Design High at Louise T Blouin Institute

Design High at Louise T Blouin Institute

25 June, 2009
by: Tom Jeffreys

Problems of definition are rife. Questions over what exactly we mean by Art or Literature or Philosophy dog the thoughts of academics, artists, curators and critics across the world. No institution can be entirely sure of itself. Is this a relatively recent (post-deconstruction) phenomenon? Or was the idea of terminological stability always illusory?

I'm not going to attempt to explain the difference between art and design. There is a difference, yes – the fact that we have two separate words suggests that they are two separate concepts – but attempts to rigorously distinguish between the two are generally hopeless a priori. Instead I'm going to review Design High, the brilliant new exhibition at the Louise T Blouin Institute in west London.

Design High relies upon an assumed differentiation between art and design and attempts to subvert (or invert) it. Put simply, this is an exhibition of design, but curated like a contemporary art show. So instead of cabinets full of objects accompanied by lengthy descriptions of history, design brief, creation process etc, there is simply a selection of scarcely credible pieces positioned across the two floors of the big, white LTB Institute.


Atelier Van Lieshout, 'Wombhouse', wood, fibreglass (2004)
Photo credit: Courtesy of Carpenters' Workshop Gallery

Some of these works really are mind-blowing. Almost stealing the show is Wombhouse by Dutch design studio Atelier Van Lieshout. Effectively, this is a place to live made in the shape of female reproductive organs. So there's a pink-sheeted bed in the uterus, whilst the ovaries house a mini-bar and a toilet. My anatomy isn't too hot, but there's also a shower, toilet and sink unit in this bizarre contraption. It's (unsurprisingly) a one-off piece, and at £150,000 it's expensive for a bedroom, but pretty cheap for a whole house.

Elsewhere downstairs I really like Marc Quinn's table, desk and chair. Made out of a huge two-tonne slab of white marble, the desk is inlaid with big flowers made of dark and light green ming, blue agate and malachite. This is, I think, the best Quinn work that I've seen in the flesh – it's big and bold, yes, but has a stateliness and a serene beauty that is often lost amongst the YBA bombast.


Marc Quinn, 'Iceberg Bench', pure white marble, black Belgium marble, blue agate (2008)
Photo credit: Courtesy of Carpenters' Workshop Gallery

The back-left corner of the gallery is a kind of man-pad, with Robert Stadler's chic (and super-comfortable) grey leather furniture alongside Joris Laarman's aluminium Bone Chair. Piled on the floor, bone-like dumbbells, also by Stadler, complete the modern bachelor aesthetic.

Between this and Quinn's power-desk comes a touch of femininity in the form of Fragile Flowers by Dutch design studio DRIFT. Here, hundreds of dandelion parachute balls have been painstakingly taken apart and reassembled around an LED. I had a quick chat with DRIFT co-founder Ralph Nauta, and apparently this process takes a team of eight people two weeks to complete. The resulting light installation is delicate and intriguing. Which you'd probably expect for £30,000.

Upstairs, if anything, it gets even better. There's a cool face-scanning thing by rANDOM INTERNATIONAL. You stand in front of Study for a Mirror and it produces a photographic representation of your face – a bit like a super-advanced digital Etch A Sketch. Then it gradually fades to nothing.

There are just so many amazing pieces in this exhibition: Ingrid Donat's bronze Commode 7, sitting there like some ancient death casket out of Indiana Jones, Sebastian Brajkovic's exquisite Lathe Chairs, Mathieu Lehanneur's Local River, a mini self-sustaining ecosystem, and Pablo Renoso's Spaghetti Wall, a kind of park bench come to life in an elegantly tangled escape from order.


Pablo Reinoso, 'Spaghetti Wall, Portugese chestnut and iron (2006)
Photo credit: Courtesy of Carpenters' Workshop Gallery

But, for me, undoubtedly the highlight of the exhibition is the work of Vincent Dubourg, of which there are four examples on display. These items of furniture are formed of metal, but made to look like wood. There's Buffet Nouvellle Zélande – a steel sideboard, brown, warped and twisted apart, yet still functional. A door half falling of its hinges still opens and closes.


Vincent Dubourg, Bar Nouvelle-Zélande, Wood, glass, mirror (2009)
Photo credit: Richard Boll 

Two other pieces are placed on mirrored flooring. There's what looks like a driftwood table supported by stacks of magazines and a drinks cabinet propped up on wine glasses. The reflection shows these pieces the right way up – with glasses standing, and magazines on top. These pieces are too difficult to describe (and the picture doesn't do justice). Dubourg's work is at once beautiful, sad, funny and fascinating. There's a tension between aesthetics and functionality, between creativity and destruction, the apparent wreckage a false trace of a now absent violence.

While I'm pottering round, curator Natalie Kovacs talks to me about the origins of Design High – the notion of what she calls 'performative design' and the issue of 'commodity vs experience'. If design can be defined at all, perhaps it is as art that can accept its own commodification. But Design High is perhaps more about experience – weighty and real, yet fleeting and intangible, beautifully vanishing in the very words that describe it.

Design High is at the Louise T Blouin Institute until 29th August 2009.

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Tom Jeffreys