Global Village.

As part of its design focus, WAGNER:WERK Museum Postsparkasse is presenting the exhibition GLOBAL VILLAGE. Design – Origins and Modernism from October 4 to November 26, 2011, thereby acting for the third time as a program partner of the Vienna Design Week.
Since the time when European conquerors and discoverers came into contact with foreign ethnicities, exotic objects were collected and transferred to their respective native countries. Thus, over the centuries, these objects accumulated in the treasure chambers of the ruling dynasties. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, the first ethnology museums emerged in Europe, with the exhibits leaving the cabinets of curiosities to meet the eye of the public. Hand in hand with colonial expansion and the establishment of ethnology as a science, special journeys were organized on behalf of collectors to enlarge the holdings of ethnographic material in Europe.

However, the “discovery” of such objects as works of art was not prompted by ethnology as such, which was more interested in the cultural contexts from which these works originated. It was only at the beginning of the twentieth century that artists in the Western world raised the awareness for the formal diversity and the aesthetics appertaining to objects from Africa, Oceania, and pre-Columbian America, with their interest concentrating on masks, sculptures, precious jewelry, and ritual objects.

Yet objects that could not immediately be identified as artistic products were largely ignored over a considerable period of time. This holds mainly true for articles of daily use, which were used as home furnishings, household utensils, or agricultural tools. Artisans from the extra-European world created true works of art from seemingly unspectacular materials, which served as seats and beds, as storage containers and drinking vessels, or as instruments for miscellaneous purposes.

Consistent, elementary, and radical: today’s designers have recourse to such anonymous designs when they are looking for fundamental solutions for an everyday problem. However, the new materials and tools employed nowadays make sure that the surfaces and finishes of these objects make a different impression and produce a different vision. The exhibition GLOBAL VILLAGE presents a juxtaposition of the origins and results of Modernism, of ethnic objects of daily use and European design classics, or of primitive designs and their contemporary variations, thus pointing out the influences of anonymous designers from Africa, Asia, and Latin America on Modern Art in Europe.

Sitting and Lying

Snap-together chairs have certainly been used since prehistoric times, although they are based on a quite complex geometry of supporting and resting and of pressure and pull. As no specific knowledge was necessary to produce such furniture, descriptions of its possible functions are pure speculation, and no elevated position in a literal sense – such as that of a sovereign – is adopted on seats of that type. Their essential aspect is to support a person’s back and to ensure an individual’s convenience, void of any symbolic meaning. Therefore, it appears quite plausible that this primitive form of a piece of furniture that can be disassembled has hardly survived and has been replaced by functionally improved solutions with folding mechanisms and, above all, through the addition of textile materials.

More convenient than any snap-together chair is the daybed made of one piece, with a beautifully curved back preferably to be locked in two positions, for the sake of more relaxation and for the protection of its user. Yet it is not only convenience that should not be ensured and visually conveyed here, but also erotic delight, so that it is no wonder that today’s designers lust for dealing with the sofa, the chaise longue, the recamier, and virtually everything that serves to increase the pleasure of lying down.

Carrying and Transporting

The baskets with shoulder straps carried by women in Thailand represent a continuation of the ancient practice of stabilizing heavy loads with the aid of a headband or attaching them to the body by strings in order to be able to safely transport them from one place to another. After countless calculations, simulations, medical imaging procedures, and extensive field trials, this has eventually resulted in a system of new backpacks for lengthy hiking excursions or specific sport and cultural activities, from bicycle (courier) driving to carrying musical instruments.
The load carried is always something special, otherwise it would not have to be translocated; accordingly, the shoulder or carrying straps are frequently adorned or decorated in some way or other, expressing the pride the bearer takes in his or her task.

Bags, baskets, and carts stand for three evolutional steps in taking advantage of leverage. Particularly in the case of the cart and its movement, the smart question of who invented the wheel as the origin of all design may be posed once again, if in vain. At least this issue illustrates that each widely adopted design becomes anonymous over time and that the application of a helpful device does not add to the inventor’s fame, but to the user’s self-sufficiency. Of course each new shape and each new method of utilization derive from old forms and from traditions primarily transmitted nonverbally; nevertheless, we are eager to legitimate and elevate them by explaining them scientifically and rationalizing them.

Processing

One of the sudden recognitions of each primitive culture seems to be that spiky plant parts or fish skins make excellent graters or rasps: plants that may otherwise hardly be processed at all can thus be pulverized and be used as spices. The grater – especially its refined version of the Japanese oroshigane made of shark skin for the production of wasabi paste – always marks a threshold between life and death, an awareness shared by the women at home and the high priests performing religious rituals: regalement and poison, or, speaking with Paracelsus, healing and murdering depend on weighing the proper amount. This powerful knowledge is linked to instruments, for their use is essential for the handling of vegetable or animal ingredients. As may be illustrated by the truffle slicer, such a utensil has always also something to do with a person’s social rank, which, by the way, is also expressed in the instrument’s price.

Design always refers to two elements: function and emotion. The functional aspect already implies that a certain need is created, even if it is provoked by the social position of some previous user. On the other hand, the emotional aspect also encompasses the rational core of the necessity of self-aggrandizement in the social process. In his eulogy of the craftsman, the sociologist Richard Sennett links the acquisition of skills and abilities to an implied knowledge that is not transmitted verbally, but exclusively through partaking and copying. This is where the difference to design comes in, for this kind of implied knowledge has a major disadvantage: its innovative force is only minimal, for each modification takes several generations. The acceleration of our global cultures during the past three centuries would not have been possible without the eradication of ancient craftsmanship.

An external comparison of forms as it is also made in the exhibition GLOBAL VILLAGE. Design – Origins and Modernism can therefore only bring about recognition when it can be connected to profounder levels of understanding. When it comes to that, Marshall McLuhan may indeed have been the father of the thought of global village culture: with much effort and intelligence, man has time and again resorted to the simple solutions he was forced to leave behind in order to be able to meet the mental, social, historical, and economic requirements of his life. This is where primitive culture and design interconnect: both of them work in the service of mankind.