Studio Job

Industry

18 november 2008 – 10 january 2009

Mitterrand + Cramer, Geneva

Edward Mitterrand and Stéphanie Cramer are proud to announce « Industry », the premiere of a brand-new Studio Job installation designed and produced in 2007-2008. After their solo during Design Miami Basel this will be the first gallery exhibition in Switzerland by the highly acclaimed artist couple Job Smeets and Nynke Tynagel. Edited by Mitterrand + Cramer, “Industry” is the first of a series of six consecutive exhibitions dedicated to contemporary limited design. From the seven works exhibited, five are marquetry objects: a cabinet, a screen, a dressoir, a table and a pedestal enlayed with white dyed bird’s eye maple and black dyed tulip tree veneers. In fact a traditional craftsmanship enhanced by modern laser technology to achieve amazingly thin and intricate compositions that would certainly have charmed Mr. André-Charles Boulle. Modernity is also present through the inlayed subjects that act as a deadly inventory of our capitalism; helicopters, nuclear power plants, high voltage pylons, guns, bullets, hunting knives, submarines, satellite dishes, tanks, missiles, bombs, radio towers, cranes, planes, grenades, tools, AK-47’s, sperms, depiction of surviving animals (snakes, flies, cockroaches, birds, butterflies, mice, salamanders) as well as skeletons of others unable to escape (turtles, lizards, toucans, antilopes, taurus, fish, ostrich, …).
An “end of the world” scenario where man is clearly guilty.

Although different compositions are used on each object they all share a Rorschach aspect as if a
mirror had been placed in the absolute center of the piece. The installation is completed with a 24K gilded bronze hanging Mirror and Centrepiece. These new bronzes are sculpted in the typical ‘Rock’ structure which Nynke and Job apply in different objects since 2002. Here again contemporary art is served by traditional technique. As a whole the collection can be conceived as a rare inventory of an eccentric visionar.

This may be the expression of Studio Job’s rebellion against the absence of social-political implication. Obviously they are in control of what objects consist of (shape, technique, function, …) but they want more for their creations and themselves. In that sense they could well be at the crossroads of design and art. A border which has become more and more vague over the recent years.