Newson
Never before have I had to buy so much furniture. Indeed, the prospect of moving into an empty house is just a bit daunting. There are the obvious things to buy - beds, sofas etc - but there are also things like spatulas, saucepans and - as my girlfriend regularly points out - soap dishes.
Before the inevitable capitulation leading to a sad Sunday at Ikea Croydon branch, there are high hopes of finding some exciting, original design at affordable prices. These have led to me come across such glorious websites as Thorsten van Elten's where I found the chair pictured above.
I enjoy looking at it. What a beautiful thing. It is by Marc Newson, a product and furniture designer currently exhibiting at the Design Museum in London.
It is a unique object in the world, one that would truly not exist if it weren't for Marc Newson. It has come from within his head, and it has been made by his hands - or at least under his specific instructions - and now, here it is. The fact that it is a beautiful thing just enhances that achievement, makes me even more envious of his job and makes me want it in my empty lounge.
How many chairs would I need to design before I was satisfied? Perhaps only the one. Perhaps I'd never be satisfied and never ever stop designing chairs. Perhaps that's what Marc Newson did.
posted by Pekar @ 12:39 PM
6 Comments:
Marc Newson has contributed something new to the world, I guess, but his work would be inconievable without its forebears. I'm not a fan of the Aussie twat, - his work has a retro-futurist thing going on that gets right up my nose. His work is just bad styling, to me.
Does his work count as a contribution to culture? I'm not sure. I'm sure we'd all agree that the world would be a better place without some artists/designers/architects/writers. Does the quality of what he does matter, to you? Or is it just that people's creativity, however limited is worth something in and of itself?
If that were true, we'd all be artists.
As Woody might have said: "To be an artist is to suffer; not to be an artist is to suffer." When it comes to most furniture designers and their 'creativity', to be a consumer is to suffer.
I'm with the Germans - there are Schreiber and there are Dichter and we all know which one matters.
The quality of what he does - I mean quality in my eyes - is what attracted me to the thing in the first place, so it's important in that sense. But I find I'm leaning towards thinking that, yes, creativity is worth something in and of itself. The sense of product, of making that indelible mark is appealing; it's so easy to spend weeks in the world and feel that you've really left nothing that marks your place in it. So seeing a chair, a chair that appeals to me, aesthetically, is exciting. It suggests that there is a way to make that connection from one's own internal world to the physical world. I know that much. But what I don't know is how often this needs to happen - as I said, how many chairs would I have to design? And would it be important to me if everyone thought they were shit?
Call me a simpleton, but the chair looks good and therefore the designer (artist) has talent. If you like the chair, buy it, and if you don't, why spend your time abusing the creator when you could be getting of your ass and designing something you do like?
is that Woody as in the cowboy out of toy story? i love that film.
seeing that you're reading some marukami at the mo, i don't know if you've picked up "the elephant vanishes" but it should also be on your list. a great set of short stories. given that his translated work reads like no-one else, i can only imagine what it reads like in the original japanese.
The problem I have with your point of view about creativity is that it turns life into art. Can't we just get on with eating, sleeping, falling in love, believing in god/politics/etc without having to create all the time?
The designers I know, and there are a lot, aren't (in general) hubristic enough to see their work as leaving a mark in the world (although that might be a psychologist's explanation). Rather they are obsessives, and are channelling this into the manufacture of chairs. Also, they are business people, with clients who pay them, manufacturers and engineers who alter what they do and make it possible. The things that appear in the shops are rarely the parts of a designer's work that they would call creative in any free way.
And it is too simple to say: 'I like the chair, therefore the designer is talented.' If we simply had to tolerate everyone's expressions of creativity without valuing one above the other, then what kind of depressing libertarian monoculture would we be living in? Come on, it's a chair for people who think the future's going to look like Barbarella.
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