Oracles of Design: a look at the National Arts Centre's design collection, an exhibition at Gaité Lyrique from April 3 to August 16, 2015
"Design can be seen as an oracle that tells us our destiny. It is ultra-light to travel better, chubby to protect us, bourgeois to reassure us, intimate to cuddle us. It is meditative to soothe us, figurative to delight us, absurd to question us, raw to bind us. It is virtual to transport us. » Lidewij Edelkoort, curator of the exhibition.
Photo © Cédric RAGOT (theme: MUTANT)
Ten themes, ten stories to tell about these oracle-objects! Each story formulates a lifestyle and a desire to express oneself... Archaic, organic, nomadic, abstract, naive, curious, simple, inflated, humble, mutant...
Lyrical cheerfulness and National Centre for Visual Arts (CNAP) have joined forces and invited Lidewij Edelkoort, a trend hunter, to take an original look at the CNAP's design and decorative arts collection and to design an exhibition.
A place of creation in the digital age, La Gaîté lyrique explores its time and deciphers it. A place for all types of design, it proposes to move and cross points of view, as it has done with fashion (ARRRGH!, Monstres de mode), graphic design (Hellotm, The Happy Show), character design (Festival Pictoplasma) or game design (Joue le jeu, the I love transmedia festival).
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The National Centre for Fine Arts' design collection, one of the largest in Europe, reflects the diversity and metamorphosis of the contemporary world. Lidewij Edelkoort's forward-looking and eclectic approach is in keeping with the spirit of this collection, which reflects the attention paid over the last thirty years to the most contemporary creation, whether French or international, to constitute the heritage of tomorrow.
While connected objects and new manufacturing methods open up a new dimension of our relationship to the world, Oracles of Design brings together objects endowed with prophetic power that anticipate or reveal our lifestyles and domestic landscape.
Curator Lidewij Edelkoort's point of view is based on the CNAP collection and aims to show how we are changing century. The questioning of the notion of the object in a world of flows and information is more than ever necessary to better understand the stakes of a world that we are constantly inventing. Lidewij Edelkoort is one of the most important trendsetters. Its forecasts highlight the concepts that will be indispensable in the coming years for industries as diverse as fashion, design and interior design.
Director of the Design Academy Eindhoven (1998-2008) and founder of the School of Form in Poland (since 2011), she is an influential personality in the world of design.
As a curator, Lidewij Edelkoort creates exhibitions for international institutions. TrendTablet.com, his online platform, shares the evolution of trends and lifestyles with the public. Photo © Thirza Schaap
Non-exhaustive list of designers presented in the exhibition :
5.5 Designers, Ron Arad, AtFAB, François Azambourg, Maarten Baas, Erwan & Ronan Bouroullec, Andrea Branzi, Garouste & Bonetti, Konstantin Grcic, Richard Hutten, Hella Jongerius, Rei Kawakubo, Enzo Mari, Issey Miyake, Jasper Morrison, Cédric Ragot, Scholten & Baijings, Wieki Somers, Robert Stadler, Philippe Starck, Studio Job, Patricia Urquiola, Marcel Wanders...
