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Contributor:
Indianapolis Museum of Art
Babble On. | Login
Babble On. | Login
Channels: European Design
Q & A session from the European Design Symposium held at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. This session focuses how the European Design Exhibition was put together.
Q & A featuring:
Richard Wright (Director, Wright – U.S.)
Didier Krzentowski (Owner, Galerie kreo – France)
George Beylerian (CEO & Founder, Material ConneXion - New York)
This was truly a wonderful, diverse presentation of what marketing design means
to the industry as represented by four incredible people that I have had the pleasure to, kind of, guide.
I would, before I ask this question, I want to ask the question to Richard about this Eileen Gray chair. With all the authority
that the Auction House had in terms of experts and evaluation experts, and if they valued
the chair at $2.5 million ...
(laughter)
Well, am I missing something?
Well, we'll point out at the estimates should only serve as guides. You should feel free to bid as you, as you feel enabled. We are, you know,
Auction House is, one of the last thing I point out, is not to forget that we work for the seller.
Auction Houses present themselves as, you know, we represent both sides of the transaction. At the end of the day, it’s about the auction result, and they represent the seller.
That particular result, you know, has really everything to do with provenance, celebrity, and just the sort of excitement of the auction.
I don’t think there is anyway you can build a case that it was, you know, when you say what is something worth? You know, it’s a unique piece. Is that the best Eileen Gray design?
I don’t think anyone here could make that case, but it was, you know, it’s a beautiful chair with a beautiful history, and it was a beautiful price as we say.
Well how about the Carlo Mollino table? That sort of started it. I think.
There was a Carlo Millino Table that sold for just under $4 million. I was standing in the room and that was at Christie's. I thought that the table, it was estimated, that one was estimated at $100,000,
I thought it was worth probably about $300,000. I actually boldly stood up and was the first person to start bidding on it, and I, I bid up to about $200,000. And then it was sold for $3.8 million. So.
For those who want the Carlo Mollino Table, you can go to Luminair.
That’s right!
It’s under $10,000. (laughter) Didire, one moment.
Just to reach out about the products, where we were showing just $1 million. In 2000 we had a show with Marc Newson,
and during 1 year it was, this piece was $47 at this time. And during that time, we couldn’t sell the show.
I would like to open the floor to the audience.
I am not Nostradamus, but ... (laughter)
just for your information, science has been the worst subject in my entire scholastic career. And I hated physics, and I hated chemistry. And, I guess, I went out, nevertheless,
trying to prove to myself that I could do it. And, we have a substantial dossier of success stories,
and I am not sure for if we list some, I mean you’ll see them in some of our publications, especially matter, that we publish.
We have had a lot of, there are 2 sides. How to answer your question? First, I can’t answer you in an extensive way
because we are sworn ... sort of ... and the confidentiality. A lot of that projects,
client relationships are quite secret, and we can’t reveal them until the client wants us to reveal them.
So, you must understand that the things that we publish are rather limited. But just as an example, we were out in Portland,
and we were visiting Adidas, and the R and D person said, "Hey guys, I am glad you’re here because we can celebrate because the material
that we bla... bla.... bla.... had worked with you. Well, we want them at the ... we got the prize, we won the Olympics with that shoe that we developed
with the material that you and us worked on." But we couldn’t have told you this until now.
So, basically, a lot of the success stories that we have are, you know, a few years old because by the time we can release them, you have seen the product.
You have all seen for instance the placemats that you have seen in many restaurants these days. And there are kind of material that
is sort of taboo to all the environmentalists because it’s made of vinyl. And vinyl taboo to all these believers
of natural materials, and they hate vinyl. I don’t want to say I hate vinyl because there are ways vinyl can be useful.
But this one particular person has developed a multimillion dollar business by finding vinyl that’s used on beach chairs.
You know those strapped ugly chairs you buy for $4? And aluminium is all pitted and ugly, but the vinyl never wears out.
So, being a very smart lady, she ... the company name is Chelovich. Cindy Chelovich is a very smart marketing lady.
She is not a designer. She is not a scientist. She is just like the kind of person I admire. She spent her $450 subscription prize for one single user.
