New German design
Pluralistic art and design movement that emerged in Germany in the 1980s as a countercurrent to retro- modern post- functionalism .
history
As a result of the critical examination of the prevailing dictum of " good form " in Germany , due to the unwillingness of many manufacturers to place orders with a new generation of designers and the awareness that they could best implement their own concepts and designs themselves, the beginning of the In the 1980s, various artists and designers abandoned the then prevailing rules of industrial design . The term was coined by the artist / designer group aerobatics and the author, design critic and theoretician Christian Borngräber († 1992).
The trends summarized under the term of the new German design not only represent a constructively critical further thinking of the anti-design term coined by Joe Colombo in Italy in the late 1960s and revived in the late 1970s by Ettore Sottsass , as well as the anti-design term that was also in Italy already in the 1950s presented ready-made designs made socially acceptable in furniture design by the brothers Pier Giacomo and Achille Castiglioni . New in Germany were countercultural and subcultural influences from philosophy and architecture ( deconstruction and deconstructivism , bricolage ), music ( punk , Neue Deutsche Welle ), media and conceptual art ( Geniale Dilletanten , Neoists ), social criticism , as well as alternative product politics and living culture ( do-it-yourself , consumer criticism , squatter scene ).
There were groups of artists, craftsmen and designers such as Bellefast , Berlinetta , Cocktail , Ginbande , Gruppe Aerobatics , Möbel Perdu or Pentagon , which through experiments and combinations of unusual materials (raw iron, bare steel, stone, concrete, rubber, plush or glass) and shapes stood out. Most of the designs, which were often unique, multiples or small series , had only limited commercial success; the aesthetics of these objects was an “aesthetics of collage and breaks”. The scope of work ranged-creating confusion readymade -Objekten (one-man artist "group" Stiletto Studio, s ), ironical pomp, neo-baroque and kitsch (Claudia Schneider-Esleben) to craft work ( cocktail ).
In the new German design, the concrete and reinforcing steel cantilever chair “Solid” by Heinz is the symbolic, striking anti- icons among the peppy to elegant counter-designs to the “icons” of Italian anti-design , deliberately in contrast to their conscious material brutality country that "tense shelf" by Wolfgang Laubersheimer (group Pentagon ), which picks-table "mate II" Axel Stumpf (†), as well as from a stray cart made cantilever - or Wire Chair -Designpersiflage " Consumer's rest " Lounge Chair (1983) counted by Stiletto . The highlight and at the same time the turning point of the new German design was the 1986 Düsseldorf exhibition “Emotional Collages - Living from the Senses”. 250 objects by 120 established artists, architects, artisans and designers as well as interdisciplinary lateral entrants, musicians, practicing theorists and newcomers formed a panopticon of the newly emerging movement in Germany as well as on an international level ( Studio Alchimia , Memphis Group, Gruppe BRAND ).
At the end of the 1980s, the new German design had lost its wildness, willingness to experiment and provocation. Even if they no longer follow the basic ideas and concepts of the new German design , this generation still shapes German design development today. Many protagonists of the new German design became professors at art colleges in the course of the generation change and the re-establishment of design courses in the new federal states , including Heiko Bartels († 2014), Hardy Fischer and Harald Hullmann (aerobatics), Andreas Brandolini (Bellefast), Uwe Fischer and Achim Heine (Ginbande), Wolfgang Laubersheimer and Ralph Sommer (Pentagon), Inge Sommer (Berlinetta), Axel Kufus , Hermann Waldenburg and Volker Albus .
