7.15.2009

Posting Modernism


This is a series of 14 small Ceramic Chairs, celebrating the Proust Arm Chair.



About the original.
"The Proust Armchair - designed by Alessandro Mendini in 1978. This unique armchair represents the original meeting between handcraft and design, between classic and modern. It is part of Mendini's series of "redesigns furniture". Believing that Modern Design had reached the end of its natural life and that designers could no longer create innovative designs, Mendini "redesigned" acknowledged classics. Proust chair is inspired from the Louis XV style. Mendini was attempting to create a feel for the work of late XIX Century author Marcel Proust and used a style of chair of the period." Via: X


Original Proust Chair

Hmm, what to say, what to say.

I have mentioned before that I beleive the ceramics community has a post-Modernism problem. I really don't want to go into that here, but I mention it because of the curious use of the A&D world to use Ceramics as a commemorative medium. Like this version of the Proust Chair, or Koons Puppy Vase.


The idea that Mendini proposed of the end of originality was in 1978, which I feel is slightly prophetic as it was the year that I was born. I grew up in the world of the lack of pure originality. The rise of Hip-Hop and Appropriation. The world is turning again. Whether in Art, with the re-appropriation of appropriation. Or in music With the likes of Girl Talk and Danger Mouse, artist who exist solely in the realm of other, Never a actual note played. Yet, these two are my favorite musicians of the last 5 years.

So, I am left wondering, where are we...

I ask this of the potters too, because I honestly don't know the answer.

Via: If it's Hip It's Here

2 comments:

Gabe Sealey-Morris said...

I would have to agree that ceramicists and potters in general seem to be having a hard time accepting that there is no originality. Potters are still very Romantic in thinking each work of their hands and imaginations is unique because it comes from an individual, but for most of us born after, say, the 70s, even the illusion of originality is not an option.

(Hippiedom was the last gasp of attempted originality, and it's not surprising that most of the influential potters and ceramicists today are old hippies still trying to live out the dream. Once punk rock, the 70s Hollywood renaissance, and the postmodern novel hit, nobody was worried about doing something original, just radical and shocking.)

Danger Mouse and underground hiphop in general seems to be the most honest art form going today. All art has ever done, from Homer to Homer Simpson, is recombine existing forms. It's genetic - only four nucleic acids, but what combinations!

Matthew Katz said...

All very true.
It goes back to the idea that all Art is derivative and at what point is there enough variation that we declare something to be original?

The philosophical notion of idealism, in culture is comforting, but it always turns. It is Evolution.

At what point do the buggy whip makers fade into an obscure minority? Still existing but with no relevance?

There is always a notion that Ceramics are an "Old" medium. But I could not disagree more. It is what you do with something that makes it contemporary