ACCIDENTAL COLLECTORS
Aladdin, Collected by Stuart Haygarth
From the collection of Nigel Shafran
From the collection of Jessica Ogden
From the collection of Paul Elliman
From the collection of Tony Hayward
From the collection of Yoav Ziv and Gad Charny
These collections are all a side activity of these advanced practitioners and serve as part of their inspirational sources. All the collections presented are of mundane utility objects that by being part of a collection have been dislocated from their intended use and turned into cultural products grouped for pleasure and observation.
In each collection, the variations expose the interest in ingenuity, inventiveness and resourcefulness. Each variant is further demonstration to the way design thinking solves the same problem in multiple ways. Another aspect these particular collectors share is an attraction to simple, iconic-type objects.
Why do they collect?
Fetish interests, archival tendencies and ideological essence all play part in collecting. In the case of designers and artists, these amateur collections are very much about the way designers and artists are attracted to shape and interpretation. The intrigue of each collection relies substantially on how the same type of object is solved, designed and made in a different way. The collections range from hand made oil lamps from India (Tony Hayward) to clothes pegs (Gad Charny, Yoav Ziv) aprons (Jessica Ogden) and bicycle puncture repair kits (Nigel Shafran). Two of the collections more directly in service of the design product, are the typographically-nuanced shapes and parts of objects (Paul Elliman) and the colour separated glass vessels trapped in light boxes (Stuart Haygarth). The latter two return to the stronghold of utility, although by this process they become more fixed and lose the characteristic of fixed yet growing entities.
Of collecting, Walter Benjamin wrote in Das Passagen-Werk, that the very act implies the object “being dissociated from all its original functions in order to enter into the closest possible relationship with its equivalents.” Thus, “this is the diametric opposite of use, and stands under the curious category of completeness.” Is this any longer an act of design?
Accidental Collectors will be accompanied by an artalogue designed by artist Tony Hayward with Peter Marigold.
This limited edition pamphlet is a first for the Aram Gallery, edited By Daniel Charny it will include short texts by Michael Marriot, Libby Sellers, Yaacov Kaufman, Anna Colin and Tony Hayward.
Supported by:
The exhibition design is by Peter Marigold, recent winner of the Design Museum Esmee Fairbairn Foundation grant.
Curator: Daniel Charny
Assistant Curator: Anna Colin
Gallery Director: Zeev Aram
THE EXHIBITION INCLUDES THE WORK OF
Tony Hayward
Paul Elliman
Yoav Ziv
Gad Charny
Jessica Ogden
Nigel Shafran
Stuart Haygarth
BIOGRAPHIES
Paul Elliman lives in London. His work has been included in collections at London’s Tate Modern and Victoria & Albert Museum and the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York. He is a visiting critic at Yale University School of Art, where he has taught since 1997.
Gad Charny is Professor of Industrial design at HIT, Holon Institute of Technology in Israel and lover of simple clever objects. He has recently participated in exhibitions at the Cooper Hewitt Museum, New York, International Design Biennale, Saint Etienne, France, and the Israeli museum, Jerusalem.
Yoav Ziv is a Tel-Aviv based Industrial designer and is Senior Design Teacher at Shenkar College of Engineering and Design, Ramat-Gan Israel. Has a special interest in Design-research and practice relating to the material world of childhood including playful objects and products.
Tony Hayward is an artist and publisher who lives and works in London. He travels regularly to India to add to his ever-growing collection of batch-produced utilitarian objects made from scrap and waste material.
Stuart Haygarth is a lighting designer based in London and Berlin. Starting in 2004 he has been working on design projects which revolve around the collections of objects. The finished piece of work takes various forms such as chandeliers, installations, functional and sculptural objects.
Nigel Shafran is a photographer who lives and works in London. Nigel Shafran is represented by Max Wigram Gallery and his work will be included in the upcoming “photography in Britain” show at Tate Britain (May 2007).
Jessica Ogden’s career in the fashion industry started in 1992 as a volunteer for Oxfam’s NoLoGo, recycling clothes from charity centres into new garments. Her fascination with old and distressed fabrics has been a continuing theme in all the collections since the launch of her own label in 1993. Jessica Ogden has been included in exhibitions in London, Prague, Antwerp and Tokyo, as well as traveling exhibitions throughout Europe.
