Design & the Wondrous - On the Nature of Ornament 12 November 2020 - 28 February 2021 Shanghai - Centre Pompidou
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Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project
Press kit
Communication
Design & the Wondrous
and digital department On the Nature of Ornament
centrepompidou.fr
westbundmuseum.com
12 November 2020 – 28 February 2021
Shanghai
Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project
Design & the Wondrous
On the Nature of Ornament
12 November 2020 – 28 February 2021
Shanghai
Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum
Gallery 3
Press kit Content
Direction de la communication
et du numérique
Communication
centrepompidou.fr
and digital department
About the exhibition p. 3
75191 Paris cedex 04
Director The exhibition layout p. 4 to 18
Agnès Benayer Nature as Ornament p. 5 to 7
T. 00 33 (0)1 44 78 12 87
agnes.benayer@centrepompidou.fr Fractals p. 8 to 10
Press officer Arabesques p. 11 to 12
Timothée Nicot
T. 00 33 (0)1 44 78 45 79 The Ornament and the Digital p. 13 to 14
timothee.nicot@centrepompidou.fr
Design and the Wondrous p. 15 to 16
centrepompidou.fr Cabinet of Curiosities p. 17 to 18
westbundmuseum.com
#ExpoDesignWondrous Designers exhibited p. 19
#CentrePompidouWestBundMuseum
Practical information p. 20
List of exhibited artworks Appendix
Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project
Design & the Wondrous
On the Nature of Ornament
12 November 2020 – 28 February 2021
Shanghai
Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum
Gallery 3
Second temporary exhibition presented at the Centre Pompidou x At the heart of the exhibition, design objects interact with
West Bund Museum Project from 12 November 2020 to 28 February photographs of plants and other artefacts, evoking the “cabinets
2021, “Design and the Wondrous” questions current adornment of curiosities” of the 16th and 17th centuries, in which natural,
and how it relates to new digital logics for designing and producing scientific and artistic objects interacted. This scenographic aside
design items. With a wealth of formal and technological enables the deployment of a universe of unprecedented
experimentation, the exhibition is situated between a scientific correspondences between different periods and different
“marvellous” bordering on the imaginary, and the exploration of mediums.
morphologies for objects whose materials and innovative
techniques open out to a future that is connected to nature and the
living world.
The exhibition thus presents more than a hundred design objects,
essentially from the Centre Pompidou collection. Characterised by Curators
a strong cultural dialogue between China and France, the exhibition Marie Ange Brayer, Head of the design and industrial prospective
brings together and for the first time also places Centre Pompidou department and Olivier Zeitoun, Assistant curator,
works in resonance with those of contemporary Chinese designers, Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris
some of which were produced specifically for the exhibition.
With the support of
The concept of adornment is situated at the intersection between
art and craft and the digital technologies that are questioned by
Exhibition Design & the Wondrous Press kit
all these creators, between tradition and modernity. Ranging from
the representation of natural forms to the recreation of biological
growth processes using digital tools, “Design and the Wondrous”
recounts a history of design, between the vegetal and the
ornamental, which questions the metamorphic dimension of
adornment, whose role is explored in terms of morphogenesis
in which the object never ceases to be transformed through a
dynamic of evolving forms. Traditional manufacturing techniques Ron Arad, Lovely Rita bookshelf
are currently being hybridized with digital tools that give rise to 1996
Flexible structure, PVC dyed in the mass (tea yellow)
new aesthetic and industrial issues. The ornamental complexity
20 x 100 x 20 cm, 2,7 kg
of design objects is now made possible thanks to new simulation Donation Kartell, 2007
software and digitally controlled machines that enable the Centre Pompidou Collection, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris
recreation of nature’s growth generating processes. Nature’s © Ron Arad & Associates Ltd
generative dimension has endowed adornment with a new Photo © Bertrand Prévost - Centre Pompidou,
structural role in all of these creations. MNAM-CCI / Dist. RMN-GP
3
Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project
The exhibition layout
Gallery 3
9 10 11 19 20
17
12
18
16
14
21
23
22
1
15 6
5
7
13 3
4 2
8
Highlight on a few pieces Focus sur quelques pièces
Nature as Ornament The Ornament and the Digital
1 — Andrea Branzi, Tree 5 — 2010 15 —Patrick Jouin, Solid C2 Chair — 2004
2 — Andrea Branzi, Foglia Lamp — 2010 16 —Ross Lovegrove, The Ginkgo Carbon Table — 2007
