Milan preview: Studio Job will present seven over-sized objects including pots, stools and lanterns, as part of a collection produced in collaboration with the Groninger Museum in the Netherlands and New York design retailer Moss.
Called "Home Work - Domestic Totems and Tableaux by Studio Job," the collection - made of bronze, glass and wood - be presented in Milan at Via Tortona 54/56, from 18-23 April.
Show details and press blurb follow:
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Moss at Salone, Milan
Zona Tortona/ExAnsalta Via Tortona 54/56
Press Preview: April 17 at 3:00 pm
Exhibition: April 18 to 23 2007 (10am to 10pm)
Design Night Friday, April 20 to midnight
Moss, in association with the Groninger Museum, the Netherlands, presents HOMEWORK domestic totems and tableaux by Studio Job April 18-23, 2007 Ex Ansaldo; via Tortona 54/56 (Zona Tortona); Milano HOMEWORK was created by Studio Job in 2006-07 as a collection of 7 heroic compositions in bronze, glass, and wood, offered in a limited edition of 5 pieces, exclusive to Moss.
Part domestic utility - part heroic sculpture, these precious hand-wrought common household objects – including fully-functional cooking pots, stools, lanterns, and coal bins – magnified to exalted proportions, rendered in polished bronze, and placed upon aged wooden pedestals like sacred statuary or palatial historical busts, define the term ‘oxymoron’, and cast to the winds the traditional approach to both sculptural as well as design practice.
With a genealogy somewhere between Duchamp and Koons, these seductive, pseudo-erotic objects, redolent with consumer desire, are neither purely Commodity nor purely Art, but dwell in an uneasy zone between object and objet d’art.
Transmitting clear visual references to both classical sculpture and iconic design, these mutant works suggest a narrative and history and mythology which, in fact, are never explained. Alluding to its humorous, satirical commentary, Marcus Fairs, in his book Twenty-First Century Design, characterizes Studio Job’s work as hovering “between art, design and burlesque".
Following the presentation in Milan, HOMEWORK will be installed in a selling exhibition at Moss, New York, opening to the general public on May 20th.
About Studio Job: Graduates of the renowned Design Academy Eindhoven, the Netherlands, Job Smeets (b.1970, Belgium) and Nynke Tynagel (b. 1977, the Netherlands), who both live as well as work together, form Studio Job.
Having met in 1996 in Eindhoven - she beginning her studies in graphic design and he having just graduated in three-dimensional design – Mr. Smeets proceeded to open Studio Job in 1998 in Antwerp, joined by Ms. Tynagel in 2000, following her graduation.
From the beginning, their collaboration resulted in highly expressive, usually one-off or limited-edition artesian works, often cast in bronze or, later, finely constructed in laser-cut inlaid woods.
Employing iconographic, pan-historic imagery which can be in the same moment both heraldic as well as cartoon-like, the results are consistently monumental and yet somehow primitive, and generally read neo-baroque, clearly fantasist, and certainly more mannerist than modernist.
Projecting a strong narrative quality, suggesting often a heroic battle between good and evil, their gorgeous collections seem born more from a medieval, guild-like process than an industrial approach.
Although, by definition, their work has primarily been geared to collectors and museums, Studio Job has collaborated successfully with various like-minded industrial manufactories, including Swarovski, Austria, and Koninklijke Tichelaar Makkum and Moooi, the Netherlands.
Their work has been shown internationally in numerous museums, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, the Centraal Museum, Utrecht, the Dutch Textile Museum, Tilburg, and the Groninger Museum, Groningen.
About Moss: Opened in 1994 as an industrial design store, and quickly evolving to also encompass Studio work, Moss has continuously mounted exhibitions on its SoHo, New York campus which bridge the domains of art and design.
Working both with manufactories - ancient and new - as well as directly with international contemporary artists and design studios, Moss has collaborated with such venerable Houses as Porzellan-Manufaktur Nymphenburg, Germany; Sevres, France; J&L Lobmeyr and Swarovski, Austria; and Venini, Italy, as well as with the Studios of Fernando and Humberto Campana, Brazil; Tord Boontje, France; Maharam, USA; Hella Jongerius, Maarten Baas, and Claudy Jongstra, the Netherlands; and most recently, Studio Job, Belgium.
In 2006 Moss opened it’s New York Italian wine bar, wine shop, and restaurant Centovini; in 2007 Moss will open its first gallery outside of New York, in Los Angeles.
About the Groninger Museum, Groningen, the Netherlands: Renowned for its iconic 1994 Post-Modern building, designed by Alessandro Mendini in conjunction with guest architects Philippe Starck, Michele de Lucchi, and Coop Himmelb(l)au, as well as for its eclectic, centuries-old historical collection, including archaeological finds, North-Netherlands traditional costumes, and Asian ceramics, the Groninger Museum’s large holdings also include Dutch expressionist work, post-modern Italian Design, photography, and fashion.
Its now-signature dramatic installations, which draw large audiences throughout the year, continue to distinguish the Museum, which often is the first to present internationally the work of young and emerging artists and designers in solo shows.
The Groninger Museum has been a major supporter and collector of Studio Job’s work since 2001, when they first showed their Craft series, and the Museum has already committed to the acquisition of the complete series of HOMEWORK for its permanent collection.