Mass-produced products must be beautiful, thought the father of industrial design, who couldn’t simply build a villa out of ash trees: this is demonstrated by the first exhibition of the Chemnitz Art Collections for the year of the Capital of Culture.
Chemnitz.
The new exhibition “Reform of Life & Henry van de Velde in the middle” at the Chemnitz Art Collections therefore represents a considerable risk in several respects – which works brilliantly, especially because you can see the pop culture, i.e. the attraction of mass, the impact of man in his time and beyond is revealed extremely well.
Clear, light and very stimulating: the exhibition summarizes in a succinct and fascinating way the “zipper effect” of the visionary and precocious networker van de Velde between arts and crafts and industrial design, between Art Nouveau and Bauhaus. The curator Anika Reineke cares so much that when you look at it you seem to identify the “missing link” between Biedermeier and the iPhone.
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What is not so far-fetched: Van de Velde, born in 1863, grew up in the then prevailing bourgeois and kitsch “Sissi” historicism and developed his ideas there, which eventually reached the University of Ulm via the Bauhaus. Design: Its foundation lived long enough to see it in 1953. From this cradle of modern industrial design emerged principles and approaches that can also be found in the legendary German agency “Frog-Design”, which in turn set benchmarks in terms of design philosophy for Sony (Walkman) and especially Apple.
The Chemnitz exhibition begins with a reformist dress with Art Nouveau appliqués: In the loosely cut “hippie look”, these items of clothing freed 19th century women from corsets for the first time and allowed free movement. The new bodily sensation followed.
The exhibition lightly shows how he became a key representative of Art Nouveau: flanked by contemporary wallpapers and fabrics from vast art collections, which flood the bright exhibition rooms with appropriate atmosphere without becoming a backdrop, “Reform of Life” shows the transformation in architecture and furniture making.
No nonsense workshop: Henry van de Velde cleaning sponge! Photo: Tim Hofmann Image: Tim Hofmann
No nonsense workshop: Henry van de Velde cleaning sponge! Photo: Tim Hofmann Image: Tim Hofmann