3 — Chen Min, Hangzhou Stool — 2013 17 —Zhang Zhoujie, Object #SQN1-F2A — 2009
4 — Joseph Walsh, Enignum XV Shelf — 2014
5 — YMER&MALTA and Benjamin Graindorge,
5 — Fallen Tree Bench — 2013 Design and the Wondrous
6 — Ma Yansong (MAD Architects), GU Chair — 2018 18 — Michael Hansmeyer, Benjamin Dillenburger
Exhibition Design & the Wondrous Press kit
18 — Digital Grotesque - Grotto II — 2017
Fractals 19 — Marcel Wanders, Bon Bon Chair — 2010
20 — Marcel Wanders, Knotted Chair — 1996
7 — David Trubridge, Sola Lamp — 2010
8 — Neri Oxman, Stalasso — 2010
9 — Neri Oxman, “Medusa 1” Head Series — 2012 Cabinet of Curiosities
10 — Neri Oxman, “Remora“ Pelvic Series — 2012 21 — Studio Klarenbeek and Dros / Atelier Luma-Luma Arles,
11 — Neri Oxman, “Doppelgänger“ Wing Series — 2012 21 — Algae Lab — 2018
22 — Marcel Wanders, Knotted Chair — 1996
Arabesques 23 — Francis Bitonti, Molecule shoes — 2014
24 — Matthew Plummer Fernandezi, Digital Natives 1L — 2012
12 — Lin Fanglu, She’s Stone — 2020
13 — Ron Arad, Voïdo Rocking Chair — 2006
14 — François Azambourg, Lampe à poser Bouclette — 2009
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Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project
Nature as Ornament
After the apotheosis of vegetal ornament and the stylization of
natural forms with the circumvolutions of Art Nouveau and
Jugendstil at the end of the 19th century and the dawn of the 20th
century, ornament was notoriously incriminated in Europe by Adolf
Loos in 1908. The Modern architect and influential Austrian theorist
advocated then smooth and clear surfaces in contrast to the lavish
decorations, whereas new technology rendered old styles obsolete.
Nonetheless, the German Werkbund (German Association of
Craftsmen established in 1907) “offered the possibility of an
afterlife for ornament in the modern milieu by resituating
decorative artifacts within the domain of nature” (Spyros
Papapetros). In his book The Conversion of Form in the Twentieth
Century (1926), Ernst Kropp would go on to use natural specimens
as examples for the design of contemporary ornament.
Nature itself became present in the field of design in the
mid-1980s, with a “neo-primitivism” approach in pieces made of
natural, untransformed materials. Some designers focused on
nature’s power of metamorphosis inserting the design piece into a
natural growth process. Here natural material is both an
ornamental motif and a structure, from Chen Min bamboo
Hangzhou Stool and Joseph Walsh’s olive ash Enignum XV Shelf
that evolves between design, sculpture, crafts and industry, to the
Fallen Tree Bench by Benjamin Graindorge. Designers and
architects question the relationships between nature and processes
of industrial production. In this context, Tree 5 (2010) by Andrea
Branzi nurtures a dialogue between nature and culture,
craftsmanship and industrial technologies. According to MAD
Architects, the organic forms of the GU Chair (2018) are explicit
references to skeletal structures.
1 Andrea Branzi, Tree 5
2010
Birch wood and patinated aluminum
316 x 200 x 27 cm
Exhibition Design & the Wondrous Press kit
Deposit from the Centre Pompidou Foundation (Donation from the
Benda family to the Centre Pompidou Foundation)
Centre Pompidou Collection, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris
© Adagp, Paris, 2020
Photo © Philippe Migeat - Centre Pompidou,
MNAM-CCI / Dist. RMN-GP
5
Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project
2 Andrea Branzi, Foglia Lamp
1988
Andrea Branzi is a major figure of the radical design movement in
Italy. In the early 1980s, he inaugurated a form of “neo-primitivism”
with the « Animali Domestici » collection (1985), experimenting with
craftmanship and industrial production. The electroluminescent
Foglia lamp, shaped like a leaf and supported by a log, echoes the
designer’s thoughts concerning the link between the natural and
industrial worlds. Here, raw and industrial materials cohabitate to
question the origin of form, between nature and artifice.
Acrylic glass, electroluminescent leaf
25 x 45 cm
Donation Strafor, 1999
Centre Pompidou Collection, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris
© Adagp, Paris, 2020
Photo © Jean-Claude Planchet - Centre Pompidou,
MNAM-CCI / Dist. RMN-GP
3 Chen Min, Hangzhou Stool
2013
Trained at a young age in the art of calligraphy, designer
Chen Min thinks of Chinese design as a language full of culture,
history and signs. His Hangzhou Stool is composed of ten
9-millimetre thick curved strips of bamboo, overlapped and joined at
their ends with a stalk of raw bamboo to create the legs of the stool.
This superposition, relying on the natural flexibility and solidity of
the material, creates a comfortable curve that adapts to the weight
it is supporting. Implementing a sustainable and ecological
approach, and entirely handmade, the seat is intended as a homage
to the soft and light atmosphere of his native city of Hangzhou
where it was conceived.
