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Konstantin Grcic’s ‘New Normals’ challenges the conventions of utility
‘New normals’ exhibition at the Haus am Waldsee art gallery
Image: Courtesy of Florian Böhm
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Konstantin Grcic’s ‘New Normals’ challenges the conventions of utility

New Normals, the latest showcase by the German designer, features a satirical series of thought-provoking installations in Berlin's Haus am Waldsee museum.

by Ayushi Mathur
Published on : May 10, 2022

Currently, the world lives in the effortless presumption of technology at a hand’s stretch. It thrives on the intent of an advanced utilitarian reality which was probably a far-fetched dream in the past. Konstantin Grcic - the award-winning German industrial designer, speculated the optimism for the future of usable objects with a playful exhibition, New Normals. The exhibition was on display at the Haus am Waldsee- an art gallery based in Berlin until the 8th of May 2022, featuring a series of furniture pieces as imagined through a futuristic lens.

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A tied-up working chair as imagined for the future Image: Courtesy of Florian Böhm

With his satirical new exhibition, Grcic explored an exciting take on the ever-changing realities, drawing parallels with transforming objects and the human behaviours they induce. He does this with a collection of his furniture pieces reimagined with useful additions from everyday life. He structures a collective understanding of each of the objects on display as what they might be in the future. Wherein, his definition of the subsequent time or a ‘new normal’ is not just limited to life shortly after, but a possible rendition of a constantly developing future.

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The stool tool for Vitra by Konstantin Grcic Image: Courtesy of Florian Böhm

Curated by Ludwig Engel, Anna Himmelsbach and Konstantin Grcic, the exhibition showcased speculative pieces which naturally raise one to enquire. Some of these installations include an elegant chair bike-locked to a security barrier, simple stools with antennae adorning their faces, work chairs hanging upside down from the ceilings, a windscreen installed in front of a lounge chair, along with an armchair throwing out a fire hose and an extraordinary lounge chair with strategic phone holders amongst others.

Observing the installations, one notices Konstantin’s iconic style of reinterpreting and analysing everyday furniture with the incorporation of unusual materials. He curated the entirety of the exhibition by imagining different scenarios across a work-driven household. He contextualises the products in a house but does not directly refer to their outlook in a homely setting. His furniture pieces aim at drawing attention to the design and utility of the products owing to social transformation. The emphasis is given to the constantly changing ideation of a social setting through the context of an object. Each of the pieces is unique and enables the audience to create personal interpretations and narratives of the same.

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Upside down chairs as new normal objects Image: Courtesy of Florian Böhm
konstantin-grcic-s-new-normals-challenges-the-conventions-of-utility
Exhibits from Konstantin’s New Normal exhibition Image: Courtesy of Florian Böhm

Konstantin Grcic studied design at the Royal College of Art before becoming a cabinet maker at The John Makepeace School for Craftsmen in Wood in Dorset, England. In 1991, he opened his own office in Munich however, he now works and resides in Berlin. Grcic's work has been shown in solo exhibits at the Haus der Kunst, Munich, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein, and the Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany. His works have been acquired by major design institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and the Centre Georges-Pompidou in Paris.

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