5 February 2021
Pamela Buxton
Joy awaits at the end of lockdown with MK Gallery’s celebration of the Memphis postmodern design movement bursting with exuberant life
Gallery view of Memphis: Plastic Field, at MK Gallery, Milton Keynes. Credit: Rob Harris
Memphis is very much a Marmite design movement. Love it or loathe it, it’s impossible to remain unmoved by the colours, patterns and sheer joyfulness of this most 1980s of design groups, which offered a vibrant break from the functionalist approach of modernism.
What a shame then that a new survey of the work of Memphis at MK Gallery in Milton Keynes was only open briefly before closing due to Covid-19. While the gallery has plenty of material about the show available online, this is inevitably no substitution for what head of exhibitions Fay Blanchard describes as a ‘sensory overload’ of an exhibition. Hopefully, Memphis: Plastic Field will be able to re-open in the not-too-distant future.
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
Dec. 15, 2020
This week’s picks include an artist who creates playful and graphic airbrushed paintings with darker undertones; women who are depicted pumping breast milk while listing their fears; and an artist whose manipulated clay forms match her own body weight.
Ben Sanders at Ochi Projects
Ben Sanders, “Opium Poppies with Razor Blades,” 2020. Image courtesy of the artist and Ochi Projects.
At Ochi Projects in Mid-City, Ben Sanders’ colorful paintings make a vibrant statement. Flowers splash across the graphic and airbrushed works, petals and stems coiling into complex configurations. Sanders’ graphic style recalls Memphis design (think Peter Shire) or perhaps a beachy tropical shirt from the 1980s he’s not afraid to playfully arrange colors and patterns to create ecstatic compositions, all while maintaining razor-sharp edges and seamless gradients. While delighting in these details, the symbology of the work begins to softly emerge: razor blades are echoed thro
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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.