuff or if there are trends, I’m not interested in feeling I’ve to pick them up straight away. But there’s some longer-term stuff; I’ve mentioned Normcore before and I was serious. It’ll sound like I’m not up to speed, but that’s still a thing, a huge thing. Normcore was thought to be sarcastic. But in essence, asked the question, ‘What is the texture of life?’ The collapse of all distinctions means that design in the form of style is increasingly important, and functionality doesn’t read like it used to in this paradigm. Function is your body in a context. There is no purity. I sound like Baudrillard. But it’s looping back. This means we should be more open to style right now, in a very serious way.

Personally, I gravitate to the design-ness of photos, stylish paintings, the lonely pragmatism of jewellery and the social structure of biomorphic abstraction. In terms of programming, my projects are usually quite separate though. I do think historically about the ways the works are interpreted. On the craft side, what is always super apparent, is that it is the weirdest modernism.

MHD: What has been a highlight for the Collection recently? What does it say about contemporary practice?

RC: Buying a little Ron Nagle piece recently. It’s called Bill-bored, insert date. Nagle is one of the stylish artists in the world today. He is up there with Katz and there with Fairfield Porter. Oblique, I know, but think about it, what it says about contemporary practice is that it’s not just Rie and Coper who make grown-up ceramics. Nagle makes flat-out sexy hip pieces that are pure goofy chic. They are as ripe as any Katz painting. He makes ceramics that you would think twice before offering to buy it a drink in a bar. In fifty years there’ll be people wondering just why the hell he wasn’t the most famous artist in the world.

Right: Ron Nagle, Bill-bored, 2016 ceramic, glaze, catalysed polyurethane and epoxy resin, 10.8 x 10.5 x 15.9cm State Art Collection, Art Gallery of Western Australia Purchased through the Art Gallery of Western Australia Foundation: TomorrowFund, 2018.