communication specialist & design lover. passionate about chairs, germany, social media, espresso, italo disco and 1930s architecture, to name but a few.
Maarten Van Severen is undoubtedly one of the greatest designers Belgium ever had. Last Saturday, there was a little tour in his honour organised by www.designmarkt.be. Here are some pictures. All of these designs are still in production, most of them (tables, cupboards & chairs) are made by aiki, some chairs by Vitra, the leather lounge chair by Pastoe and the lighting by Light.
It was an interesting Saturday afternoon at the Le Grand Hornu museum. There are 2 expositions running at this moment.
The first one is called Le fabuleux destin du Quotidien and focuses on the relation and touchpoints between art and design. There were contributions by Wim Delvoye, Marti Guixe and the reinterpreted cupboards of up-and-coming artist Hannes Van Severen.
The best work in my opinion was a movie by Fischli & Weiss called Der Lauf der Dinge. It is a 30-minute movie that consists of nothing but an experimental perpetuum mobile. The set-up of the experiments alone must have been huge. It fascinated me in the same way that boys-and-science-experiments books did when I was a child. Here's an excerpt:
Second was an expo on the work of Belgian furniture designers Nicolas Bovesse and Marina Bautier. Especially Bautier's work struck me as simple but very thought-trough. It looks very honest, practical and beautiful at the same time (unlike 80% of the novelties at Milan's furniture fair). The accompanying booklet shows some insights in Bautier's work method. The fact that she sometimes puts ideas in the closet for 2 years to allow them to mature is an example for a lot of designers. Sadly and strangely enough, her work is almost impossible to buy in Belgium. Anyway: here are some pictures.
