beyond the new exhibition

Hella Jongerius and design theorist Louise Schouwenberg were invited to develop a site-specific installation in the Paternoster-Halle at the Pinakothek der Moderne.

The exhibition was a continuation of the manifesto Beyond the New. A Search for Ideals in Design, which launched during the 2015 Salone del Mobile design fair in Milan. This exhibition focuses on the aims of collecting and exhibiting in Die Neue Sammlung – The Design Museum against the background of the institution’s genesis and historical development – in search of answers for what cultural innovation really is. Various installations invite the visitors to reflect on how different contexts affect the appreciation of functional things. The exhibition raises questions on the gap between how we experience design in daily life and how we read the meaning and value of those objects in the context of a museum display. One way to reflect on this question, is an installation that shows the cupboards from the museum’s collection on their back on the floor.

A search behind appearances proposes to move beyond commercial success, beyond style differences, and beyond personal taste. The shadow machines present an interplay of small machines, fabrics and well-orchestrated shadows, which gaily mirror the world of design and suggest criteria for estimating and understanding a design’s cultural value.

The exhibition was accompanied by the publication ‘Beyond the New – on the Agency of Things’ by Hella Jongerius and Louise Schouwenberg

Quotes and Questions
Textile panels are draped with woven words, sentences, and questions that provide clues for ‘reading’ the manifold meanings and agencies of design within a white cube exhibition space.

The word text originates from the word textile, in this work the two words are literally interwoven.

How can we distinguish novelty for the sake of novelty from true cultural innovation? “For me showing in a museum is the right podium to get attention on the hidden topics of design, to get attention without trying to get someone’s attention while also wanting them to buy your products.”