Known as one of today’s most important industrial designers, Konstantin Grcic creates designs that are characterised by simplicity and intelligibility of form and material, which at the same time provoke in a humorous way. In his objects, pioneering production techniques as well as advanced materials connect with references to modern design classics. His products step beyond their functional qualities, capture the expressive core of the object and surprise with experimental components without losing in formal acuteness.

SHARE THIS ARTICLE “Playtime”, Konstantin Grcic, through 23 December, at Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin maxhetzler.com

Grcic’s exhibition at Galerie Max Hetzler is titled Playtime. It is a playground where already considered classics, such as chair_ONE, the lamp MAYDAY or the table PALLAS encounter recent designs, models, inspirations and references to previous exhibitions.

With a playful ease new connections and links are enabled between the objects in the space offering a first and unexpected insight into the designer’s comprehensive oeuvre. Thus, some of Grcic’s designs are displayed in unique version. PALLAS for instance, contrary to its commercial counterpart, is presented with a high-lustre finish, the stool MIURA as a dichromatic variation and the chair MEDICI in an altered form that occurred due to long lasting weather effects.

One of the most recent works in the exhibition is the unique light and sound installation EPOCSODIELAK (backwards: kaleidoscope), a result of a cooperation in 2016 with the graphic designer Mirko Borsche, which will be shown for its second time ever at Galerie Max Hetzler.

Consisting of a laser, a stroboscope, stage lights and coloured LED spots, speakers, a mix desk and a fog machine, EPOCSODIELAK forms a tremendous, mobile disco machine. Its reduced design does hardly indicate the impressive power that can be unleashed by the simple use of a smartphone and which turns every surrounding into a club.

TENT, a sail-like construction, similarly occupies the exhibition space in an unusual way and picks up its architectonical conditions. The tent as the most basic form of habitation – a fragile barrier between private and public space – is mounted to the wall and becomes a semi-sheltered site. In Goethestrasse, TENT is installed opposite of the print Panorama – a fictional cityscape – and offers a view into a seemingly exterior through the window of the tent construction. Thus, with very simple methods Grcic creates a situation of retreat in the public (exhibition) space and emphasises his own approach to rethink given structures by the use of ordinary means.

Konstantin Grcic was born 1965 in Munich where he currently lives and works. After being trained as a cabinet maker at the John Makepeace School in Dorset, Grcic started studying design in 1988 at the Royal College of Art in London. In 1991, he founded his own design studio Konstantin Grcic Industrial Design in Munich.

His works have been exhibited in international institutions, such as Kunsthalle Bielefeld (2016); Grassi Museum für angewandte Kunst, Leipzig (2015/2016); Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein (2014); The Art Institute of Chicago (2009); Haus der Kunst, Munich and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (both 2006). Grcic’s products form part of renowned design collections, such as Museum of Modern Art, New York; Neue Sammlung, Munich and Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein. In 2012, Grcic was responsible for the exhibition design of the German pavilion at the architecture biennial in Venice.

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