Varnished bamboo
40 x 44 x 57 cm
Courtesy Chen Min Office
Photo © Chen Min Office
4 Joseph Walsh, Enignum XV Shelf
2014
Joseph Walsh is a self-taught designer-artisan and practitioner
of “Slow Design”, who defends a return to nature and small-scale
production. Thus, he advocates slowness, respect for nature and the
Exhibition Design & the Wondrous Press kit
potential of human hands. Walsh works with natural materials and
strives to maximise their potential. The Enignum XV Shelf evolves
between design and sculpture, between craftsmanship and
industry. It draws inspiration for its ornamental forms from English
Arts & Crafts of the late 19th century. Ornamental expansion is the
work itself, which can only be grasped in its dynamic movement.
Olive ash
241 x 377 x 23 cm
Purchase 2015
Centre Pompidou Collection, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris
© Adagp, Paris, 2020
© Georges Meguerditchian - Centre Pompidou,
MNAM-CCI / Dist. RMN-GP
6
Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project
5 YMER&MALTA and Benjamin Graindorge, Fallen Tree Bench
2013
With Fallen Tree Bench, YMER&MALTA and Benjamin Graindorge
reveal the DNA of wood, its deep nature and the living fibre that
composes it. The designers also question the system of production
and transformation of wood with industrial tools. At one end of the
bench, the seat is ramified into natural branches that appear as
both structure and ornament. On the other end, the bench leans on
a borosilicate glass paving stone whose properties are three times
more resistant than ordinary glass. This poetic work of the Fallen
Tree Bench creates the dreamlike illusion of being out of balance.
The bench seems to float in space, between nature and technology.
Carved oak and borosilicate glass base, solid natural oak finish
103 x 260 x 130 cm
Purchase thanks to the support of the group for Design of the
Société des Amis du Centre Pompidou, 2017
Centre Pompidou Collection, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris
© All Rights Reserved
Photo © Philippe Migeat - Centre Pompidou,
MNAM-CCI / Dist. RMN-GP
6 Ma Yansong (MAD Architects), GU Chair
2018
Ma Yansong founded the MAD Architects firm in 2004 and was later
joined by two partners, Yosuke Hayano and Dang Qun. The organic
look of the firm’s architectural projects can also be seen in design
pieces like the GU Chair, which evokes a human skeleton: each
surface of the chair is organically cemented with the others, as if
they were acting as a living organism. The curves of the GU Chair
were designed to adjust to those of the human body and to merge
with the person sitting in them. Ma Yansong draws inspiration from
traditional Chinese armchairs whose simplicity he borrows to create
this contemporary reinterpretation, a solid wood chair with light and
delicate curves.
Solid wood
76 x 54 x 57 cm
Courtesy of the manufacturer SAWAYA & MORONI, Milano, Italy
and MAD Architects
Photo © Sawaya & Moroni, Milano, Italy
Exhibition Design & the Wondrous Press kit
7
Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project
Fractals
Thanks to the formal multiplicity it offers and its fascinating employs design principles inspired by these processes of the living
capacities for metamorphosis, nature remains an inexhaustible through fractal prismatic structures to augment the relationship
source likely to dynamize every vocabulary according to trends or between built, natural, and biological environments. A protagonist
necessities. Praised as a “treasury” for ornamental designs, fractals of eco-design, David Trubridge assembles elements that form the
are all around us: seashells with intricate spiral patterns observed ornamental structure of his kit-set objects. For Nendo, research on
by German biologist Ernst Haeckel’s in his well-known Art Forms of geometric forms and the void has given rise to ornamental motifs.
Nature (1904), snowflakes, coastlines, Romanesco cauliflower. For all these experimentations carried out between design and
They all exhibit similar patterns at increasingly small scales. At the architecture, ornament is derived from patterns found in nature,
juncture between computer sciences and biology, Neri Oxman whether visible or not to the naked eye.
7 David Trubridge, Sola Lamp David Trubridge, Lampe Sola
Exhibition Design & the Wondrous Press kit
2010 2010
An ambassador of eco-design, David Trubridge travels the world Pine plywood and aluminum rivet
to gain inspiration from the diversity of its cultures. For the Coral, Diam.130 cm
Floral, Kina, Koura, Hinaki and Sola lamps, he uses bamboo. Purchase, 2017
The designs are based on simple assemblages and his light fixtures Centre Pompidou Collection, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris
packaged in kits are aimed at reducing the carbon footprint of © David Trubridge
transport. The designer works “within the limits of what he Photo © Georges Meguerditchian - Centre Pompidou,
possesses and what he knows, with simplicity, by reducing its MNAM-CCI / Dist. RMN-GP
impact as much as possible, based on materials and according to
natural processes. The finishing on the Sola Lamp is achieved with
natural biological oils and the rivets holding it together are made of
nylon.
