Home at Mudam

Home at Mudam
After she saw my I Wish we had IKEA tea towels and cushions, Hélène Magnusson very kindly let me know about another IKEA-related piece of illustration work, and even sent me some photos she took at the exhibition.

This is the work of illustrator, Jochen Gerner, currently on show at Musee d’Art Moderne (Mudam) in Luxembourg. The press release says:

“…the series of drawings … titled Home, employs a process of negative writing based on the re-reading of existing images and texts through playing with covering, hiding and slippages of meaning, thus highlighting ‘the unexploited treasures but also the areas of shadow’ of the objects he uses.
“For the Home series, Gerner worked on all the plates from the 2008 IKEA catalogue with the idea of ’emptying the spaces’ of the catalogue: all the photos showing the goods are covered with paint washes in various tints of grey, leaving visible only the structure of spaces of takes, while the goods illustrated in an isolated way are covered with black shapes as if they were wrapped up in covers.”

I’m not sure if it’s what Gerner intended, but these remind me of aerial photos of suburbs, kind of anonymous and non-specific, which is, I understand, something along the lines of criticism sometimes levelled at the ubuiquity of IKEA furnishings. (Um, just to make sure nobody reads any hidden depths into my tea towel design, believing it could be art, I must say this: it is nothing but a list of my lust.)

See more of Jochen Gerner’s work at his webpage, and see more of Hélène Magnusson’s knitting design (a little taste below) at her webpage and blog.