Stefan Sagmeister and Jessica Walsh (Photo: John Madere)
Janis Raisen – Sagmeister & Walsh: A Retrospective, at Design Museum Holon
A must-see unique graphic design exhibition awaits people of all ages at Design Museum Holon. Sagmeister & Walsh: A Retrospective, is the first retrospective for the New York based designers, Stefan Sagmeister and Jessica Walsh, of Sagmeister & Walsh. The exhibition can be explored, enjoyed, interacted with, and inspire creative thinking until October 20. It’s an interactive and visual journey about beauty, perception, and reality that compels visitors to examine the role that beauty plays in our daily lives.
Beauty is a key theme that the two bring to this special exhibition, with the Beauty = Human wall piece designed especially for Design Museum Holon. At a distance it looks like an intricate embroidery, but as you approach the installation the design is revealed: The wall is made of 10,000 bugs, non-endangered insects, and over 70 types of species.
At a distance this looks like an intricate embroidery, but as you approach the installation the design is revealed: The wall is made of 10,000 bugs, non-endangered insects, and over 70 types of species. (Photo: Janis Raisen)
On closer examination it becomes clear that this was created with bugs—thousands of bugs! (Photo: Janis Raisen)
Many designs don’t take beauty into account anymore, whether it’s architecture or graphic design, according to Sagmeister. “We know that many of our colleagues look at beauty as something that’s just superficial or old fashioned, and we feel that’s a mistake, and that it would have to be brought back as a goal for designers and architects. Bringing beauty back into design will make the work function better,” Sagmeister explained. “Beauty is very much part of what it means to be human,” he said.
The exhibition showcases over 70 pieces of Sagmeister & Walsh’s recent work, while taking visitors on an interactive journey that engages visitors in a display of emotion, beauty and social experiments.
The upper gallery, (photo: Shay Ben Efraim)
The New York based creative agency, Sagmeister & Walsh, was founded in 2012 when the two of them—both already successful and well-known designers and art directors—joined forces. They describe themselves as communication designers, and this exhibition reflects their ability to inspire others.
“All of us tried to create a more emotional and more personal approach to communications,” said Walsh. One interesting interactive piece is the happiness exhibit that is part of The Happy Show, a special concept that the designers have taken across the globe.
(Photo: Shay Ben Efraim)
Sagmeister explained that you can interpret your own happiness, while partaking in a social experiment. “You determine how happy you are by taking your chewing gum from that column [that reflects your level of happiness from 1-10], and then we’ll see over time how happy the average visitors are,” explained Sagmeister. He predicts that column number 7 will be emptied first.
(Photo: Janis Raisen)
Curated by Design Museum Holon’s chief curator Maya Dvash, she and her team made all of the installations from scratch using Sagmeister & Walsh’s illustrations as a guide. She was instrumental in bringing the first graphic design exhibition to the museum. “One of the communities that is very active, big and important in Israel, is the graphic design community, and I thought that we should have an exhibition dedicated to the subject,” explained Dvash. The museum has showcased graphic design within other exhibitions, but they have never had a complete exhibition dedicated to graphic design, she explained.
Sagmeister & Walsh also view graphic design as an important industry, one that is not just limited to a commercial setting, but has a place in all areas of our lives. “We found that it’s a fantastic language to also talk about personal concerns, about ‘how do I feel today?’ You can write a novel about it, you can take a picture, or you can talk about it through graphic design, and that’s basically what we’re trying to do. We found that it’s a very powerful language,” explained Sagmeister.
Dvash said that when she came up with idea to curate a graphic design exhibition she immediately thought of Sagmeister & Walsh. “I knew their work and I thought that since it’s not a very large museum, I wanted the exhibition to appeal to a broad audience and not just to designers. I thought that Sagmeister & Walsh could do that since they are not only graphic designers, they are very experimental, very daring, and even performance artists. They have the ability to appeal to a larger audience,” Dvash explained.