8
Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project
8 Neri Oxman, Stalasso (experience of forming prismatic
structures)
2010
Stalasso, produced in collaboration with Craig Carter, professor
at MIT, experiments with the mutation of mineralisation processes
of rocky formations leading to the creation of chemical elements
such as gold. Between life sciences and digital technologies,
this ornamental system is based on the Fibonacci motif
(mathematical algorithm). Like an artificial skin, which acts as both
a structural wall and as a partition modulated by the environment,
this work shows how the form of the air passing through cellular
elements can be controlled to produce specific effects.
Acrylic, urethane and polyurethane (composite thermoplastic resins)
67,5 x 131,5 x 3,6 cm
Donation of the artist with the assistance of Prof. Craig Carter and
the Museum of Science (Boston), 2011
Centre Pompidou Collection, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris
© Neri Oxman
Photo © Philippe Migeat - Centre Pompidou,
MNAM-CCI / Dist. RMN-GP
9 Neri Oxman, “Medusa 1” Head Series
2012
From the series “Imaginary Beings: Mythologies of the Not Yet”
The research conducted by the designer and scientist Neri Oxman
is focused on the evolution of our environment and applies
biological principles to the world of technology. “Medusa 1” Head
Series is part of a series of 18 sculptures inspired by writer J.L
Borges’ “chimeric creatures”. Neri Oxman imagined morphological
variations based on the Greek myth of the Gorgon, symbol
protecting against the evil eye. She used a generative system of
forms combining perforation, undulation and folding. The coloration
of these pieces produced by 3D printing, respond to warning and
camouflage colours in the animal and plant world.
Multi-materials object, 3D printing, Connex500
30 x 28 x 21 cm
Purchase 2015
Centre Pompidou Collection, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris
© Neri Oxman
Photo © Philippe Migeat - Centre Pompidou,
MNAM-CCI / Dist. RMN-GP
Exhibition Design & the Wondrous Press kit
9
Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project
10 Neri Oxman, “Remora“ Pelvic Series
2012
From the series “Imaginary Beings: Mythologies of the Not Yet”
From J.L Borges chimeras, Neri Oxman imagines biology enhanced
by technology, which would enable humans to acquire augmented
abilities such as under-water respiration. With her engineering
colleagues, W. Craig Carter and Joe Hicklin, Neri Oxman created
“Remora” Pelvic Series using a multi-material 3D printing process.
A reference to the legend of the eponymous ship, so robust it erases
any trace of humans on the seas, this piece takes the form of a
human pelvic bone with its various cavities.
Multi-materials object, 3D printing, Connex500
19,5 x 21 x 25 cm
Achat 2015
Purchase 2015
Centre Pompidou Collection, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris
© Neri Oxman
Photo © Philippe Migeat - Centre Pompidou,
MNAM-CCI /Dist. RMN-GP
11 Neri Oxman, “Doppelgänger“ Wing Series
2012
From the series “Imaginary Beings: Mythologies of the Not Yet”
Neri Oxman envisaged a new form of ecology blending living
organisms and artificial life. “Doppelgänger” Wing Series explores
the notion of the double, the designer calls upon both human and
animal, nature and myth. Employing digitally created faceting
techniques, she designs an optical illusion: the facets are white
when viewed from above, and black from below. Applied to
construction, her research enables buildings to absorb or to
maintain light.
Multi-materials object, 3D printing, Connex500
48 x 40 x 27 cm
Purchase, 2015
Centre Pompidou Collection, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris
© Neri Oxman
Exhibition Design & the Wondrous Press kit
Photo © Philippe Migeat - Centre Pompidou,
MNAM-CCI / Dist. RMN-GP
10Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project
Arabesques
Criss-crossing various territories and mixing nature and industry, In pieces exhibited here, interplays of curves and counter-curves
the arabesque is an ornamental motif inspired by nature. It is found make any centrality disappear (Ron Arad), can inflect in exuberant
as much in Islamic as in medieval art, in Rococo style as in the interlacing (Fernando and Humberto Campana) or develop in an
complex interlacing of Art Nouveau at the turn of the 19th and 20th infinite expansion movement inspired by the imprecise growth
centuries. These lines and curves inherited from vegetal tendrils or phenomena of nature (François Azambourg). Finally, the Chinese
mathematical arabesques were, in the 1990s, the ornaments designer and artist Fanglu Lin stretches boundaries of ornamental
reproduced in the earliest experiments of panels cut by the experimentations through her practice of textiles with her She’s
computer assisted machines of Objectile (Bernard Cache and Stone installation that tangles motifs in a dense and organic
Patrick Beaucé). structure.
