Exhibition - Brutal Beauty: Violence and Contemporary Design

The Marta Herford museum in Herford, Germany has opened the exhibition called “Brutal schön” or “Brutal Beauty: Violence and Contemporary Design”. An incredibly topical theme given the state of global politics.



So how do designers approach violence? This is the basic question behind the new exhibition called “Brutal Beauty: Violence and Contemporary Design” at the Marta Herford Museum in Germany. The iconic museum building designed by Frank Gehry is hosting a study of the part that designers play when it comes to violence until 1 May 2106; it showcases the kind of responsibility they have and the possibilities for action they open up in this highly dynamic process.





At the Marta Herford you can see a whole new generation of designers whose designs and strategies are making violence visible and real, in order to raise visitor awareness about this issue. In the words of philosopher and communication scientist Vilém Flusser: as a driver of participation or inclusion, design (entwerfen in German) can be seen as the opposite to submission (Unterwerfung).





There are many sides to the relationship between violence and design, starting from forcing material into a new shape. Not only that, but a great deal of design research and developments are generated by the military world, not to mention the ugly face of design exposed when objects reach the end of their lifecycle.





For the exhibition “Brutal Beauty: Violence and Contemporary Design”, Belgian design expert Max Borka acted as advisor to the team at Marta Herford and Matthias Megyieri designed the exhibition scenography.

Christiane Bürklein

Exhibition “Brutal Beauty: Violence and Contemporary Design” 
7 February to 1 May 2016
Museum Marta Herford, Germany
Images of the Exhibition byi Hans Schröder / Marta Herford. An-Sofie Kesteleyn - My First Rifle (Abby), 2013 © the artist, Dominic Wilcox War Bowl (Battle of Waterloo), 2002, © the artist, Ezri Tarazi Divided City, 2012, © the artist, Ezri Tarazi, Red Leader Bookshelf, 2011 © the artist 
Artists and designers involved: Barnaby Barford, Jeremy Bentham, James Bridle, Anthony Burrill/ Ewoudt Boonstra, Jordi Canudas, Paolo Chiasera, Curro Claret, Ray und Charles Eames, Ron From, Dave Hakkens, Elham Seyed Javad, Chris Jordan, Cyrus Kabiru, Ronen Kadushin, Jan Pieter Kaptein, An-Sofie Kesteleyn, Landfillharmonic, Eva Lechner, Ross Lovegrove, Matthias Megyeri, Yael Mer/ Shay Alkalay, Guy Mishaly, Azusa Murakami/ Alexander Groves, George Nelson, Ernesto Oroza, Marijn van der Poll, Michael Sailstorfer, Skateistan, Jair Straschnow/ Bert Kramer/ Gitte Nygaard, Ezri Tarazi, Carolien Vlieger/ Hein van Dam, Tobias Vollmer, Dominic Wilcox et al.