Bred to be Boring again

This morning I was thinking about my earlier article Bred to be Boring, and realised that the important word I'd failed to use was expression. Maybe our current period's prevailing style of graphic design so enthralled by content to be devoid of personality could be described as post-expressionism?

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Meta Memphis

As everyone's been banging on about Ettore Sottsass and Memphis, I thought I should show some long-neglected furniture pieces that my dad Bill Woodrow — plus other artists including Franz West, Alighiero Boetti, Sol Lewitt, Mimmo Paladino and Lawrence Weiner — created for the Memphis company in 1991, the Meta Memphis Collezione 1991.

In the catalogue's introduction, Marco De Michelis describes the artists' temporary role as designers:
"[they] seem to deal with this topic by following two basic lines of thought: on the one hand, a return to memory and tradition looking for the archetypal figures of home life and, on the other hand, a conceptual handling of objects by using unusual materials and functional combinations. An attribute of this is that such attitudes are perfectly interchangeable and complementary".

Bill Woodrow — Ellen I, 1991

Bill Woodrow — Ellen I, 1991
Bill Woodrow — Harry, 1991

Bill Woodrow — Ellen III, 1991





Bill Woodrow — Ellen II, 1991
Bill Woodrow — Ellen II, 1991
Bill Woodrow — Pauline, 1991

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