12 Lin Fanglu, She’s Stone DFanglu Lin, She’s Stone
2020 2020
Exhibition Design & the Wondrous Press kit
Through her practice of textiles, artist and designer Lin Fanglu is Cotton fabric, cotton yarn, wood
particularly interested in the folk traditions and costumes of ethnic 350 x 620 x 60 cm
Chinese minorities. Her research on dying and embroidery brought Courtesy of the artist and Art+ Shanghai Gallery
her into contact with women from the Bai community in the Chinese Photo © All Rights Reserved
province of Yunnan. Her onsite immersion enabled her to make the
She’s Stone installation, a dense, organic assembly that can be
adapted to the architecture in which it is housed. The fabric is
knotted and sewn in clusters in a profusion of intertwining forms
mimicking a movement of organic growth. The designer develops
her slow and complex fabrication process into different forms – wall
pieces, installations and armchairs – poetically evoking the
strangeness of the passage of time.
11Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project
13 Ron Arad, Voïdo Rocking Chair
2006
The curve defines Israeli designer Ron Arad’s formal vocabulary and
characterises the futuristic silhouette of the furniture he designs.
He is constantly experimenting with properties of the materials he
uses to obtain innovative aesthetic effects. His Voïdo Rocking Chair
is made of a single block of polyethylene which is moulded by a
rotating system. This technology enables him to create plastic forms
in large dimensions, ranging from the simplest to the most complex.
Thus, the interplay of void and solid of the hollowed-out forms and
dynamic curves of the Voïdo Rocking Chair give this object a
powerful sculptural aspect while also ensuring its ergonomics.
Polyethylene
78 x 58 x 114 cm
Donation Magis, 2009
Centre Pompidou Collection, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris
© Ron Arad & Associates Ltd
Photo © Georges Meguerditchian - Centre Pompidou,
MNAM-CCI / Dist. RMN-GP
14 François Azambourg, Lampe à poser Bouclette
2009
François Azambourg, exploring the technical possibilities of optical
fibre, created a lamp composed of 25 lateral emission optical fibres
illuminated by diodes supplied by a transformer. This impressionist
lamp plays with the effects of light and, in the spirit of the economy
of processes dear to the designer, functions both as shade and as a
lighting element. The designer experiments with a new way of
sculpting light and space thanks to the expressive potential of
forming materials. The form disappears in an ornamental interlacing
that blurs all spatial limits.
Optical fiber, leds, metal
50 x 40 x 40 cm
Purchase, 2009
Centre Pompidou Collection, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris
© François Azambourg
Photo © Georges Meguerditchian - Centre Pompidou,
MNAM-CCI /Dist. RMN-GP
Exhibition Design & the Wondrous Press kit
12Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project
The Ornament and the Digital
Starting in the 2000s, the use of digital technologies by a new
generation of designers and its state-of-the-art investigations in
the cutting-edge technology has given a new dimension to
ornament. The first designers working on objects printed in 3D,
Patrick Jouin and François Brument, built on the possibilities
offered by these new technologies. In 2004, Jouin used CAD
(computer-assisted design) to print his Solid C2 Chair in SLA
(Selective Laser Activation), layer by layer, without any assembly
or molding. Inspired by long stems of grass leaning in all directions
and all mixed up together, the Solid C2 Chair was the first piece of
furniture made by 3D printing. A pioneer in the use of digital tools,
the British designer Ross Lovegrove calls on the most cutting-edge
technologies to design plenty of pieces whose ornamental forms
take their inspiration from the growth processes of the living. In a
search for harmony between man and digital advance, Zhang
Zhoujie uses three-dimensional modelling and digital technologies
to create a series of faceted metallic chair. The surprising character
of objects created by machines (3D printers, etc.) and complex
automated processes allows designers to free themselves from
standards and norms, possibly to search for deformity –
overlapping nature and its imperfections and variations from the
norm. Furthermore, their perfectly executed original creations
based on industrial excellence or manufacturing, and in some case
a combination of traditional craft and industrial processes, also
provide technical wonder. The Dutch collective Demakersvan used
drawings of 17th and 18th-century French furniture pieces to make
the Cinderella Table and reveal a marvellous past through the use
of digital data. Unlike industrial design, which results from a
mechanical process that induces a standardized production, digital
design allows to create singular objects, where ornament is at the
cross-point of matter and digital design.
15 Patrick Jouin, Solid C2 Chair
2004
Patrick Jouin creates on every scale, object design, interior design,
public space and set design. Fascinated by new digital technologies
and rapid prototyping, he created the Solid C2 Chair with 3D
Exhibition Design & the Wondrous Press kit
printing. The first piece of furniture made utilising this technique,
it was designed with CAD (computer-assisted design) then produced
via SLA (Selective Laser Activation), which, layer by layer gives it a
physical dimension without assembly or moulding. The structure
and aesthetics of the Solid C2 Chair are inspired by plants growing
in space.
Epoxy resin polymerized by stereolithography
77 x 40 x 54 cm
Donation MGX by Materialise, 2010
Centre Pompidou Collection, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris
© Agence Patrick Jouin ID
Photo © Georges Meguerditchian - Centre Pompidou,
MNAM-CCI / Dist. RMN-GP
13Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project
16 Ross Lovegrove, The Ginkgo Carbon Table
2007
Ross Lovegrove is a pioneer in his evolutionary approach to design.
