TOBIAS SCHÄFER, YOUNG DESIGNER
Exhibition from the 9th of march to the 6th of october 2012
The exhibition’s program of contemporary design started the 8th of march 2012 with the young german designer Tobias Schäfer (*1976, D-Ettlingen). Tobias Schäfer is the best representative for this new activity, as he has an atypical profile, graduated by the staatlische Akademie der bildende Künste in Karlsruhe and Stuttgart, notably by John Bock, he came to design after his studies through installation and sculpture.
His work represents the perfect synthesis of an artistic design, conceptual and unique. And that’s exactly the kind of positions that Kissthedesign decided to support: a design that is not only functional but most of all conceptual, blurring the boundaries with contemporary art.
It’s no coincidence if Tobias Schäfer quotes the Memphis group and the american artist Richard Artschwager as a reference. The Memphis group approach was to deconstruct design with a radical artistic position that worked against the so-called good taste and Richard Artschwager productions are hybrid objects, functional and playful offsprings of minimal and conceptual art.
Tobias Schäfer’s productions are unique exemplars intricately crafted by hand that mix vintage parts with geometric artifacts lacquered in pastel or flashy colours.
As passionate bargain-hunter, he collects vintage furniture that he customizes with geometrical, often polygonal, parts in lacquered wood. Thus he confronts the soft lines and natural materials with patina of the antique furniture to the hard forms of the glossy and artificial new parts.
Like a kind of amused and irreverent comment on the history of design.
His furniture appear sometimes like strange genetic manipulations, character/piece of furniture that we could imagine coming from a fairy tale à la Tim Burton. Tobias Schäfer’s world is at the same time fairylike, funny, childish, installative and conceptual, like a sculpture you can sit on!
BIOGRAPHY
Tobias Schäfer *1976, Ettlingen (D). Graduated in 2008 from the staatlische Akademie der bildende Künste in Karlsruhe (Sculpture art by John Bock) and Stuttgart (performing arts and intermedia design by Joachim Fleischer) in 2010. He lives and works in Karlsruhe (Rheinstetten).
He became art director of the ehem. Kulturhaus in Zeißholz (D) and teacher of fine art before to open in 2011 his own design studio.
He was also co-founder of cooperation // STANDARD, a collaborative project between swiss and german designers and artists, with a.o Laura Pregger and Moritz Walther.
His work is regularly exhibited in Europe, mostly Germany and Switzerland, including at Kissthedesign gallery, where he opened in 2012 the contemporary design exhibition program, Depot Basel, Tent, London, Design Days, Renens, Dok#1, Aalborg, etc.
