calendario eventi  :: 

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26/4/2013

Four exhibitions

Museum fur Angewandte Kunst, Frankfurt

27 April—25 August 2013

Korea Power
Design and Identity

curated by Klaus Klemp and Hehn-Chu Ahn

Power – Design and Identity

South Korea has yet to consolidate its place on the international design map, but this may be about to change. Particularly in the West, Korea is still stuck with the label of design copycat, and the protracted lawsuit between Apple and Samsung, which was resolved in 2012, would certainly seem to lend credence to this image. But the country has for a long time been on track to become not only one of the leading industrial nations but also a re- gion of cultural importance seeking product solutions for tomorrow’s world. Since the turn of the millennium concerted efforts have been made to create the necessary structural and financial conditions for the development of innovative design. In this critical and exciting phase of Korea’s still young design history, interpretative processes are clearly taking place on a number of levels. Culturally speaking these processes – the individual and the societal, the private and the institutional – feed on mental, material, and social phenomena, and their impact is felt in the world of design. This is part of a mechanism whose significance reaches far beyond the borders of South Korea. Globalization has advanced apace and this phenomenon, in conjunction with a growing tendency towards the delocalized and uni- form façades of the neoliberal economic model, has meant that the search for identity and self-positioning has become a major concern for designers.

The Korea Power exhibition and the accompanying catalogue examine the paths that South Korea is taking and the reasons why it may establish itself as one of the most dynam- ic and diversified centers for design in the East Asian world. We have sought the opinions of numerous Koreans engaged in the teaching or practice of design. Their voices can now be heard for the first time in both English and German in a comprehensive publication on Korean design. Their contributions have been grouped under four main headings: product design, design positions, handicraft, and communication design.

Product Design

In retrospect, South Korea’s industrialization during the second half of the twentieth century can be viewed as a success and today serves as a model for many emerging nations. The essay by Lee Soon-Jong of Seoul National University’s College of Fine Arts provides an over- view of the historical development of Korean industrial and product design since the 1960s. It clearly shows that the export-oriented economic policies pursued by former president Park Chung-Hee and the founding of Korea’s now well-known corporations, the jaebeol, played a decisive role in South Korea’s economic advancement. Shin Kim, the former editor-in-chief of the design magazine Monthly Design and deputy director of the Daelim Museum, dis- cusses the economic evolution and design developments that have taken place in Korea, es- pecially within the electronics and automobile industries as well as in living design. But South Korea’s industrial success story has also had its downside. Amidst the rapid modernization and the general mood of optimism in the country, there was little time for an approach that applies today more than ever.

Design Positions

In the second section of this catalogue we hear from professional designers who come from Korea or work for Korean companies. Kim YoungSe, the founder of INNO Design, is part of the first generation of Korean product designers, and has offices in the United States and South Korea. He talks about the beginnings of his career, his experience in the field, and his current project at the National Museum of Korea. There are also interviews with Lee Kun Pyo, the head of the Corporate Design Center and executive vice-president of LG Electron- ics in Seoul, and with Peter Schreyer, Kia-Hyundai Group’s chief designer and, since late 2012, one of their three presidents – a career leap that has drawn considerable attention as Peter Schreyer is the first foreigner and the first designer to hold an executive position in a Korean automobile group.

Handicraft

In the course of Korea’s modernization process, little attention was paid to the country’s own cultural heritage. There were very few places left where the traditional Korean lifestyle was maintained and in Seoul, in particular, the old customs had all but vanished from ev- eryday life. It is primarily thanks to private initiatives that there has been a revival of interest in old Korean traditions like hanok houses and classical furniture, and the traditional way of life is currently experiencing a true renaissance in Korea. By way of example, the Korea Power exhibition and the present catalogue includes a specific, representative project car- ried out by the Arumjigi Culture Keepers Foundation, which has distinguished itself in its efforts to “translate” the country’s old craft traditions and make them a practical part of daily life in modern Korean society. What is particularly interesting here – and this might provide food for thought for craft activities in Europe and North America – is that Korean craftwork must always be useful and not just simply beautiful. For us this requirement still sounds like classic modernism, and in this part of the world it all too often gives way to the production of ersatz art. Stephan von der Schulenberg examines this idea of usefulness – a concept that may be said to have stood the test of time – in some detail. In his essay he also shows how aesthetic practices can be involved in constructing an identity. The essential idea of the usability of objects is revisited by Kim Hongnam, the former director of the Na- tional Museum of Korea, in her report on her hanok house in Seoul.

Communication Design

In the final section Ahn Hehn-Chu uses various media – such as posters, commercial pho- tography, and educational cartoons – to present some of the material, defining elements that are classified as typically Korean. The catalogue offers an in-depth view of the work of the Korean photographer Kim Han-Yong (b. 1924), who was one of the most important commercial photographers in Korea from the 1950s to the 1980s, and succeeded in por- traying the Americanization of the country in a highly original and creative manner. Kim was incredibly generous in making his extensive archive available to us – it is one of the treasures of Korea’s design history. The concluding essay by Choi Kyungran, the director of the Oriental Culture and Design Center (OCDC) at Kookmin University, outlines the most important characteristics of Korean design, focusing in particular on its unique potential and the similarities to and differences from that of its Asian neighbors.

