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Karen Bookatz
Studio Job: What's Your Function?
03/05/2009 04:00 PM
Studio Job Installation at Moss Gallery
Having produced a stockpile of utterly functionless design objects—from Alice In Wonderland-size silverware to a cabinet with a hollowed-out crater in the middle—Dutch design duo of Nynke Tynagel and Job Smeets, who go by Studio Job, is primed for its first retrospective. Opening tonight at Moss Gallery (which has sold the duo's wares for the past five years), "Studio Job 2006-2008: works in paper/bronze/wood/clay" is a collaboration with Pin-Up Magazine, which created a miniature special feature for the exhibition. According to Pin-Up Editor and Creative Director, Felix Burrichter, who interviewed Smeets for the supplement, the duo has an amazing grasp of art history: Their work draws on everything from Bavarian marquetry to 17th century Dutch earthenware. In addition to making beautifully crafted pieces, Burrichter further credits their mass appeal to "being so different"—ie: the simple fact that they make whatever they want regardless of current trends. Says Smeet, whose designs are geared more to collectors and museums than to admirers of industrial design, "Nynke [Tynagel] and I also don't get that new trend where designers are now going back to functionalism because of recession and bad economy. I don't want to go back to the 1950s and I don't want to use this recession as a new tool to squeeze out some commercial ideas." Burrichter agrees, "I love [Studio Job] because their designs are useless but in like the best way possible."
The reception for Studio Job is tonight at the MOSS Gallery for Art & Design, 152 Greene Street, New York, NY. Guests are requested to RSVP.
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03/03/2009 08:36 AM
Last week Dutch design proprietor Droog opened its first US boutique in SoHo. The venture marks the third time the retailer has put its feet down, with shops already open in Amsterdam and Tokyo. As per its curatorial mission, Droog sells only the most idiosyncratic of design objects, and it's a lifestyle brand as much as it is a retailer (it's also a creative agency and a design lab), making it Amsterdam's answer to Colette—that is if your lifestyle is devoted entirely to quirky, graphic interior design. Renny Ramakers, who co-founded Droog with Gijs Bakker in 1993, sat down with us to discuss Droog's unflappable ethos, her personal design style and why design should tell a story.
KAREN BOOKATZ: You founded Droog in Amsterdam over 15 years ago. How did it begin?
RENNY RAMAKERS: Me and my partner, Gijs Bakker, noticed a new generation of young designers. They were doing very unusual stuff. We found them so interesting that we started collecting their pieces and presenting them to the world.
KB: Droog began as more of a design collective than a boutique. Did you always intend to operate free-standing commercial stores?
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