News & Events

Marcel Wanders, Pinned Up – 25 Years of Design

07 February 2014

On February 1, 2014, Amsterdam’s premier contemporary art and design institution, the Stedelijk Museum will burst open the doors of its first dedicated design exhibition since reopening in 2012, Marcel Wanders: Pinned Up at the Stedelijk – 25 Years of Design. As one of the world’s most distinguished designers, Marcel is internationally renowned for his product, furniture and interior designs, and original art direction. Pinned Up at the Stedelijk is the first European museum survey of the designer since 1999—and the largest-ever presentation of Marcel’s work.

The exhibition showcases weird, wild and wonderful designs from Marcel’s entire oeuvre, dating from the late 1980s to the present. Over 400+ objects will be on display in a monumental gallery space of 1,300m2; designs encompassing furniture, interiors, lamps, utensils, cutlery, wallpaper, packaging and jewelry – and more. The exhibition also includes original sketches, prototypes, experimental work, special projects and ‘virtual interiors;’ new, fantastical digital creations.

 

Visitors to Marcel Wanders: Pinned Up at the Stedelijk will be able to experience the world of Marcel in vivid detail across three distinct and diverse zones, each offering a glimpse inside the imaginative mind of the designer:

  • The White Zone, a ‘left brain’ space which offers an analysis of Marcel’s work based on 10 themes (such as craftsmanship, storytelling, surface, innovation, archetypes, variation and playing with scale);

  • The Black Zone, which presents a ‘right brained,’ theatrical universe of a more intimate and personal nature;

  • An Art Direction Lounge, where Marcel's role as Art Director for the design brand Moooi, among others, is explored.

The title of the exhibition, Marcel Wanders: Pinned Up at the Stedelijk, refers to the way in which Marcel and his work are ‘pinned up’ and analysed in a museum context, for all the world to see – the designer laid bare.

Curator of Industrial Design at the Stedelijk, Ingeborg de Roode says of Marcel: “Few designers can boast such a combination of talents. Now, after 25 years of professional practice and at the zenith of his career, the time has come for a museum analysis.”
 
Marcel Wanders graduated in 1988 from the Hogeschool voor de Kunsten (ArtEZ Institute of the Arts) in Arnhem. In 1996 he debuted on the world stage with his breakthrough Knotted Chair project, a miracle of transparency which employs a low-tech macramé technique and high tech production methods. At first, Marcel was primarily associated with the avant-garde, conceptual direction of Dutch Design, which came to international renown largely through the activities of the Droog Design platform.
 
Today Marcel designs for internationally renowned brands such as Alessi, Baccarat, Kartell, Flos, Cosme Decorte, Target, Moroso, Puma, Swarovski, Marks & Spencer and KLM, among scores of others. In addition to his industrial work, Marcel also designs and realises more experimental ‘Personal Editions.’
 
As a passionate Amsterdammer committed to creativity in the city, and changing people’s lives through design, Marcel would personally like to invite you to visit ‘his’ city this coming February, and experience the world that inspires him, at the exhibition of a lifetime!
 
Marcel Wanders: Pinned Up at the Stedelijk runs from 1 February – 15 June 2014, at the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam.