Alongside the exhibition, Errazuriz will be honored with the 39th Collab Design Excellence Award. Collab is the museum's affinity group for modern and contemporary design and has celebrated diverse international designers who have made important contributions that advance all disciplines of design. Collab was established in 1986 and presents the award annually. Previous awardees have included Florence Knoll Bassett, Naoto Fukasawa, Zaha Hadid, Ingo Maurer, George Nakashima, Gaetano Pesce, Patricia Urquiola, and Marcel Wanders, among others.
Errazuriz’s creative imagination challenges upheld ideas of what design should be and, moreover, asks what it could be. Embracing humor and appropriation, his limited-edition and unique pieces often have a subtext that goes beyond form or function to include personal narratives, political messages, and cultural commentary. While many of Errazuriz’s pieces are functional, his work upends a number of conventions established within the design industry, including the notions that form should follow function, or that materials should be used where most appropriate.
Sebastian Errazuriz: Double Take will present over 20 years of making, including early conceptual works that take nature and existing found objects as sources of inspiration. The exhibition will feature furniture, mirrors, and other products that the designer creates from appropriated and digitally manipulated Greco-Roman antiquities from museum collections. Also on display will be a range of the designer’s “kinetic” cabinets, defined by their moveable elements. Errazuriz is interested in disrupting the idea that cabinets must consist of a box with two front doors, regardless of their design. Instead, objects in Double Take propose a dynamic way of living with furniture that rotates, spins, and fans out in different directions.
A final, monumental installation will feature a full-wall graphic made up of drawings that Errazuriz has created through the use of artificial intelligence. Imagine is a new work, which spells out the word “IMAGINE” in neon lights, the letters flashing in alternating patterns to alight only “AGI” at certain points. Unlike current AI models which are trained for specific tasks, the concept of AGI, or artificial general intelligence, involves systems possessing human-like cognitive abilities, allowing them to learn new skills, adapt to novel situations, and demonstrate common sense and creativity without explicit pre-programming. This focal point of the exhibition explores Errazuriz’s fascination with, and apprehension about, the potential impact of AI on artists, designers, and culture more broadly.
“The diverse body of work by Sebastian Errazuriz conveys imagination and cleverness, while also bewildering those who encounter it. The pieces are meant to be lived with, but, at the same time, are provocations. They have an air of mystery around their function and meaning,” said Tiffany Lambert, The Lisa Roberts and David Seltzer Curator of Modern and Contemporary Design. “This survey exemplifies one way to understand and challenge how design can impact our daily lives.”
The Philadelphia Art Museum is a national and international destination for art, but first, they are Philadelphia’s art museum—for all of the many diverse communities of the city. Through their collections, exhibitions, events, educational activities, celebrations, and more, the museum is a storyteller, and they welcome everyone to be part of the story—their doors are wide open. To learn more, visit www.visitpham.org
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