Description by Vitra Design Museum Gallery
The Memphis group was one of the most unusual phenomena in the design world in recent decades. It emerged in the winter of 1980/81, when a group of young designers, eager to break with the dogmas of functionalism and industrial design, came together around the Italian architect and designer Ettore Sottsass.
The group's first collection, presented at the Arc'74 gallery in Milan in September 1981, was an international sensation. Characterized by garish colors and wild prints, the Memphis designs seemed to have come straight out of the pages of a comic book, giving rise to an entirely new look where popular culture, advertising aesthetics, and postmodernism merged into a crazy medley.
The exhibition "Memphis: 40 years of kitsch and elegance" in the gallery of the Vitra Design Museum celebrates the fortieth anniversary of the founding of the group through its creations, presenting furniture, lamps, bowls, drawings, sketches, and photographs that give an idea of the world of Memphis. The show includes works by such well-known members as Ettore Sottsass, Michele De Lucchi, Martine Bedin, Michael Graves, Barbara Radice, Peter Shire, Nathalie Du Pasquier, and Shiro Kuramata.
The group's stated goal was to overcome the dictates of functionalism, celebrate the banal and the conventional, and break the taboos of good taste. His design philosophy was also influenced by the emergence of the information society. Like television and computers, Memphis objects were meant to communicate with the viewer and tell their own unique story. The ultimate breakthrough came in 1982 when fashion guru Karl Lagerfeld furnished his Monte Carlo apartment with the latest in Memphis pieces. The group's name already suggests a certain glamor: it was inspired by the Bob Dylan song "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again", which sounded at the group's first meeting in the winter of 1980/81.
The initiative to form the group and many of his ideas came from the well-known Italian architect and designer Ettore Sottsass. He had started experimenting with sculptural furniture in the 1960s, applying colored plastic laminates to creations he called "totems." The »Seggiolina da Pranzo« chair (»lunch chair«), which he designed for Studio Alchimia in 1978, also features the patterned laminate that would become a Memphis trademark. His designs for large storage items are among the group's most important works; the »Beverly« sideboard that he designed in 1981 will be on display at the exhibition. It combines strangely disparate elements like a piece of chrome-plated bent tubular steel, a colored light bulb, and carved wood or snakeskin with laminated finishes in a gorgeous composition that ranges from kitsch to elegance.
The »Super« lamp, designed by Martine Bedin in 1981, is another iconic Memphis work. Its arc of light bulbs arranged in a semicircle looks familiar, like something one would find at a fairground or an American diner. Installed on wheels and equipped with an electrical cord, however, it looks like a strange luminescent pet or a child's toy. Many Memphis designs were characterized by this playful approach to meanings and references to which the group owes much of its impact on postmodern design.
For several young designers, the Memphis group became a platform and springboard to launch their careers and achieve international recognition. Matteo Thun and Michele De Lucchi, for example, continue to be actively involved in international industrial design. Along with the De Lucchis table »Kristall« (1981), the exhibition will also show the chair »First« (1983), which stands out for the spherical objects mounted on its armrests to surround the seated person like planets. De Lucchi's 1981 »Riviera« chair anticipates the pastel colors that the designer would use some years later in a series of experimental appliances for Philips. This highlights the speed at which Memphis ideas entered everyday aesthetics and helped make 80s design brighter and more fun.
Another iconic Memphis designer, Nathalie Du Pasquier, applied the group's ideas to sophisticated textile patterns and interior designs. The exhibition shows his drawings alongside sketches by Michael Graves, an American architect affiliated with the group.
In 1987, the members of this group of like-minded designers suddenly disbanded. Some had contributed little more than a few individual designs, but despite its short existence, the Memphis history and the group's impact are legendary. The exhibition at the Vitra Design Museum Gallery is a tribute to the brief but intense era of the Memphis group, whose energy and creative drive have lost none of their fascinations.
"Memphis started with the idea of changing the face of international design, and chose the most effective, direct, and dangerous way to do it."
Barbara Radice, founder and cultural director of Memphis.
