Cookie Consent by Free Privacy Policy website Victor Papanek: The Politics of Design 29 September 2018 – 10 March 2019, Vitra Design Museum
luglio 10, 2018 - Vitra Design Museum

Victor Papanek: The Politics of Design 29 September 2018 – 10 March 2019, Vitra Design Museum

Comunicato Stampa disponibile solo in lingua originale. 

With the exhibition »Victor Papanek: The Politics of Design«, running from 29 September to 10 March 2019, the #vitradesignmuseum will present the first large retrospective focussing on the designer, author, and activist Victor J. Papanek (1923–1998). Papanek was one of the twentieth century’s most influential pioneers of a socially and ecologically oriented approach to design beginning in the 1960s. His key work, »Design for the Real World« (1971), remains the most widely read book about design ever published.

In it, Papanek makes a plea for inclusion, social justice, and sustainability – themes of greater relevance for today’s design than ever before.

The exhibition includes high-value exhibits such as drawings, objects, films, manuscripts, and prints, some of which have never before been presented. These are complimented by works of Papanek’s contemporaries from the 1960s to 1980s, including George Nelson, #richardbuckminsterfuller, Marshall McLuhan, or the radical design initiative »Global Tools«. Contemporary works from the areas of critical and social design provide insight into Papanek’s lasting impact. Faced with Nazi persecution in Austria, Papanek escaped to the United States in 1939. After pursuing a career as an industrial designer, during the 1960s he developed a critique of consumerism that would make him well known around the world.

This position is also reflected in his designs, which he often developed together with his students or collaborators, including televisions and radios for African countries, electric vehicles, as well as the »Fingermajig«, an object designed to stimulate the sense of touch (1965–1970), and the »Living Cubes« series (1973), user-assembled furniture that could be modified to meet different needs. Papanek’s true impact, however, is to be found in his work as an author and arbiter of a new and critical understanding of design. He lectured in universities around the world, inspiring generations of students, and tirelessly promoted a wider social debate about design. For example, beginning in 1961 he moderated a television series about design that was broadcast throughout the USA.

Alongside his »Design for the Real World«, which has been translated into over twenty languages, additional books such as »How Things Don’t Work« (1977) or »Design for Human Scale« (1983) cemented his reputation as a pioneer of alternative design. In them he used pointed language and humour to criticize a blind belief in consumerism and adapt the ideas of the generation of 1968 to address practical issues of everyday life for a great number of #people. »Victor Papanek: The Politics of Design« is organized into four sections offering an in-depth look at Papanek’s life and work. The exhibition begins with an introductory, large-format media installation presenting the designer’s ideas in a contemporary context and follows with a biographical overview tracing Papanek’s life from his escape from Europe to his international success.

For the first time, organizers were able to draw upon materials of the Papanek estate held by the Papanek Foundation at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, which includes a number of documents that have never been exhibited, including notebooks, letters, furniture, pieces from Papanek’s collection of ethnological objects, as well as over thousands slides that the designer used for his lectures.

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