“It's a very modern world”
Back in October 2017, the Modernism Museum in Mount Dora, Florida, launched one of the most comprehensive exhibitions of Memphis Group art and furniture ever assembled: SPACE ODDITIES: BOWIE | SOTTSASS | MEMPHIS.
Here’s a bit about the exhibition, which closes “early 2019”...
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DAVID BOWIE’S COLLECTION OF MEMPHIS GROUP ART by Karen LeBlanc
A rare look at pop icon David Bowie’s private collection of art and furniture by The Memphis Group on view at the Modernism Museum. Bowie was an avid collector of Memphis. After his death, his collection was auctioned off and for this exhibit, gathered together for one of the most comprehensive exhibitions of Memphis Group art and furniture. Learn about this movement in the 1980s that broke all the design rules to create its own unique, over-the-top aesthetic as The Design Tourist Karen LeBlanc takes you on a tour of works by Ettore Sottsass, the founder of the Memphis Group and his international group of artists and designers.
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Not everybody would have had the chance to visit either the exhibition or the Sotheby’s auction from whence the Bowie pieces came. However, The Design Tourist has just posted a tour of these incredible objects with some interesting history of The Memphis Group.
Watch the fifteen minute video here on you tube.
FOOTNOTE: Our montage shows David Bowie sitting on his Palm Springs table in New York in 2009, as later pictured in GQ magazine.
Here’s the original caption:
“When I was five, I spent an awful lot of time reading and drawing on the living room table, just like this. I don’t want to follow this line of thought to the inevitable conclusion, but it does look as though all that I’m missing is a model train set. The table is by the peculiar Milanese design company Memphis and is probably made out of hardboard and old socks.”
In fact the table is made of briar and plastic laminate. The piece on the left is called Casablanca, and both were designed by Ettore Sottsass
PALM SPRING – 1984 - Ettore Sottsass
Table in briar and plastic laminate
CASABLANCA – 1981 - Ettore Sottsass
Sideboard in plastic laminate with internal shelves
No old socks were harmed in the making of the table.
#BowieMemphisGroup