Design in the Twenty-First Century

Although they are presented in rather less detail, areas like fashion, popular culture, public design, and transportation design are also touched upon in the exhibition and catalogue, the intention of which is to be something other than a more or less complete inventory of Korean design achievements. What concerns us – beyond Korean design – is the question of what the future holds for our world of products and communication. It is a matter of what needs to be considered today for the sake of tomorrow.

The industrialization that took place in Europe and American in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries generated a host of consumer goods, which, according to the theories of economic growth, needed to be produced in ever greater numbers and with ever shorter lifecycles. It seemed that this was the only way to create prosperity for everyone. Postmod- ernism and neoliberalism further intensified this trend after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc. Now we are faced with a completely new situation, one in which a primary goal might just be the reduction of production numbers rather than, as in the past, the continual pur- suit of higher levels of production. The world, however, does not only consist of the G8 states; the so-called emerging economies, or BRICS countries (Brazil, ­Russia, India, China, and South Africa), make up 40 percent of the world’s population, some three billion peo- ple. Our resource management plans would still be untenable even if, in the future, only 20 percent of the population were to have sufficient means to consume in the way that we do. The concept of “the end of growth” was put forward at the end of the 1960s, when demands were made for a rethinking of our relationship with our resources. For example, the Club of Rome, founded in 1968, produced its study The Limits to Growth in 1972. This report was the first to provide empirical evidence to show that our existing resources are finite, and sooner or later we will need a new way of thinking. But so far little has changed – we instead develop new ways of exploiting our planet.

The debate about contemporary design began with Gottfried Semper in around 1850, when an attempt was made to define appropriate industrial design criteria. A long-running discussion of functionalism was followed by postmodernism, which in the late 1970s start- ed to call into question the history of design and the levels of semantic meaning within it. Today, functionality and utility are still considered de rigueur. Only time will tell the extent to which this process of reversion is superseded by a broader sense of identity. The regional qualities of a product may become important elements in providing a sense of orientation, as long as they meet the requisite global standards. In the future, a “Korean” kettle or a “Korean” mobile phone will also have worldwide appeal if the product has a high degree of utility, long-term visual durability, and a lasting quality of workmanship. Indeed, products that quickly end up in the trash will not have a future.

In a world where resources are limited and subject to growing competition, the issue of good or proper design will throw up a different set of questions from those we have hitherto faced. Design thus has a completely new remit: it must ensure that individuals consume not more but less. This brings to mind Dieter Rams’s maxim: “Less, but better.” What a challenge for every designer, engineer, and executive!

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27 April—20 October 2013

Design made in Frankfurt, 1925-1985
Das Frankfurter Zimmer

Curated by Klaus Klemp

Frankfurt looks back on a distinguished design tradition, which has consistently focussed on functionality and tended towards a rigorous aesthetic. The Frankfurt Room will form the prelude to an exhibition series that investigates the productive design tradition of the metropolis on the Main and sheds light on the unique "Frankfurt design spirit" shaped by such figures as Ferdinand Kramer or Dieter Rams, head of design at Braun. Throughout its duration the exhibition will be in a state of flux, drawing on a multitude of examples to illuminate ever-different aspects and presenting a new protagonist of the "Frankfurt design spirit" every half year.

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27 April—27 October 2013

Bursting with Life
Ukiyo-e from the Collections of Johann Georg Geyger and Otto Riese

Curated by Stephan von der Schulenburg

Garishly made-up stars of the stage, delicate beauties in tea houses, sublime landscapes along the major trade routes—the ukiyo-e woodcuts present a fascinating mirror image of life in seventeenth- to nineteenth-century Japan. With the rare early ukiyo-e prints from the holdings of Johann Georg Geyger and the recently acquired 180 masterworks of the Otto Riese collection, the Museum Angewandte Kunst today has in its possession one of the most sumptuous collections of this great Japanese art form in Europe.

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27 April 2013—27 April 2014
1607: From the Early Days of Globalization

Curated by Svetlana Jaremitsch and Matthias Wagner K.

With more than 200 objects, the era from the end of the sixteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century will be reconstructed and presented as an imaginary journey through space and time, linking history and fantasy. Objects from widely different regions—Ming Dynasty porcelain, ceremonial glasses from Venice, Persian wine bottles and much more—will here be united, their stories elicited from them, and the globalization of our world around the year 1607 brought to life.

Image: Seoul, späte 1950er Jahre, Foto: Kim Han Yong

Press contact
Dorothee Maas and Sabine Huth Tel +49 69 21232828 / 33232 Fax +49 69 21230703 presse.angewandte-kunst@stadt-frankfurt.de

Museum Angewandte Kunst
Schaumainkai 17 - 60594 Frankfurt am Main
9 Euro, 4,50 Euro

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