Made using aeronautics technologies, the Ginkgo Carbon Table,
made of carbon fibre, is associated with other varieties of
crystallised carbon in order to obtain a surface similar to an
epidermis. The table is the result of a process involving the
deformation of a single surface, according to natural growth
processes; the three petals fold in its centre, the core where
stresses converge. Its shiny surface gives it the look of a natural,
living organism, in reference to the ginkgo biloba, the oldest known
species of tree.
Carbon fiber
Diam. 72 cm x 126 cm
Purchase, 2014
Centre Pompidou Collection, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris
© Ross Lovegrove
Photo © Georges Meguerditchian - Centre Pompidou,
MNAM-CCI / Dist. RMN-GP
17 Zhang Zhoujie, Object #SQN1-F2A
2009
Zhang Zhoujie is interested in the possibilities new technologies
afford to the world of design, through the exploration of fractals.
He used a three-dimensional modelling application to create the
OBJECT#SQN1-F2A chair, made of stainless steel and composed of
triangular, light-reflecting facets, each one with a unique shape and
size fixed together by hand. The designer bases his approach on the
incredible diversity of life forms and the many possibilities offered by
digital technologies and artificial intelligence. The fabrication of this
series relies on random calculations to renew the design of the
chairs, whose forms can be infinitely varied with the idea of mass
production integrating variations programmed to be sensitive to
ornamental motifs.
Stainless steel, polished mirror
78 x 55 x 59 cm
Courtesy Zhang Zhoujie Digital Lab
Photo © All Rights Reserved
Exhibition Design & the Wondrous Press kit
14Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project
Design and the Wondrous
In the 1990s, an iconoclastic approach and a conceptual design
emerged in the wake of Droog Design and Marcel Wanders in the
Netherlands, reversing in the design field “the ordinary course of
things” in a “wondrous” way (to recall this ancient and medieval
literary genre borrowing supernatural). This was pursued, not to
slip into extravagance but to seek new proposals combining
narrative and storytelling approaches. Thus, in line with the
industrial modernity considering interior as an interiority protected
from the outside world by decoration and furniture, Marcel
Wanders revives the totalizing dimension of the decorative by
creating his Virtual Interiors, a series of films which resonates like
a disturbing triumph of the decorative and fantasy: in these
fictional and imaginary places devoid of any human presence,
the lushness of the motifs echoes the hyperbolic interplay of scales.
The wondrous stems here from the abundance of ornament
displayed in these interiors, conveying the « uncanniness » of the
objects. Between ornamental exuberance and the wondrous,
Michael Hansmeyer and Benjamin Dillenburger make references to
the grottos of the Renaissance in Grotto II. In this piece, nature and
artifice blend by means of rocks and grotesques to such an extent
that the ornamentation has absorbed the geometric order of the
architecture to blend with that of nature. In our deeply rationalized
society, parametric design and experimentation in 3D printing offer
an opportunity to liberate the language of design from the
straightjacket of functionalism, to gain distance from the norm and
from the already seen and done, and to integrate the irrational to
conduct and/or develop hybridizations against nature, to explore
how wondrous ornaments can emerge from the ordinary.
18 Michael Hansmeyer, Benjamin Dillenburger
Digital Grotesque - Grotto II
2017
The two architects produced Grotto II (2015-2016) in a reference to
the Renaissance myth of the grotto as a microcosm of the world.
Evoking grotesques or a baroque chapel, these complex ornamental
forms have been generated by subdivision algorithms, functioning
like an organism’s process of cellular division. Made with a 3D
printer and comprised of some forty blocs, the work is a mesh of 260
million facets whose resolution is calculated down to the tenth of a
millimetre. Here, ornamental profusion blurs the limits between
Exhibition Design & the Wondrous Press kit
nature and architecture, opening to the dimension of the
“wondrous”.
Digital video, colour, sound, 3’46’’
Production Kaufmann & Gehring
The video showcases: Grotto II, 2015–2016
3D printed sandstone, painting
In partnership with Digital Building Technologies, ETH Zurich
Purchase, 2015
Centre Pompidou Collection, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris
Courtesy Michael Hansmeyer, Benjamin Dillenburger
Photo © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI / Dist. RMN-GP
15Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project
19 Marcel Wanders, Bon Bon Chair
2010
Bon Bon Chair is one of Marcel Wanders iconic seats. Crocheted
rope is made into the shape of a chair and strengthened with resin
and precious metals to ensure structural stability. The interior is
visible through crafted motifs that transform the object into an aerial
structure. This ornamentation imbued with fantasy seems to flow
from a process whereby the textile solidifies, enmeshing surface and
structure. Thus, the designer wishes to blur the line between past
and future, the natural and the artificial world, and wild plants and
sculptures.
