Widely recognized as one of the stars of international contemporary design, Ron Arad (b 1951) stands out for his bold approach to form, structure and materials in work that runs the gamut from industrial design and architecture to sculpture and mixed-media installations. His relentless experimentation with materials of all kinds, including steel, aluminum, bronze, crystals, thermoplastics, fiber-optics and light-emitting diodes (LED), and his radical reinterpretation of established types of furniture, like armchairs, rocking chairs, desk lamps and chandeliers, have made him one of the most influential designers of our time.
As his work suggests, “new” and “different” are among Arad’s favorite themes. “For Arad, the new is an imperative,” writes Ingeborg de Roode in the exhibition catalog. “As soon as he comes across a new material or technological innovation, he wants to be among the first †preferably the very first †to employ it or at least to invent some design-related use for it&By the time other designers are flocking to a new thing, Arad has already moved on to something else.”
Over the past three decades, Arad’s iconoclastic works, deliberately disregarding conventional disciplines, have stirred up the design world by challenging and updating the concept of the designer/architect/artist. He has repeatedly repositioned design alongside art, while keeping an eye on the industrial production and large-scale distribution side of his enterprises.
Unpredictable and adventurous, Arad’s designs reflect his joy in invention, pleasure, humor and pride in technical and constructive qualities. The majority of his work has involved chairs and sofas †and much more.
The first US retrospective of his oeuvre, “Ron Arad: No Discipline,” on view at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) through October 19, comprises about 140 works, including design objects and architectural models, as well as 60 videos. The exhibition, organized by Paola Antonelli, MoMA’s senior curator, and Patricia Juncosa Vecchieerini, the museum’s curatorial assistant for architecture and design, is accompanied by a useful catalog.
The exhibition salutes Arad’s adventurous, sometimes daring, spirit in dealing with industrial design, studio pieces and architecture. Of particular interest are his best-known historical pieces, including “Rover Chair,” 1981; “Concrete Stereo,” 1983; “Bookworm bookshelves,” 1993; “PizzaKobra lamp,” 2008, and the latest reincarnation of his “Volume” series of 1998, the armchair duo titled “Even the Odd Balls?,” 2009.
“Ron Arad, with his staunch refusal to be defined solely as a designer, an architect, a craftsman or an artist,” writes MoMA director Glenn D. Lowry in the catalog, “leads us to look at the world of design of the past quarter of a century and to notice how far it has come, to what degree it has broken down walls and recovered its spirit of openness, technical curiosity and cultural pluralism.”
Most objects are exhibited in a huge Corten and stainless steel structure designed by the artist called “Cage Without Borders.” It is 126½ feet long and more than 16 feet tall. “Cage” is in the shape of a twisted loop and consists of 240 square cutouts lined with stainless steel that serve as shelves for objects in the show.
As described by museum officials, “The dramatic installation relies on the scale of the structure and on the reflectivity of the inner walls of the cutouts, which creates a ricocheting effect.” One side of the structure is covered with gray gauze that “acts as a translucent, elastic membrane.”
Monitors installed in the structure and on the walls feature views of the design and production process of some of the objects on view, animated renderings of architectural projects displayed in models in the exhibition and a video showing time-lapse footage of the construction of “Cage.” Other objects are installed along the perimeter, and two sofas are located outside the exhibition entrance; visitors are invited to sit on them.
Born in Israel, Arad studied art at Jerusalem’s Bezalel Academy of Art before moving to London in 1973 to attend the Architectural Association School of Architecture, a hotbed of experimentation. He emerged from this training, says curator Antonelli, “an unscathed (emboldened, if anything) creative maverick.” In 1981, Arad founded, with longtime business partner Caroline Thorman, his first London studio. Initially called One Off and then Ron Arad Associates, they have been “laboratories for design experimentation,” says Antonelli. At these sites, Arad has transcended disciplines to create an amazing array of innovative objects, from limited editions to unlimited series, and from carbon fiber armchairs to polyurethane bottle racks.
A designer and an architect, Arad has also created memorial spaces, both plastic and tactile, and some digital and ethereal, like the lobby of the Tel Aviv Opera House, 1994‹8; Yohji Yamamoto’s showroom in Tokyo and Holon Design Museum in Israel. All are represented in the show by models and videos. In his influential position as head of the design products master’s degree course at London’s Royal Collage of Art, 1997′009, Arad has nurtured a number of innovative designers.
The 1981 “Rover Chairs,” which launched Arad’s design career, exemplify his early ready-made creations. Featuring discarded leather seats from the British car, “Rover V8 2L” is made of tubular-steel, curved frames using Kee-Klamps, an inexpensive scaffolding system invented in the 1930s for livestock corrals. Set in the front window of his studio, “Rover Chairs” sold “like hot cakes,” said one art critic.
Arad discontinued making the chairs once he realized that the overwhelming demand was turning his atelier into a “Rover Chair” manufacturer. Using the name “Morover,” an Italian company, Moroso, is about to produce an industrial version of the chair that no longer relies on salvaged materials. These chairs have become a classic Modern design.
