6 Jun 2022 | People

Konstantin Grcic: The “new normals” exhibition in the haus am waldsee of Berlin

A combination of sculpture, architecture and commercial design in works that attack contemporary reality-routine as it emerged after the appearance of the pandemic.

DS.WRITER:

Sophia Throuvala

Image source: konstantin-grcic.com and designboom.com

Konstantin Grcic began his career as a furniture maker until he completed his studies in design at the London Royal College of Art. Grcic is now a well-known designer, with a huge bibliography and countless exhibitions. With his office, Konstantin Grcic Design GmbH, based in Berlin, they undertake many projects that vary in form and materials, while he is also renowned in the field of art, design, and architecture and decoration. Konstantin Grcic's work is part of the permanent collections of some of the world's most important museums, such as the MoMA in New York and the Georges Pompidou Center in Paris. His work is characterised by careful research into the history of art, design and architecture, always combined with his very personal humour. The playfulness in the conception, form and instalment of his furniture serves their functionality, through modern-day materials and technologies that accompany everyday life.

Konstantin Grcic, NORMAL 14, 2022, BRUT sofa (Magis), safety nets, exercise ball, photo: Florian Böhm | Image source: hausamwaldsee.de

Throughout the three decades of working with furniture, Grcic has acquired a personal style, which, even though it hasn’t ended up being redundant, maintains a particular and recognizable character. The colour and minimal approach of each project, combined of course with an intelligent and functional conception, make each work feel “signed” by him and each piece unique. In 2016 he presents one of his most important projects, "Black Edition". The project was accompanied by photographs of the Iranian photographer Shirana Shahbazi, who showcased through her special perspective every line, texture and geometry of the collectable black furniture that Grcic designed for this celebratory portfolio. The limited edition box for this project was printed in 500 copies. It included 22 high-quality DIN A3 prints and even the design of the box itself was an ode to the black colour and minimalism. As he stated, “I have intentionally selected black because it is a colour that represents classic modernism and its existential objectivity. But black is also a clear, modern statement: pure, topical and radical”.

Image source: classicon.com

In the following years, he launches exceptional furniture collections. In particular, in 2017 he creates the important Magliana project in one of the most renowned galleries of Rome, Giustini / Stagetti, while in 2018 he presents the collection “volumes”, a series of furniture and/or sculptures that had no clear function to serve. Blurring the lines between sculpture and furniture, he creates 6 monolithic objects in Galerie kreo of London. As stated by Grcic these objects “are cut away from a solid block [of bleu de savoie marble] rather than built up from different elements and components, which is my normal way of thinking and doing”.

Image source: stylepark.com

Even more recently, and specifically in May, his very experimental and contemporary exhibition in Berlin, titled “NEW NORMALS”, was concluded. In this work, we can talk of not only objects but also environments and installations. The lines between design and contemporary art are once again blurred, in an exhibition that rather aims to talk about the present than showcase a new collection of commercial objects. Using objects from our daily lives during the pandemic, he creates dystopian spaces, in which, always with black humour, he speaks about a reality where labour and leisure are one and the same. The compositions invite the audience to consider the comfort of working from home as a utopian scenario, which in the present when experienced ends up post-traumatic.

The intense colours and clear lines of the comfortable furniture meet the industrial grey and rough materials of labour, resulting in a surrealist depiction of two unified worlds, a “new normal”, hence the title of the deeply critical and contemporary exhibition. Studio Grcic envisions the evolution of design, based on the new evidence of everyday life in their post-covid version and that is what makes this collection important.