Polypropylene rope, epoxy resin, precious metal coating
Height 53 cm / Diameter 105 cm
Donation, 2016
Centre Pompidou Collection, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris
© All Rights Reserved
Photo © Georges Meguerditchian - Centre Pompidou,
MNAM-CCI / Dist. RMN-GP
20 Marcel Wanders, Knotted Chair
1996
The Knotted Chair propelled Marcel Wanders to the front and centre
stage on the international scene. The designer reinterprets the
traditional technique of macramé by relying on an innovative
combination of materials. Made without a mould, each chair is
fabricated with carbon fibres surrounded by ropes made of woven
aramid fibre then dipped in epoxy resin. The object brings together
artisanal techniques and cutting-edge materials, between manual
skill and technology. Here, Marcel Wanders is playing with
opposites: tradition and innovation, hard and soft, artisanal and
industrial production, simplicity and cutting-edge technology.
Aramid, carbon, epoxy resin
79 x 55 x 65 cm
Donation Studio Wanders, 2016
Centre Pompidou Collection, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris
© All Rights Reserved
Photo © Georges Meguerditchian - Centre Pompidou,
MNAM-CCI / Dist. RMN-GP
Exhibition Design & the Wondrous Press kit
16Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project
Cabinet of Curiosities
In this “cabinet of curiosities”, design objects dialogue with photographs of plants and other artifacts, in the same way as in 16th-century
European cabinets of curiosities, Mirabilia (objects of wonder) cohabited with Naturalia and Scientifica (natural and scientific objects).
As the bizarre and freaks of nature, dealing with imperfection, are surprising by their deformities, a perfectly executed original creation in
the field of craftsmanship and design produces technical wonders.
21 Studio Klarenbeek and Dros //Atelier
AtelierLuma-Luma
Luma-LumaArles
Arles, Algae Lab David Trubridge, Lampe Sola
2020
2018 2010
Algae Lab project presents a series of containers, replicas of antique Bio-based materials (algae, sugar-based polymer)
Roman museum pieces from the Musée Départemental Arles Three cups, cup, flask, flask, two glasses and two decanters
Antique (France), designed to be produced with a 3D-printed Various dimensions
bioplastic made of algae and a biopolymer made of sugar. Atelier Luma / Luma Arles
This project, relying on ecological materials, was developed with Photo © Centre Pompidou, MNAM-CCI / Dist. RMN-GP
Maartje Dros, in the context of the LABO Algues in the LUMA
workshops, a laboratory created in 2016 in Arles, France. The
designers insert their products into a circular chain of production
– the algae are produced locally – and propose food containers in a
variety of forms and colours, intended to be commercialised for a
mass market.
22 Francis Bitonti, Molecule shoes
2014
Thanks to innovative technologies, Francis Bitonti is developing a
new method of fabrication aimed at transforming industrial
production systems. This extravagant pair of shoes was designed
with algorithms, then made pixel by pixel with a 3D printer, which
gradually melds different colours of filaments to produce a gradient
effect. Computer design methods and additive fabrication processes
Exhibition Design & the Wondrous Press kit
represent innovative opportunities to create new morphologies
inspired by living organisms and new aesthetic languages.
3D Printing
20,6 x 7,6 x 20,3 cm
Purchase, 2018
Centre Pompidou Collection, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris
© Francis Bitonti
Photo © Philippe Migeat - Centre Pompidou,
MNAM-CCI / Dist. RMN-GP
17Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project
23 Matthew Plummer Fernandezi, Digital Natives 1L
2012
In the “Digital Natives” series, Matthew Plummer-Fernandez
digitises household objects to convert them into digital 3D models,
which he subjects to a software application that distorts their
appear-ance. Obtained by colour 3D printing, these objects have
no other function than embody the digital data that describes them.
Between abstract sculpture and utensil, this vase seems to be
handmade whilst keeping a synthetic look inherited from its digital
form. In creating a network of visual mal-functions, the artist creates
random accidents which he repurposes as art objects.
