Painting and Jugs
Recently in the contemporary design and applied arts world we have seen quite a few phenomena of massively successful collective productions. By collective in this case we mean a duo, usually a duo of two quite genius people that manage to take photos, design objects or garments, produce books, build stuff with their own hands and much more. On the contrary of the notion of a solitary artist that retreats himself in isolation and self-centered thinking in order to produce art, these new artist/designers/producers, call them as you like, work much better in couples.
So it’s not just a simple coincidence that the Swiss Institute in New York is dedicating an exhibition to two highly productive young artist couples. “Painting and Jugs” is an exhibition that celebrates the potential of collaborative production, although expressed through two different forms: the painting and ceramics production. The painting couple are Linus Bill and Andrien Horni, while the ceramics are from Bastien Aubry and Dimitri Broquard. The first couple met last year while working on a magazine, irregularly published by Horni, while the second one met ten years ago when they started working as graphic designers, commonly known as FLAG.
The latter couple is the one that seems to arise more curiosity. Not because they are better artists, but because they also belong to that new and extremely particular category of graphic designers that are also artist/illustrators/producers. Although the impressive list of their graphic projects include clients like Kunsthalle St. Gallen, Swiss Institute and Institute Mode Design, Aubry and Broquard- like most contemporary graphic designers- find the world of graphics quite limited and look for escape in pottery making and clay. Apparently with a huge success.
Check the exhibition at Swiss Institute by the 3rd of June.
Rujana Rebernjak – Image courtesy of Swiss Institute and Aubry/Broquard
