Karim Rashid (USA)

POLUXURIOUS (2010)

Program: Vernissage   Pavilion A     Thursday (18.03) 07:00 p.m.   Meeting with the artists   Pavilion A Friday (19.03) 08:00 p.m.

Between digital fiction and tangible reality.

In this electronic age, modern pop culture is developing its own perception of itself. One of its peculiarities is a global visibility that synchronous with its emergence. The New York-based designer Karim Rashid is one of the most influential exponents. Ubiquitous as he is he has already excessively defined DIGITAL POP in the field of design, and thereby set new standards and possibly even discovered a new independent style.  

In his design strategy, he deliberately sets out to assume the role of both artist and author, integrating it as an artistic figure in its perception and exalting himself into an artistic figure by means of self-branding. His own persona is at the core of his work and as a contoured icon it is hard to imagine it without him.  

As an artistic figure Karim Rashid appears in the form of a physically present highly stylize guest in an artificial universe. As a living person he authorizes the artificial world. It is given a definition that could have originated from Second Life. The artist’s virtual or real presence is intrinsically linked with what his work expresses. This alone is a phenomenon with a powerful effect. In an ingenious way, the system Karim Rashid makes use of the modern possibilities and scope of the digital era: virtuality, icon-like recognition, vectorized formal language, all graphic and 3D programs, suitability for mass production, speed, endless variation with high recognition, iconization, production and reproduction with cutting-edge technologies and materials.  

With his white or pink outfit and on account of his height of over 1.90m alone Rashid, who hails from Egypt, is half English and American by choice stands out at any party, lectern or DJ console. His accessories – edgy rings, edgy glasses, shoes he designed himself – are also carefully selected. His art does not end up as large-scale prints, on computer screens or plastic welding machines, but culminates on his body in the form of ornamental tattoos. They cover his arms like landmarks and create an impression of an indelible self-branding. Design yourself… is the title of one of his books which provides a profound insight into his medial approach to art. Design is not confined to pictures, furniture or interiors. Design becomes a self-being, extending to the most intimate parts. The Viennese architect Adolf Loos would have found in Karim Rashid the perfect enemy of his 1908 theory of ornament and crime. Exactly 102 years after the iconoclastic manifesto Ornament und Verbrechen (ornament and crime), the written-off ornament has emerged as an excessive cult in Karim Rashid’s work. In 1908 Adolf Loos still wrote that evolution of culture is tantamount to eliminating the ornament from consumer goods. A century later the supremacy of electronic screens and relevant viewing habits has turned he interpretation around completely.  

The Viennese grandmaster and advocate of white walls without ornaments could foresee this trend. He was wrong in his view of the way modern culture would develop. Now, 100 years later, Karim Rashid is enjoying huge global success by following exactly the opposite approach. The ornament as a central statement and point of recognition as well as the tribal affiliation, which is branded as a sign of primitive cultural decadence and which Loos disparaged, is more present in art, design and the media than ever before. Tribal affiliation, as predicted by Marshall Mc Luhan for the global village, has today become reality in Internet communities, art circles and design scenes. Like a signature tune, the ritual of ornamentalization and self-depiction is always present in Rashid’s designs of restaurants, hotels, art tableaus and interiors. Quite deliberately they often look like downloaded ornamentation, aliens from the world of cinema 4d, Maya or Photoshop which have mutated into a space or object. In today’s landscape of styles, Rashid’s digital Pop has become a ubiquitous trademark. His canon of forms has defined a style and created an Art Deco of the electronic era.

I want to change the world is the name of the important manifesto which made Karim Rashid famous around the beginning of the 21st century. The pages of the book reflect the ease with which the digital world manages to overcome the seriousness and materiality of the mechanical industrial age. What dominates is the power of the visual worlds as well as, of course, the ornament, which has been enjoying a revival. Glamour and commerce also make a relaxed appearance as show effects. To the annoyance of the minimalistic moralizers of the design world, they enter into dialogue without any moral concerns. Las Vegas instead of handicrafts, great shows instead of Muji. Despite its gigantic traits there is a precise basic structure to the overall oeuvre, which now boasts in excess of 2,500 individual designs. With this stance design goes beyond the traditional self-determination of the functionalism mindset of early industrial mass production. Just like industry itself, it has been forced to change. It has become independent of the mechanical logic of machines, has become modern and a media form, like the environment I which we live. As a narrative medium it has casually crossed the boundaries to art and can itself become part of a modern culture and entertainment industry. If anything we need criteria from the fields of digital music and pop culture in order to understand this phenomenon. It is about soundtracks, bass lines, samples, grids, remakes and cover versions rather than about form, which is based on the function of machine production. The designer becomes a poet and lendsthe product literary qualities. Relying on pictorial symbolism makes it possible to access the luxury industry on the one hand and the mass marketon the other hand with great ease. Karim Rashid calls this quality accessibility. He delivers the most successful examples in the form of bestselling mass products such as the colored Dirt Devil KONE series 40-dollar vacuum cleaners, which has sold in millions, as well as the elegant transparent packaging for the biodegradable candy-colored cleaning agents by Method. Even these mass-produced goods demonstrate top quality: They represent a culturally relevant link between digital fiction and tangible reality.

Courtesy of Dr Albrecht Bangert

Design Karim Rashid and Curated by Albrecht Bangert.  www.bangertverlag.com

Objects lent from the museum collection of DIE NEUE SAMMLUNG, the International Design Museum Munich.        

www.die-neue-sammlung.de

Special Thanks to Die Neue Sammlung, Chief Curator Corinna Roesner, Dr Albrecht Bangert, Veuve Cliquot, Artemide, Asus, Bonaldo, Della Rovere, Frighetto, Gamma & Bros, Felice Rossi, Kundalini, Zeritalia, Melissa, Meritalia and Tonelli, Joanna Trela, Andrzej Mikosz, Camila Tariki