Plaster, ink, adhesive
36 x 10 x 9 cm
Purchase, 2017
Centre Pompidou Collection, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris
© Matthew Plummer Fernandez
Photo © Bertrand Prévost - Centre Pompidou,
MNAM-CCI / Dist. RMN-GP
Exhibition Design & the Wondrous Press kit
18Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project
Design & the Wondrous
Designers exhibited
Laure ALBIN GUILLOT LIN Fanglu
Alisa ANDRASEK Ross LOVEGROVE
Ron ARAD MA Yansong (MAD ARCHITECTS)
François AZAMBOURG NENDO (SATO Oki)
Aldo BAKKER Neri OXMAN
Aurel BAUH Matthew PLUMMER-FERNANDEZ
Mathias BENGTSSON Casey REAS
Saleem BHATRI Albert RENGER-PATZSCH
Francis BITONTI ROH Il Hoon
Ronan & Erwan BOUROULLEC SHAO Fan
Andrea BRANZI Philippe STARCK
Fernando & Humberto CAMPANA STUDIO KLARENBEEK & DROS/ATELIER
Louise CAMPBELL LUMA-LUMA ARLES
Wendell CASTLE TAN Zhipeng
CHEN Min David TRUBRIDGE
Lilian van DAAL UNFOLD
DEMAKERSVAN Dirk VANDER KOOIJ
Ammar ELOUEINI & François BRUMENT Joseph WALSH
EZCT ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN RESEARCH Marcel WANDERS
Philip F. YUAN & Tongji Team Eugen WISKOVSKY
Michael HANSMEYER YANG Mingjie (YANG Jamy)
Olivier van HERPT YANG Hongjie
Junya ISHIGAMI YMER&MALTA & Benjamin GRAINDORGE
Pierre JAHAN ZHANG Jun Jie / STUDIO SOZEN
Manuel JIMENEZ GARCIA & Gilles RETSIN ZHANG Lei (PINWU)
Patrick JOUIN ZHANG Zhoujie
Joris LAARMAN ZHOU Hongtao
Exhibition Design & the Wondrous Press kit
19Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project
Practical Information
The Exhibition The Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum
Design & the Wondrous Project
On the Nature of Ornament In the fall of 2020, the Centre Pompidou × West Bund Museum Project
12 November 2020 – 28 February 2021 | Gallery 3 celebrates its first year of existence. Despite an unprecedented context
Curators and a closure of several months linked to the global health crisis, the
temporary exhibition “Observations” – presenting, from November 2019
Marie Ange Brayer, Head of the design and industrial prospective
to April 2020, fifteen artist-videographers from the new media collection
department and Olivier Zeitoun, Assistant curator,
– and the exhibition “The Shape of Time” – bringing together a hundred
Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris
major works from the collection of the National Museum of Modern Art
With the support of until spring 2021 – as well as the workshops, meetings and educational
projects have attracted more than 370,000 visitors to date.
Press Images
The images displayed in this press kit are a selection available for press
use. None should be reframed nor retouched. Each should be clearly
displaying its caption and credit. Additional image request must be
send to the Centre Pompidou’s press office.
At the same moment © Centre Pompidou × West Bund Museum Project
Françoise Pétrovitch
West Bund Museum
Passing through
2600 Longteng Avenue, Xuhui District, Shanghai
25 July – 27 December 2020 | Creativity Gallery
People’s Republic of China
Artist Françoise Pétrovitch offers an interactive installation in which the Opening times and fares
motifs and characters of her plastic world come to life. Populated by Open every day from 10am to 5pm
figures inspired by the plant and animal world, “Passing Through” is Closed on Mondays and Chinese New Year
seen as an exploration of new points of view. The line and the color are Shop and restaurant are open all year round
open to the imagination of children. Through many media, among Tuesday – Friday
which painting is one of the most striking expressions today, Françoise Permanent exhibition ¥70 (≈ €9) / Temporary exhibition ¥90 (≈ €11,50)
Pétrovitch shapes a strong and constantly evolving work. Through very Both ¥150 (≈ €19)
varied formats, her work reveals a mysterious and silent world Weekends and Holiday
populated by fragmentary bodies, whether animals or human beings. Permanent exhibition ¥80 (≈ €10) / Temporary exhibition ¥100 (≈ €13)
In this universe where absence and disappearance reign, ambivalent Both ¥170 (≈ €22)
sensations mingle between the intimate and the collective, the Year subscription ¥300 (≈ €38,50)
everyday and the universal, childhood and adolescence.
Curated by the Public departement of the Centre Pompidou, Paris
The Shape of Time
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Highlights of the Centre Pompidou Collection The Centre Pompidou is on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram,
Until 9 May 2021 | Galleries 1 & 2 YouTube and Soundcloud: @CentrePompidou #CentrePompidou
“The Shape of Time” is the first semi-permanent tour presented at the
Exhibition Design & the Wondrous Press kit
Centre Pompidou × West Bund Museum Project. It covers the history
of art from the 20th and 21st centuries. Through eleven chapters, The Centre Pompidou and the Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum
bringing together more than a hundred works and documents from the Project are on WeChat. Scan the QR codes to follow our account!
Centre Pompidou, the exhibition is an introduction to the identity of the
centrepompidou.fr
collection, its history and that of the European context. The exhibition westbundmuseum.com
shows an intense circulation of forms and ideas and deploys a
#ExpoDesignWondrous
reflection on the conception and representation of time in the visual
#CentrePompidouWestBundMuseum
arts. It offers the opportunity to discover major works from the
beginnings of modernity to the contemporary views of artists on the
globalized world.
Curator Marcella Lista, Head of the new media department, Press contact
Musée national d’art moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris France and international, outside China
Timothée Nicot
T. 00 33 (0)1 44 78 45 79
timothee.nicot@centrepompidou.fr
20Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project
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