Trashy, eclectic and collectible: Memphis and the joy of bad taste Rowan Moore
Memphis was a firework. Launched with a bang in 1981, with a party in Milan with 2,500 guests, it glittered and popped until its fragments fell to earth in 1987. Which possibly was always the plan, if there had been a plan. Memphis never sought immortality, nor the establishment of eternal verities to rule design for ever. It was about life lived in the moment – to the extent that inanimate objects can communicate such a thing – about the freedom to create and make mistakes.
David Bowie, an avid collector of the design collective’s work, spoke of “the jolt, the impact, created by walking into a room containing a cabinet by Memphis”. Its effect was, as he said, “visceral”, at least when it started. But its ice-cream colours, its doo-wop-Mesopotamian-Picasso-deco-iconic-ironic wonky eclecticism had, by the time it wound down, become a cliche of advertising agency reception a
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The first significant survey of the influential 80s design movement Memphis takes place at MK Gallery in Milton Keynes this December-April. The exhibition, Memphis: Plastic Field explores the provocative and irreverent spirit of the Memphis Group, bringing together over 150 of the collective’s most significant works whose bold and playful aesthetic pushed boundaries and sparked a new era in international design.
Colourful, kitsch and geometric, drawing on Pop Art, Bauhaus and Art Deco
Founded by Italian designer and architect Ettore Sottsass, Memphis brought together an international collective of young designers united in their desire to inject humour into the design world and shatter the codes of the 20th century. When the group debuted its first collection at Milan’s Salone del Mobile in 1981, it caused a sensation, breaking the rules of streamlined modernism and challenging notions of functionality and good taste.