Vues de l'exposition Ideal Home, 2011, Chelsea Space, London, UK
Chelsea Space is delighted to present ‘Ideal Home’ an exhibition of original and editioned design and contemporary art from private collections and the Special Collections of Chelsea College of Art and Design. This exhibition, organised as part of the London Design Festival and the Icon Design Trail 2011, brings together work by over 50 artists and designers made across 98 years from 1913 to 2011 exploring the increasingly blurred boundaries between art and daily life.
‘Ideal Home’ takes its title from one of the exhibits – an Omega Workshop Rug designed by Frederick Etchells for the 1913 Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition held at Olympia, London. The Daily Mail invited the avante-garde Omega group, founded by Roger Fry, in what appears to be a cynical attempt to recreate the public outrage caused by the exhibition Manet and Post- Impressionism curated by Fry for London’s Grafton Galleries in 1910. Beyond the public dismay and anti-modern art rhetoric whipped up by the press, the 1913 Ideal Home Exhibition also caused rivalries and bitter feuds between members of the Omega Workshops and the Vorticists culminating in a ‘round robin’ letter discrediting Fry signed by Wyndham Lewis, Frederick Etchells, CJ Hamilton, and Edward Wadsworth; seen in 2011, Etchell’s seemingly benign and historic rug belies a story of utopian dreams turning into nightmares.
Fairs such as The Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition, like shopping arcades and department stores, were seductive and seemed to reflect society better than the museums, creating a new worldwide form of entertainment and education combined with trade. Movements such as Arts and Crafts, Constructivism, De Stijl, and Bauhaus made optimistic experiments combining art and design and later, thanks to mass production, companies such as Habitat, Ercol, Athena, and Ikea introduced ‘lifestyle’ and the notion of a life enhanced by art and design into the lives and homes of a wider populace.
Taking into consideration the apparent cynicism and bitter arguments that surrounded The Omega Workshop and the 1913 Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition, this show at Chelsea Space focuses not only on the optimistic vision of a harmonious life through art and design but also looks at the flipside through artworks which are dysfunctional, often darkly humorous critiques of modern life. From Gerrit Rietveld’s De Stijl Red and Blue Chair to Gavin Turk’s Egg Seat – a Philippe Starck perspex ‘Ghost Chair’ with an egg shaped hole cut in the seat and a plastic bucket beneath, this exhibition gives us a view somewhere between domestic bliss and a living hell.
www.chelseaspace.org |
Be Amish Bottles 2011
8 Bouteilles de Be Amish, dimensions variables |
BE AMISH 2011
Installation, brasserie artisanale
Terminal Convention, Cork International Airport, Ireland
Photographies Mike Hannon
(…)Le travail reflète les nombreux changements et les défis économiques que la région a subi récemment. Guyot réinvente ce qui avait été le bar dans la salle d’embarquement de l’aéroport, un espace qui conservait une ambiance de bar d’aéroport bien que dépouillé de son mobilier et de fonctionnalités. Le site est transformé en une ‘homemade’ brasserie, où elle a re-créé sa propre bière, la ‘Be Amish’. Une forte odeur de houblon et une vision espiègle du travail mettent ici en question les notions d’authenticité et d’appartenance.
Le projet est de reproduire la ‘Beamish’ originale qui a été brassée à Cork pendant plus de 200 ans jusqu’à ce que la ‘Beamish and Crawford Brewery’ soit vendue à Heineken en mars 2009, ces derniers ayant déplacé la production et licencié 120 employés.
Guyot est intriguée par le slogan Beamish, «Beamish Be Irish». Elle cherche à interroger la nature de l’appartenance et la façon dont les gens de Cork s’identifient à leur ville. Le titre de la nouvelle bière est devenu ‘Be Amish’, un jeu de mots soignée sur la propriété culturelle, l’identité de la bière et sur l’une des croyances fondamentales Amish, «Ne vous conformez pas à ce monde autour de vous». Afin de recréer la Beamish, Guyot appelle à l’expertise des anciens travailleurs, la création d’un réseau d’informateurs qui lui ont donné la formule et les ingrédients pour brasser la parfaite Beamish. Le projet a agi comme un geste poétique de réappropriation, de retour de la bière d’origine de ceux qui l’avaient produite pendant tant d’années.
Peter Merrington, in Canned issue 01
I tasted Beamish Stout for the first time in Cork (Ireland). I learnt that Beamish has been manufactured for over 200 years and in March 2009, Beamish and Crawford Brewery bought by Heineken closed its doors, leaving 120 employees without jobs.
I looked closely at cans on which one can always read the slogan: ‘Beamish Be Irish’. I am interested that an international firm claims the local taste to sell their products. For sure, Heineken had ‘promised’ never to relocate or restructure the Beamish Brewery. A public statement listing how much the closure of the site was’ the most painful decision ‘but’ it was not viable to maintain two breweries, and this despite the record profits of the firm. This is not about numbers but words. I decided to dive into this fight, using language as a weapon.
Because Beamish have been cut in half, I decide to cut the logo, which is the visible part of the Brewery.
I split «Beamish» for «BeAmish». A pun, which brings up the ‘Be’, being, belonging.
The Amish first rule is: «Thou shalt not conform to this world around you». All the ingredients for the division gathered to create a beverage metaphor. Also, because the Amish do not drink alcohol, it is obvious that this is the question of the revolt that is evoked, not the rules of life.
With some of the ex-employees of the Beamish Brewery, we re-did Beamish’s recipe. Thanks to the expertise of its former workers, we were able to produce in a artisanal way, the «Be Amish».
Peter Merrington, in Canned issue 01 |
BE AMISH 2011
Installation, brasserie artisanale
Terminal Convention, Cork International Airport, Ireland
Photographies Mike Hannon |
