Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far, an interactive exhibition by Stefan Sagmeister, opens at Deitch Projects on January 31, 2008. The exhibition will include works that have a life of their own, transforming throughout the exhibition as viewers engage with them. Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far is timed to coincide with the release of a new book of the same title, which surveys Sagmeister’s illustrious career.
Stefan Sagmeister is one of today’s most innovative and influential graphic designers. His conception and application of graphic design goes above and beyond traditional notions of the practice, taking it to the realm of performative and conceptual art, painting and sculpture. Sagmeister is most widely known for his album cover artwork for bands like The Rolling Stones, Talking Heads and Lou Reed, and for books, like Mariko Mori’s Wave UFO for the Kunsthaus Bregenz, which function as sculptural objects.
January 31, 2008 — February 23, 2008
76 Grand Street, New York
— Jeff said,
January 17, 2008 at 4:53 am ∞
I love your blog but I’m so sick of seeing Sagmeister’s work everywhere! The U.S. design press swoons every time he turns around. A lot of his work is very clever but decidedly ugly and often gimmicky, in my opinion. He’s bascially an artist posing as a designer, as the work is bizarrely impractical or stunt-like. The photo you have posted with the article, for example: a giant inflated bear or something… is that graphic design? Does it mean anything? For his girlfriend, a fashion designer, he made an ad by spelling words with paper towels on a wood floor and photographing it. That was it. Unexpected, yes, but would anyone look at that and want to buy the fashions (which aren’t even pictured?) He also shocks people by taking pictures of his genitals, dead animal parts, etc., which of course causes a stir but seems like resorting to the lowest form of tactics.
The U.S. design press has a fetish for novelty, which Sagmeister manipulates like Madonna does with the pop music media. But his work utterly lacks functionalism, elegance or restraint, which are the hallmarks of the Swiss legacy, I think, and what I love and admire about so much of the work posted on your blog.
Others are free to disagree with me, obviously. I’m sure I’m in the minority.
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