Another milestone based on ready-mades, “Concrete Stereo,” 1983, is a hi-fi system, replete with turntable, amplifier and speakers, that is encased in concrete. The concrete was then partially chipped away, exposing the steel armature and electronic components. These strange-looking pieces produced something less than high-quality sound and few were made, but knockoffs soon appeared in novelty shops. “This cooled Arad’s enthusiasm,” says the exhibition catalog, “although he still regards these works as objects of beauty.”
Objects in the exhibition are grouped as families whose common bond is the exploration, sometimes for years, of a material, form or technique or a structural idea. For example, the investigation of elasticity and surprise began with “Well Tempered Chair,” 1986, made of four sprung sheets of steel fastened together by wing nuts. It puts one in mind of that embodiment of comfort, a plush club car chair. In spite of their forbidding look, these spectacularly shiny objects are said to be quite comfy. “Soft and strong,” said Arad, “like a water bed.”
Another example is Arad’s “Volumes series” of 1988, which showcases his experiments with welded tempered steel. His first effort, the celebrated “Big Easy,” 1988, is a large, hollow armchair with ballooning arms that blurs distinctions between furniture and sculpture. Various versions, among them “Soft Big Easy,” 1990, and the painted fiberglass “New Orleans,” 1999, are more refined.
In 1988, Arad won a competition to design the foyer of the Tel Aviv Performing Arts Center. Completed six years later, the happy, dramatic space is Arad’s best-known architectural achievement.
“Bookworms,” 1993, an endlessly quirky shelf system made of sprung steel, has become Arad’s best-selling design. Difficult and expensive to assemble, it features modular shelves that can be tailored to suit individual and spatial needs.
With characteristic perception, Arad turned discovery of a new technology with great expressive potential, super-plastic aluminum formed into hollows, into billowy vases and tables. A “Blown Out of Proportion (BOOP)” vase, 1998, demonstrates one resulting object.
The “FPE (Fantastic, Plastic, Elastic) Chair,” 1997, a model of sparseness, melds an undulating plane of red plastic with an aluminum frame to achieve an impressive fluid grace. It suggests that Arad is at his best when he gets down to the essentials of an object.
Of particular importance, “Not Made By Hand, Not Made in China,” 2000, is a series of limited-edition objects †bowls, lamps, sculptures and vases †that were unveiled by Arad at the 2000 Milan Furniture Fair. All objects in the series were made via three-D printing, which at the time was used solely to create one-off models for objects later produced in series utilizing traditional manufacturing. Treating rapid prototypes as final products, Arad turned the new process into an advanced production method that has been emulated by several designers.
Recognizing the potential of rotation molding, in 2005, Arad designed aesthetically appealing, convex/concave forms with contrasting colors for armchairs, couches and rockers. Later, he created a version made of stainless steel or bronze rods woven into a basic structure in “MT Rocker Chair,” 2005, manufactured by Driade.
In 2006, Arad collaborated with fashion designer Issey Miyake to create “Ripple Chair Dressed with A-POC (A Piece of Cloth),” made of injection-molded, malleable thermoplastic on a varnished steel base. Manufactured by Moroso, the chairs resemble a butterfly mask, pretzel or perhaps a Zen tracing in the sand.
A recent family, “Bodyguards,” 2007, involves intersecting the same shape in blown aluminum by imaginary planes and cutting it to reveal ever-changing “personalities,” from a rocking chair to a bodyguard-like sculpture. The name came from the large number of security guards around it at a show in Milan.
To bring his ideas to life, museum officials explain, “Arad relies on the latitude provided by computers as much as on his own exquisite drafting skills,” adding that “he uses both the most advanced automated manufacturing techniques and the simple welding apparatuses in his collaborators’ metal workshops.”
An example in which he combined high and low technologies is the “Lolita chandelier,” 2004, made with 2,100 crystals and 1,050 white LEDs, which take the shape of a flat ribbon wound into a corkscrew shape. “The ribbon,” say MoMA staff, “contains 31 processors that enable the display of text messages sent to Lolita’s mobile phone.” The messages appear at the top of the chandelier and slowly wind down the ribbon’s curves, creating the impression that the chandelier is spinning ever so slightly.
This eye-popping exhibition of innovation and inventiveness will alert many visitors to the fertile genius of Ron Arad. As to what lies ahead for the 58-year-old maverick, curator Antonelli observes, “As much a creature of habit as an artist,&⁛Arad] has formed long-lasting relationships with collaborators&†manufacturers, galleries and even materials, and thus has built a firm grounding that will continue to enable him to take even bigger leaps.”
As MoMA director Lowry observes, Arad’s “work has been imitated, idolized and also feverishly discussed and criticized, but never ignored; it represents a new territory whose exploration will require effort, courage, creativity and a good dose of arrogance.&⁛The exhibition] opens new doors and builds new bridges for young practitioners and theorists.”
The 216-page exhibition catalog features essays by curator Antonelli and other experts, and 300 full-color illustrations, including 150 images and brief descriptions of more than 150 works. Published by MoMA and distributed in North America by Distributed Art Publishers, the softcover sells for $45.
On September 16, a panel consisting of Arad, Tom Friedman, Cornelia Parker and Antonelli will explore creative approaches by artists like Arad, which defy easy categorization and encompass varied styles of production.
The Museum of Modern Art is at 11 West 53rd Street. For information, 212-708-9400 or www.moma.org.
