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From April 26 to September 16, 2018, Martin Szekely exhibited an exceptional set of around forty pieces designed between 1996 and 2018 around the theme of construction. The exhibition took place at the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design (MADD) in Bordeaux.
These pieces of furniture and objects seem to reinvent their very composition: they are all the result of a structural challenge. Experimenting with all materials, traditional or new, Martin Szekely approaches each project as a new challenge. The designer's furniture and objects are the result of prospective work on balance, based on data on mass, gravity and networks of forces, most often invisible to the naked eye.
For Szekely, building is the very essence of the designer's profession:
"I consider my practice from the perspective of the builder and the use that will be made of my construction; which immediately involves the user, their body and their environment. Involving the user calls for a history of uses. Those who build – which is the hallmark of the designer, unlike the artist who can be satisfied with ideas – call upon the history of structures and the technologies that underpin them."
His reflection is correlated with a search for simplification in order to rigorously approach the limit state of materials. In this process of reduction, even of erasure, the designer tends towards a minimal structural device. The pieces appear simple and obvious, and have a universal dimension.
Text in French only
Constance Rubini est directeur du musée des Arts décoratifs et du Design de Bordeaux. Historienne de l’art, elle a été commissaire d’exposition au musée des Arts décoratifs de Paris, dont « Nobody’s perfect by Gaetano Pesce » (2002-2003) ou « Dessiner le design » (2009-2010). Elle a également été commissaire générale de la biennale de Design de Saint Étienne en 2010. Elle est présidente du Centre national des arts plastiques depuis 2016.
Cecil Balmond est ingénieur structure. Il a collaboré notamment avec les architectes Rem Koolhaas et Toyo Ito. Fondateur en 2000 du groupe de design et de recherche, l'AGU (Advanced Geometry Unit), il occupe la chaire Paul Philippe Cret à PennDesign en tant que professeur d'architecture. Il a créé en 2010 Balmond Studio, société de conseil active dans les domaines de l'art, de l'architecture et du design.