| Gallery 1 19.11 - 29.12.02 |
| Philippe Starck (France) VANITY CASE design, furniture, architecture |
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---- Co-operation on the part of the CCA: Milada Slizinska |
 W.W. Stool 1990, sto³ek, piaskowane duraluminium, lakier, 97x56x53 cm , Vitra / photo: Andreas Sütterlin |  Juicy Salif 1990-1991, lemon squeezer, duraluminium, guma, h:29.115 cm O: 14.55 cm, Alessi |
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Philippe Starck was born in Paris on 18th January 1949. As a youngster he was already an enthusiastic draughtsman, probably inspired by his father, who worked as an aircraft designer. From the mid-sixties, Starck attended the École Nissim de Camondo in Paris, and he set up his first company in 1968 to produce inflatable objects. In 1979 he founded the "Starck Product" company. |
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| As an interior designer he was responsible in 1982 for refurnishing
the private apartments in the Elysée Palace in Paris for President Mitterrand
of France. In New York he was responsible for the interior design of the
Royalton and Paramount hotels (1988 and 1990), and played a leading part
in the design of the Groningen Museum in the Netherlands in 1991. He has also designed a number of office buildings as well as private dwelling houses and apartment blocks. In Paris a whole street block, La Rue Starck, is going up to his designs (1991). |
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 Hot Bertaa 1990-1991, czajnik, aluminium, plastik, h: 25 cm, Alessi |
Proto chaussure - but (prototyp) 1996, Della Valle |
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In the field of industrial design, he has been responsible for the creation of a wide variety of objects in the O.W.O. series, noodles for Panzani, boats for Beneteau, mineral-water bottles for Glacier, kitchen appliances for Alessi, toothbrushes for Fluocaril, luggage for Vuitton, "Urban Fittings" for Decaux, office furniture for Vitra, as well as vehicles, computers, door-knobs, spectacle frames, etc. Starck´s work has brought him numerous prizes and awards. Objects designed by him can be seen on display in the collections of a number of European and American museums. The items Starck designs become objects of adoration and desire. Although many of them are eventually mass-produced, they often remain akin to artworks in their basic function. Starck has created his own style, which, although not uniform, remains highly recognisable. Rather than sharing common forms, his designs share a metaphoric dimension that is sometimes loaded with irony and parody. Starck is a master of marketing and as such often resorts to provocation. He clearly plays with what he does, juggling technologies and the "iron-clad" principles of design, while viewers and consumers are left to admire this among other things in the final products. Like few other designers, Starck insists that his name appear on the products themselves, as well as any tags or packaging. |
 L.W.S Lazy Working Sofa 1998, sofa, poliuretan i poliester, aluminium, drewno, 218x97x83 cm, Cassina, photo: Matthew Donaldson |
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The Vanity Case exhibition presented by the Centre for Contemporary Art at Ujazdowski Castle consists of 72 examples of a broad range of items designed by Philippe Starck over past twenty years, including his industrial design pieces, furniture, and architectural designs; all objects are accompanied by texts in which the designer comments on his own works. All pieces are displayed in vanity cases. Each case stand on a small table and is lit by an individual, grey lamp. The small, black vanity cases are uniform in size (except for four cases which must be somewhat larger to accommodate slightly larger objects) and styling. Likewise the tables and lamps are identical to each other. All the design items are therefore displayed in a neutral environment, existing as if in a void. |
 L.W.S Lazy Working Sofa 1998, sofa, poliuretan i poliester, aluminium, drewno, 218x97x83 cm, Cassina, photo: Matthew Donaldson  Motocykl 6,5 1995, photo: Michel Leliévre |
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This highlight of each individual piece is reinforced by the configuration
of the table/cases in the exhibition space, which is a random and free
of any chronological or thematic hierarchy. Rather, each item is individually
a reflection of Starck's various preoccupations, passions and concerns;
collectively the exhibition constitutes a cross-section of the artist's
creative thought over time and through various cultural contexts. It
serves on one hand as a showcase of the ingenuity that has been evident
in French design culture over the last decades, and on the other hand
and above all constitutes a presentation of the output of one of the
top applied-design minds of the end of the 20th century. |
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| ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle Al.Ujazdowskie 6, 00-461 Warsaw, Poland tel: (48 22) 628 12 71-3, (48 22) 628 76 83 fax (48 22) 628 95 50, e-mail: csw@csw.art.pl |