Studio Job
The eternal beauty
Actually, Studio Job's new season opened already earlier this year during
the prêt-a-porter Paris Fashion Week with their contribution to
two designer collections. This contribution consisted out of patterns
for fabrics and accessoires, both originated from one basic pattern: one
idea but each uniquely applied and which was an upbeat for their own presentations
in Milan. Studio Job is well-known for a refined play of visual clues
and in their work elements have been embedded which sometimes seemed to
have been restricted to visual arts. Their work balances between design
and autonomous art. For years form dictated the function, but Job seemed
to move in a complete different direction so that he surprised the onlooker
with fairy-tale and decorative elements. By doing this, Job created a
self-willed and typical oeuvre to which anually a new chapter is being
added.
This years 'red line' is the insects pattern, that already seemed to dominate
the Parisian catwalk, and of which further developments will be at these
two Milanese exhibitions. This new insects pattern is the representation
of an underlying fascination of Smeets / Tynagel for the issue that the
unique object, which implies so little in the design field, versus the
omni praised unicity in the art world where it is aclaimed as the summun.
The difference between the unique object or the industrial produced object
is only relative according to Job; both are dependant from the idea. Gallery
Dilmos and Royal Tichelaar Makkum, which both can bow on an illustrious
history on their own territory of respectively design and ceramics, both
show a part of Job's story this year.
Still Life
For Tichelaar from Makkum, which history dates back to 1594, Job has designed
a set of five new objects. Although tradition is treasured by this company,
one of their strong points is that it also has been able to renew itself
with young blood without losing its identity on the contrary. By not fearing
renewal, Tichelaar has been able to add an interesting new collection
of contemporary design to their repertoire. On invitation of this company
Job designed a vase, clock, box, candle holder and piggy bank. These are
all objects which fit in the age-old tradition of the ceramics company.
Clearly recognizable is the style of the objects which show the signature
of the artists: fresh almost cartoon-like characteristics which seem to
have been made with a nearly childlike joy.
Entirely true to tradition of the thrifty Dutch and perhaps the even more
thrifty northener (Makkum is located in the northern part of the Netherlands),
Job designed a piggy bank for the company, but instead of the traditional
pig this time a squirrel serves as bank which is also well-known for its
hamster behaviour. Animals are a frequent recurring motive this year.
Like mentioned before, especially insects adorned the fashion collections
in Paris.
Insects also serve as decoration on a collection of tiles. The Dutch which
normally are well known for their cleanliness and for whom usually a single
spider in the bathroom is too much, will be surprised by an overwhelming
gang of arthropodals. Omnipresent they are incorporated in a stylish,
all over filling complex pattern. As if possessed by a horror vacuum,
there is no peace, rest, extra space between the lines, but it seems as
if the animal kingdom has taken over the domestic atmosphere.
For who remembers Job's work from previous years and sees the abstract
silhouettes can recognise Charm Chandelier for Swarovski (Milan 2003).
Then there also were other animals, flower and plant motives which were
combined with machine parts, weapons and skulls. The symbolism of the
unique, the organic, the natural in contrast with the destructive violence
ending in death and destruction, caused by man made machinery, leaves
no doubt about the dark side of Job's oeuvre which is hidden behind the
cartoon shapes full of humour and beauty.
With this new collection for Royal Tichelaar, Job adds a new meaning to
the history of the age-old company. On the one hand with his contribution
he refers to the past from a contemporary perspective. The objects are
a wink to a romantic idea of the history, not like it actually was. The
candle holder is in its styled abstraction more like a cartoon, a literal
blow-up from an idea, than that it is the copy of the original thing.
The title of the collection, Still Life, refers to this mechanism of the
memory that, if we can even remember it, turns out to be so different
from the frozen reality, but also it refers to the life and all the crawling
of these creatures, which are a binding element and because of the way
in which they have been mixed, sampled and reused by Job, form a direct
link to the reality of his generation.
Zoom
Meanwhile, in Dilmos there is quite of a buzz. Zoom is the name of the
collection which is being presented there and the title also refers to
various associations that summon the word like an onomatopoeia. From small
to large, from micro to macro zooming from present to past, in the face
of eternity, everything is merely a representation of the same. It seems
to apply to the collection of objects which are presented at this gallery.
Also here, insects seem to have taken control over the space, their zooming
on the background is almost audible. However the leading part is granted
to a set of three chairs, set up on top of mirror socles. For who knows
Job, this step is quite remarkable to say at the least. What should the
public expect from a designer who once said himself that at the beginning
of the industrial era everybody needed a chair, but know that need seems
to be adequately full-filled and therefore the necessity to make another
new chair declined.
When taking a closer look the chairs seem to refer like a sort of archetypes
from the design history of three different style periods: Louis XVI, a
kind of modernistic minimalism and Pop: it is one big style cocktail.
All three chairs are gorgeous, like goddesses they are standing flaunting
with each their own assets, waiting on their pedestals erected with mirrors.
Mirror, mirror on the wall ... After all, each period thinks that its
the surpassing step of the previous period? The bronze apple is like a
trophy that lies waiting for judgement. Or is it the diamond that ultimately
are a 'girl's best friend'?
Does this mean that Job only shows jests? Is he trying to say that constant
renewal merely is an illusion? And that the struggle for the ideal shape,
after the primary need for sitting has been full filled with the first
chair, is nothing more than a deception like old wine in new bottles?
And is it perhaps only appearances and vanity, of which Job wants to persuade
his public? Because like the diamond, which consists out of eons long
pressed carbon, seems to teach each us, to dust, no to carbon they and
also we will return?
Perhaps not, because except of the chairs, which all have been manufactured
from an atypical material, namely polished aluminium castings, it is also
something different which emphasizes the relationship between the different
chairs. All three chairs are stylistic recognizable by means of their
rocky crystal structure. It is unclear whether this structure is the symbolic
building element from which they are made out of, so that is it seems
as if Job is telling that it is not so much the eternal return of the
same, but that there also is real comforting beauty in every era, in every
new design and that every shape is a manifest of that single idea, so
that the unique, the special, the precious move independently from the
degree it presents itself. Or is it by any chance true that the furniture
is crumbling away, eaten away by invisible but definite ravages of time,
or perhaps it even are the insects, gradually deafingly zooming, in their
unstoppable gluttony and are gnawing the whole lot?
Who will say so, Job probably not.
Sue-an van der Zijpp
curator contemporary art Groninger Museum
March 2004