Thu 17 November
Opening Face Value
In the exhibition Face Value, four established designers abandon their commercial bestsellers, winning house style designs or attractive logos and actually show the work in which they seek, hesitate or fail. What is the value of autonomy, authenticity and originality – so characteristic for the work of a visual artist – in the practice of product designer Bertjan Pot, graphic designers 75B, designer Sophie Krier and fashion designer Marga Weimans?
Face Value focuses on the re-evaluation of the question of autonomy in the design process. What role does independent research play – non-commissioned, with no thought of possible applications and without significance – in the development of the designer’s work? In the exhibition, four prominent Rotterdam-based designers present their autonomous research as a structural component of their design practice. They show their indebtedness to the free arts and partly undermine the significance of their own commissioned practice. Without the words that belong to the discourse around design: utilizable, solution-oriented, durable, ecological social design. Free from supply and demand, they call attention to the fragile and difficult process of research, in a place outside the commercial arena, somewhere between the private and public moment, where it doesn’t just revolve around (mass) reproducible designs, but also around individual wishes and desires.