She came, worked at it, and found something, for whatever reason, it was in our library. Because of some technological reason,
it was vinyl. And it was used, the kind of vinyl, on beach chairs. You know, the ugly beachs chair I told about.
She worked with the factory, went down to Tennessee, and worked with a factory to redesign it, re-color it,
re-stripe it, changed the weave pattern. And this ugly green and white vinyl that we have in our sample board,
now appears in mocha and silver stripes. And you go to restaurants, hotels throughout America and Europe,
you see her placemats made from exactly that material that used to be green and white and now it comes in enormous variations,
well past the collection we have in the library. But she took this one idea and turned into a multimillion dollar business.
She shows that in all the French shows, the Italian shows. She makes floor mats.
She she makes them in 16 colors. She has made purses and little zippered bags. You have a whole department at MoMA and other stores.
So, this, to me, is my role, our role, in having made that invention possible.
Whether it’s that, or whether it’s the Adidas shoe, or it was the Nike shoe with the Jordan.
The Jordan shoe is one that has, it’s a clunky plastic shoe with the top part of the foot is a
woven material again, but woven material basically is used for conduit.
It’s for to put the cable through it, but the engineers thought that it will be a great flap for the top of the shoe.
So, that obviously the minute you have a demand for something like that, the manufacturer will be happy to make it in square footage
or flat pieces whatever it is. But it was originally intended as a tube to hold cables in it underground.
So, there are ... but many of the projects we cannot talk about right now because they are really under signed, sealed ...
I mean, we just came back from 4-city tour in Korea. We have done one in New York, and another one in Milan.
This is the same company who is conducting a, sort of, group think tank session with us. And then last one will be in Calhoun, where we have also an office.
At that point, we will probably give you some news about it in the couple of years, but that’s about the way our system works.
We are really a serious lab that has everything under confidentiality. We have signed under a great confidentiality with these people.
I think first to ... for the people who want to ... first to collect things ...
it can be designer or anything else you know to collect. For me its like a puzzle, so I begin to collect something,
and I add some pieces from like a puzzle. And to speak about the ... for people who want to collect design in the future.
First the ... what you have seen with Richard. The prices are going to go down a lot for sure in the ... in the next future
That’s for sure. And if you take pieces like the result of pieces for 50s, 60s, 70s like Eames, Nelson, France
are quite cheap now. I think these designers were huge designers.
You will find pieces to buy for $100. So, I think it’s possible to begin the collection of design now, for sure, for somebody who wants to collect.
I will say, "Don’t. Nobody should collect design for an investment." You should collect design because you love it, and you are passionate about it. I think that if you
choose carefully you should one always buy what you love, but as the curators if you want to look at things, the fascination what's great about contemporary design is being there while it is being made.
Trying to decide, "is that an important object for the future?" is incredibly hard. And there will be future value in the important, things are later deemed to be important.
As the Marc Newson piece was, you know, you couldn’t sell it for $40,000 7 years ago or 10 years ago.
You know, now it's a million dollars. There is always going to be that sort of increase in value for things that become important.
And I think that’s part of the mechanism that will always play out.
Yeah, and about future design. That’s what I was saying before. That means till last year, all the designers wanted to research in my gallery. They had no constraint at all of money, of course.
And I am sure with the crisis, and this, as I told you before, I don’t know the ways are going to design, but, of course, they will think
another way and this, I would tell you what I will see what they will show me in the next future.
Poverty design like that ...
Poverty design of crisis ...
There are several words you don’t say. You don’t say, "craft."
Which is kind of sad.
Which is sad. It's bit of a joke, but, you know, I think there is a marketing language that we use.
That, you know, that leads to perception. You know, I think, the whole idea of limited edition, edition multiple, design art.
These are all, these are all marketing terms, really. I mean.
They're sexy!
They are sexy.
For me, art is really different from design. You know, when *****, he, began to make his tables, he was saying, "I have to change my mind
to make design." And in art, you have no constraint at all. In design you have one constraint, or to work on the design.
But it can be of practically or theoretically, but it's design. And design art, I really don’t know.
Yeah, except the marketing words, I don’t really know what it means.
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