Exhibitions (selection)
- Aerobatics - New German Design , Staircase Gallery, Krefeld, 1983, catalog
- Emotional collages - living by the senses , Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf , Bonnefantenmuseum , Maastricht, etc. a., 1986, exhibition catalog: DuMont Verlag, Cologne 1986 ISBN 3-7701-1928-2
- Furniture as an art object , artist workshop Lothringerstrasse , Munich, 1987, exhibition catalog: Kulturreferat der Landeshauptstadt München (ed.), Verlag Dr. C. Wolf and Son, Munich, 1987, ISBN 9783922979296
- Les avant-gardes du mobilier: Berlin , Center Georges Pompidou , Galerie Neotu, Paris, 1988, catalog publication of the International Design Center , Berlin
- Rude ma sincero - nuovo design tedesco , Goethe-Institut , Milan, Museum voor Sierkunst, Gent, Villa Stuck , Munich, 1991, exhibition catalog (it, dt, en): Idea Books, Milan 1991, ISBN 978-8870170832
- The Borngrave Room - New German Design , (exhibition catalog brochure self-published by Museum Kunstpalast, 2009), Museum Kunstpalast , Düsseldorf 2009, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg , 2016
- Shrill bizarre brute. The New German Design of the 80s , Bröhan Museum , State Museum for Art Nouveau, Art Deco and Functionalism, Berlin, 2014/15, exhibition catalog: Wienand Verlag, Cologne 2014, ISBN 978-3-86832-244-6 ( review )
Media presence (selection)
- Departure for Breakthrough - A Show on New German Design , 70 min., Production: WDR, Cologne, 1985, director: Bob Rooyens, concept and moderation: Christian Borngräber; broadcast on February 4, 1986, 11 p.m., on ARD's first program
Literature (selection)
- Christian Borngräber (Ed.): Kunstforum International , Kunstperiodikum, Vol. 82, 1986: The German Avant-Garde Design - Furniture, Fashion, Art and Applied Arts and Vol. 99, 1989: Design III: German Furniture
- Volker Albus and Christian Borngräber: "Design Balance - New German Design of the 80s in Objects, Images, Data and Texts", DuMont Verlag, Cologne 1992, ISBN 3-7701-2567-3
- Thomas Hauffe: "Fantasy and hardness. The" New German Design "of the eighties", Werkbund-Archiv Volume 25, Anabas Verlag, Giessen, 1994, ISBN 978-3-87038-253-7
- Petra Eisele: "BRDesign. German design as an experiment since the 1960s", Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar, 2005, ISBN 978-3-412-16504-8
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Kunstforum International , Kunstperiodikum, Vol. 82, 1986: The German Avantgarde Design - Furniture, Fashion, Art and Applied Arts and Vol. 99, 1989: Design III: German Furniture , both: Ed .: Christian Borngräber
- ↑ Harald Hullmann on the group aerobatics and the new German design http://kultur-in-krefeld.de/kulturhistorie/design/gruppe-kunstflug-3/
- ^ Siegfried Gronert about Harald Hullmann and the group aerobatics online
- ↑ Petra Eisele: Klassiker des Produktdesign , Reclams Universal-Bibliothek Vol. 19170, Reclam-Verlag , Stuttgart, 2014, ISBN 978-3-15-019170-5
- ↑ Eisele: BRDesign (literature list)
- ↑ Stewart Home on Stiletto's lecture performance workshop stealing and copying as the highest form of creativity in the fight against design at the Festival of Plagiarism at the Braunschweig University of Art from June 8th to 10th, 1988
- ↑ Wolfgang Müller : Subkultur Westberlin 1979 - 1989. Leisure time , especially the chapter “Berliner Design-Handbuch” (pp. 485ff - 486ff), Philo Fine Arts Verlag, Hamburg, 2013, ISBN 978-3-86572-671-1
- ↑ Birgit Richard: Subcultural style versus “lifestyle” in design. On the complex interweaving of youth aesthetics and design , pp. 74ff - 84ff [here in particular explanations and images on: DIY percussion instruments from the Einstürzende Neubauten , chair sculptures by SM Syniuga ( punishment for rebellion ) and “New German Gemütlichkeit” by Stiletto] in Stefan Lengyel and Hermann Sturm: Design Schnittpunkt Essen / Design Lines Meet in Essen , (Text: de / en), Verlag Ernst & Sohn, Berlin, 1990, ISBN 3-433-02539-8 (text document online )
- ^ Christian Borngräber: Berliner Design-Handbuch , Merve Verlag, Berlin, 1987, ISBN 3-88396-055-1
- ↑ "Design - New Magnificence - Form Fetishists, Spinners or Misjudged Avant-garde? Young German Designers Start Attacking Everyday Taste" , DER SPIEGEL 2/1985, January 7, 1985, as a pdf on Spiegel Online Archive
- ↑ Volker Albus, Michel Feith, Rouli Lecatsa, Wolfgang Schepers , Claudia Schneider-Esleben [eds.]: Emotional collages - living from the senses , exhibition catalog, DuMont Verlag, Cologne, 1986, ISBN 3-7701-1928-2
- ↑ Documentation of the exhibition Les avant-gardes du mobilier: Berlin with poster image ( consumer´s rest motif ) on the website of the Center Georges Pompidou , accessed on April 18, 2018
- ↑ TV recommendation in Der Spiegel 6/1986 online
- ↑ Video clips from “Departure for Breakthrough - A Show on New German Design” on the website of director Bob Rooyens online
- ↑ Tobias Hoffmann on "Departure for Breakthrough - A Show on New German Design" as the title-defining document for the exhibition Schrill Bizarr Brachial. The New German Design of the 80s , Bröhan-Museum , Berlin, 2014, catalog p. 72–74ff a. 162–167, Wienand Verlag, Cologne 2014, ISBN 978-3-86832-244-6 .