09 Mai Typecasting
Furniture and the objects we surround ourselves with have always had a representational function. They represent status and taste, but also a mindset and personality and, in a way, that gives them that same personality. The exhibition Typecasting, curated by Robert Stadler with pieces from the extensive Vitra archives, plays with that thought and arranges the pieces by characters, such as spartans, dreamers, and compulsive organizers. The transhistorical, non-hierarchical presentation allows to draw connections, that go beyond timeline and iconography. But the real twist is the simultaneous real-time video footage of the exhibition on big screens, hanging over the theatrical stage, which equalizes the object and its digital depiction. Typecasting proposes that in a time when the depiction of our social-media-self becomes more important than the representation of our real-life-self also the digital images of objects become more important than the object itself. To constitute a status or mindset you only have to add a certain piece of furniture to your feed. Design became a mere prop for self-presentation on the internet. The newly published catalogue of the same name documents the exhibition and continues the questions of authorship, representation, identification and social function of design in times of social media.